John Milton John Milton John Milton (9 December 16088 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem "Paradise Lost" (1667), written in blank verse. Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated "Areopagitica" (1644), written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of free speech and freedom of
Adam and Eve Knowledge symbolizes "the human world", and the serpent symbolizes "attachment to the human world". The fall of Adam thus represents the way humanity became conscious of good and evil. In another sense, Adam and Eve represent God's Will and Determination, the first two of the seven stages of Divine Creative Action. While a traditional view was that the Book of Genesis was authored by Moses and has been considered historical and metaphorical, modern scholars consider the Genesis creation narrative as one of various ancient origin myths. Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of