Milton’s Adam and Eve: Fallible Perfection

Are the Adam and Eve of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667; 1674) fallen before the Fall? Many readers think so, finding vanity in Eve and intemperate affections in Adam long before they eat the forbidden fruit. But this scholarly study demonstrates that they possess the «fallible perfection» of the Reformation doctrine of Original Righteousness. Read from the perspective of Milton’s theological background, Pardise Lost presents human characters who are perfect but fallible, necessarily limited but not fallen until they disobey God.