critics

• Adam and Eve are 'two strings tuned to different pitches to make harmony' - Diane McColley
• Milton was 'of the devil's party without knowing it' - William Blake
• 'To justify the ways of God to men' - Milton
• 'nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise lost' - Percy Shelley
• 'the true hero of the poem is in fact the reader: seeing God as malevolent or Satan as attractive is simply an indication of a fallen state, and part of the poem's purpose' - Stanley Fish
• 'jealousy then motivates the fallen Eve's desire to make Adam fall too' - Sean McEvoy
• 'a beautiful and grand curiosity' - John Keats
• 'Eve is not demonised after the fall' - Anna Beer
• 'Art for art's sake? Art for God's sake' - Christopher Ricks
• 'the reason why the poem is so good is that it makes God so bad' - Sir William Empson
• 'Adam has been given exactly what he asked for, his equal' - Joseph Wittreich