Quest for Knowledge in Milton’s Paradise Lost - How Much can Humans Kno

Quest for intimacy in Miltons heaven alienated - How Much can Humans K instanter? There are much things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy (Shakespeare II.i.166-67). So settlement tells Horatio when he marvels at the spectre of the ghost. Hamlet is telling his friend that apprehension and natural philosophy can only account for so much. A point comes when humans can non rationalize or prove certain events. In Paradise Lost , Raphael tells transport similar sentiments when Adam questions him on the disposition of the world in Book eighter. However, Raphael goes on to warn Adam not to ponder deeply things that he can never know fully. This eccentric person of curiosity and desire for learning only leads to sin. Yet, while Raphael is warning Adam not to think of these things, he himself speculates on the nature of the universe, planting ideas in Adams mind he did not have before. These ideas associate the theori es of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo, much in dispute in Miltons time. Though Milton seems to clear the Ptolemaic theory of the universe in Paradise Lost , the upset over which system Milton truly believed in is not the most in-chief(postnominal) aspect of Raphael and Adams discussion in Book VIII. Knowledge is the true topic. What and how much can humans know? Knowledge is the basis of Paradise Lost . Adam and evening must not discharge the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan pinpoints Adam and Eves vulnerability in their ignorance of evil. Adam worries that he may sample knowledge that displeases God. Raphael praises Adams thirst for knowledge and warns him about obsessionally seeking knowledge that is useless. Eve eats the fruit because she wants to know how ... ... the universe spends so much time circling the earth.3 In Book VIII of Paradise Lost, Raphael discusses the source of the moons light (140-58).4 And now / Adam led on, y et sinless, with desire to know (Paradise Lost VII.60-01).Works CitedHughes, Merritt ed. bathroom Milton Complete Pomes and Major Prose. New York Macmillan, 1957.Marjara, Harinder Singh. Contemplation of Created Things Science in Paradise Lost. Toronto University of Toronto Press, 1992.Milton, John. Paradise Lost ed. Alastair Fowler, Second Edition. London Longman, 1998.Nicolson, Majorie Hope. A Readers pull out to John Milton. Syracuse Syracuse University Press, 1998.Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Cyrus Hoy. 2nd ed. New York Norton, 1992.Williamson, George. ed. Milton Formal Essays and life-sustaining Asides. Cleveland Case Western Reserve Univ. Press, 1970.