Milton's apocalyptic vision demonstrated in Paradise Lost can be traced back to the Book of Isaiah, in which the prophet sees the first conditions of things at Creation completely restored and recreated at the end of human history. Critics have f ...

Milton's apocalyptic vision demonstrated in Paradise Lost can be traced back to the Book of Isaiah, in which the prophet sees the first conditions of things at Creation completely restored and recreated at the end of human history. Critics have found that Milton's apocalyptic vision is indebted to various biblical sources, such as St. John's Reelation and prophetic visions of Daniel and Ezekiel. They also have found traces of Milton's Paradise to various forms of the idealized world or the Golden Age in classical and Renaissance pastoral poetry. Yet this study connects the pastoral vision of the Edenic world to Isaiah's prophetic revelation of new heavens and a new earth. It is hard to deny that Milton, a devoted student of the Bible, has in mind the ideal community beautifully demonstrated in the Book of Isaiah when he portrays the Garden of Eden with its pastoral modes. In Milton's Paradise, everything stays ordered and balanced. The sense of harmony and peace present in the 'Garden of bliss" is what the prophet Isaiah finds in his vision of the new world that comes true after the total destruction of the world we know today. This reflects the unchanging Will of God to keep His Creation whole and perfect from the very beginning through all eternity. Milton does not seem to distinguish the world before the Fall from the idea society to be restored at the end. His apocalytic vision is therefore a poetic attempt to fulfill God's ultimate plan or to "justify the ways of God to men" by connecting the first and the last, so that we can see a return to Paradise that is lost forever with the Fall of Adam and Eve.