Epic, Colonialism, Empire: A Reading of Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

“Shot Through with Orient Beams”: Restoring the Orient to Milton's Paradise

“…Soon thereafter (1996), Paul Stevens described a Paradise Lost that “authorizes colonial activity even while it satirizes the abuses of early modern colonialism” (3). Two years later Walter S. H. Lim published the first of several writings indicting Milton for his widespread use of proto‐orientalist habits of thought David Armitage. entered the fray in 1999, arguing that Milton's reading of Roman imperial history taught him that empire building encroached upon civil liberties—a concept anathema to the republican‐minded Milton (206‐07) .…”

“…See Lim “Epic.” More recently, he has argued for a reading of Satan's role as “the archetypal tyrant characterized by his associations with the Orient” (“China” 115). For other orientalist readings of Milton's impressions of the east, see his John Milton 217‐18 and “John Milton” 204‐06.…”