Paganism and Christianity In Milton's The Paradise Lost

In The Paradise Lost there is a well-known fuzziness between the authority of paganism and biblical tradition. The poem exhorts its audience to believe in the biblical narrative of Creation but Milton's radical theodicy is unrestrained by conventional theological beliefs. Although Milton's ecclesiastical writings purport to express the ways of God to humanity the great classic poets have ironically affected and anxiously inspired his presentation of them. The poem's representation of the biblical paradigm cannot be separated from the paganism it appears to be edging more and further away from.