‘Beast now with Beast ’gan War:’
The Fall of Nature in John Milton’s Paradise Lost in the Continental Context
My project at HAB investigates early modern continental treatises on prelapsarian Nature in the Garden of Eden, with the long-term aim of providing the first systematic contextualisation and analysis of prelapsarian and postlapsarian Nature in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost.
Many philosophers and theologians of the period tackled the problem of the transition from the innocence of plant and animal life in Eden to their corrupted status after the Fall. Were there poisonous plants and animals in Paradise or did they become venomous only after man fell? If they changed their nature only at that point, how can one explain their anatomical and physiological structure before the Fall? In their imaginative attempts to answer those questions, the continental treatises combine traditional biblical exegesis with rational reasoning strongly influenced by contemporary natural philosophy. The project will uncover lively contemporary discussions of these important questions, which lie at the heart of Milton’s epic itself.
