The originality of Milton's Paradise Lost lies in its ability to transform the predominantly secular spirit of Homer, Virgil, Boyard and other masters of literary epic into a theological subject beyond out of tradition. Although Paradise Lost features familiar elements of the epic before Milton's time - war, splendid nature, visions of the future, formidable journeys - its subject, the Fall of Mankind or the Genesis account, transforms the traditional meaning of these elements, giving his epic a new aesthetic appeal as well as (what Milton believed was) a divine purpose. In recreating God's divine design of humanity's destiny, Milton knows that his readers are aware of the fall of Adam and Eve from the beginning, and therefore he is able to divert attention from ends and redirect it towards some of the fundamental conflicts of Christian doctrine. . Concerning these conflicts, Milton primarily addresses an idea that Christian theologians continue to debate: what freedom means in accordance with God's divine structure. To describe the purpose of the epic – to make its readers better Christians – Milton organizes a struggle between two visions of freedom. Among these visions of freedom articulated in Book 9 – Eve's definition of freedom as choice and Adam's definition of obedience – Milton portrays Adam's definition as the truest model because it reflects both Milton's vision of human freedom and structural freedom of Paradise Lost itself. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMilton establishes the model of freedom that will be reflected in the concepts of freedom of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost through two works: “Second Defense of the English Folk” and “The Verse”. In “Second Defense of the English Folk”, Milton states that “people [who] cannot govern themselves and moderate their passions [become] slaves [of] their lusts,” determining that slavery means conforming to something low: in this case, the passions Milton establishes is that “to be entrusted with the possession of liberty,” one must “learn obedience.” Milton's argument in favor of man's freedom is of a special kind: by evoking God, Milton associates his conception of divine justice. with human freedom and thus gives greater meaning to the relationship between freedom and obedience as seen in Paradise Lost. Milton agrees with common morality in stating that the value of an action depends on its motive and that if there is no freedom. , actions cannot have meaning because they will be automatic. He supports this idea by using suggestive and ambiguous words, such as “desire”, “unless”, “want”, etc., to underline that man is free because he has the ability to become “a slave to his lusts”. .” What Milton wants his readers to understand, however, is that, although there are various types of personal and political freedoms, true freedom is found only when a man acts reasonably and does what God requires, because man is truly free only when he is within the order that God created for him. In other words, by following what reason knows to be right, man frees himself from the forces of his own nature, from the "lusts", "dissensions", "jealousies" and "superstitions" that enslave him. God and government leave man free to choose so that he can discover that true freedom is obedience, and thus know and appreciate freedom for what it really is. By establishing his concept of liberty in "The Second Defense of the English People", Milton is then able to lay the foundation for his concept ofstructural freedom of Paradise Lost in his note entitled “The Verse”. Here, Milton decrees that "the measure" of a truly delightful verse lies not in its rhyme, but rather in its "suitable numbers, proper quantity of syllables, and sense" – otherwise known as meter. Referring to epic poetry as something that must be "reclaimed" -- saved "from the troublesome modern slavery of rhyme" -- Milton immediately parallels the fall of epic verse through slavery to rhyme with the fall of humanity through bondage of passion in Paradise Lost. This model of freedom of the verse mirrors Milton's model of human freedom in “Second Defense of the English People”: slavery conforms to the baseness of the rhyme, which Milton determines to be less than meter, and therefore the true freedom of the verse lies in its obedience or submission to blank verse. By outlining his concept of true freedom in “Second Defense of the English People” and “The Verse,” Milton creates a basis for understanding how the dual visions of freedom in Book IX fit into the poem's larger contexts. When morning comes and Adam and Eve prepare for their labors, Eve opens the discussion of freedom by stating, “Let us divide our labors, / you where choice / leads you” (IX, 214-5). While Eve argues that she chooses to divide labor so that she can do more work, Adam responds by stating that God “assigned” work so that it is not “troublesome toil” but rather “delight” (IX, 242). In this way, Milton illustrates how Eve is making a conscious choice to work against the order that God created in labor: God creates work to be enjoyable, not to be a results-focused drudgery. It is also important to note that in this scene Adam and Eve are not aware that Satan lies in the garden hidden in the body of the serpent, but they are nevertheless aware of Raphael's warning about Satan's temptation. Placing Eve's argument for freedom in this context, Milton points out that it is Eve's conception of choice that opens the possibility for Satan to tempt her as she works alone, making her a premature version of freedom as she risks disobeying God. The suggestion of freedom as choice is very significant because it establishes the pattern between mind, will, and body that Milton uses to demonstrate why Eve's pattern is incomplete and why Man falls. Adam begins his response to Eve by stating: «God has left the will free, because what obeys / Reason is free, and reason has made it right» (IX, 351-2). Here Milton establishes that reason is in the mind and forms the will, which is the quality that allows action. Adam explains that reason is free through obedience to God because reason is known through God and that in obedience the relationship between the mind, will, and body can act as it should. However, Adam explains the possibility that lower desires deceive reason: “Steadfast we survive, but it is possible to deviate / Since the not impossible reason can meet / Some specious object suborned by the enemy / And fall unconsciously into deception” (IX, 359- 62) ). By alliterating the fricative consonant “s” in “subsist” and “steer,” Milton draws attention to the dual nature of reason: God creates reason strong enough to survive temptation, but with the ability to give in to it. Illustrating this, Adam concludes that, although Eve's desire for choice is harmless enough, as it opens the possibility for temptation and disobedience to God, the best kind of freedom is in obedience. Interestingly, Milton points out that Eve's conception of freedom ends up forcing her into temptation; when she distances herself from Adam to work alone,.