What was John Milton's purpose in writing Paradise Lost?

Answer 1

Even while he was a student at Cambridge doing his Master of Arts studies, Milton's mind was filled with this theme. We know that when he actually wrote it, it was after he lost his sight, and so was dictated to his daughter. Thus we see a theme hatched out during his bachelor student days being kept alive through long years culminating in a very long beautiful epic after married life and fatherhood. A clue as to why he wrote Paradise Lost can be derived from another song titled L' Allegro, an Italian word meaning The Cheerful Man in English. As part of his M.A. Vivo Vaci, John Milton had to write two poems praising two contradictory things. The theme for this academic exercise was ' Whether Day is better than the Night.' Thus L' Allegro praises The Day and Il Penseroso, or The Thoughtful Man praises The Night. It is inconceivable to note in L' Allegro that he mentions, he is tired of immersing long in the dull melancholic subjects ( evidently that of Paradise Lost as there is none other) and so is attempting to write a bright happy song. The opening lines of Allegro are as follows:

Hence loathed melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks, sights unholy!

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings.

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks

In dark, Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

The above lines can be said to be the mental inclination and mood of the poet in writing Paradise Lost summed up in ten lines. It appears that the epic had already been written before his M.A. at least in his mind. The above lines also indicate the purpose of the poet in writing Paradise Lost- juvenile fascination for the fancy and fantasy of the eternal and the cosmic. Critics and evaluators of his poetry have differed much in this matter. Many consider this epic, especially it's theme as a suffix to his famous religious essays of later years, but the reference in the poem of his academic exercise in his juvenile years is strong and undeniable.

Answer 2

so he can justify gods actions for men!