Many of the perennial sources of contradiction in the Christian tradition came to a head in the turmoils of Milton's lifetime. Was sexuality the True Paradise or the destroying serpent? Was Paradise lost forever, or could men "force through the Fire-sword" and regain the Edenic...
Noteworthy for its historical detail and intellectual incisiveness, this study establishes Milton as a monumental but divided figure--torn between radical and conservative mentalities, between eroticism and hatred of the flesh, and between patriarchal and egalitarian conceptions...