Reading and Writing Romance in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Abstract

This essay argues that Milton's strategic handling of romance in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained can be read as a conscious attempt to reconstitute the genre according to his own Christian focus. Challenging the view that Milton rejected romance outright in his late poems, it points towards some of the ways in which Milton may have thought about romance after the execution of Charles I in 1649 and suggests how the genre could be accommodated to his theopolitical vision. The essay also underscores the necessity for a critical approach that will situate Milton's use of romance in its historical and cultural contexts in the years before and after the Restoration.