to know That which before us lies in daily life, Is the prime wisdom —Milton, Paradise Lost
Introduction
Paradise Lost explores the themes of human frailty, failure, and redemption following humanity’s “original sin,” eating of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This original sin resulted in human beings being banished from an earthly paradise and compelled to wander eternally a world fraught with danger, despair, desolation, and death. Paradise Lost is Milton’s attempt to understand humanity’s predicament and to suggest how redemption might be realized.
Milton’s theme remains relevant to the relationship of human beings to the environment in the modern world. Concerned environmentalists assert that the earth’s pristine resources are being destroyed by human culture and portray their own version of the ecological “hell” that will follow. Nowhere is their clarion call more strident than when
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