The turmoil of Milton's world reflected in Paradise Lost"To explain the ways of God to men" (Invocation, 26) Milton haughtily proclaims his goal in writing Paradise Lost. He, he claims, will clarify many ambiguities of the Bible itself. Thus begins one of the greatest epics in the history of literature and the war of the sexes reaches new levels. Milton claims to be the mouthpiece of God. If so, God was quite the rhetorician, not to say misogynist. Being endowed with absolute reason, he cannot understand how his unreasonable creations can lack fidelity to his person. A stern and orderly God brings a case against his own brain children, and thus condemns himself. Loyalty is a key issue in unraveling the political knot tied in Paradise Lost. Loyalty between creator and creation, between king and subject, between man and woman. Adam and Eve owe allegiance to God for their lives. Genesis does not address this issue; the idea is implicit in the text. In Genesis we are led to believe that God wanted his creations to be faithful and obedient according to his desires. Milton, personifying God and the first humans, takes this concept one step further. In bringing God back to man through the vehicle of the epic poem, Milton attributes to God the capacity for reason. God does not act arbitrarily: every action is planned with a specific end in mind. Loyalty is important because it can be used, in the realm of reason, to demonstrate innocence. Innocent beings do not understand inferiority, power or debt; and therefore no understanding of the need for loyalty either. Milton's God is a God of reason, but his creations, Milton claims, were entirely innocent. The question, then, that Genesis asks and Milton a… medium of paper… New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. Crossman, Robert. Read Paradise Lost. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. This book is the experience of reading Paradise Lost as Robert Crossman reads it. It was helpful as it offered a clear interpretation of the events and passages in the book. Crump, Galbraith M. Approaches to Teaching Milton's Paradise Lost. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1986. This book was intended as a guide for teachers seeking to teach Paradise Lost, but in doing so it contained some interesting ideas about the work and its purpose. Patrides, CA Milton's Epic Poetry. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967. This book is a collection of essays concerning Milton's Paradise Lost. Reading it helped me broaden my understanding of the scope of the book and also helped me completely overwhelm myself.