SOURCE: Stevens, Paul. “Paradise Lost and the Colonial Imperative.” Milton Studies 34 (1997): 3-21.

In this essay, Stevens addresses the issue of colonialism in Milton's poem, countering an earlier argument that Paradise Lost maintained an implicit critique of empire.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis i, 28

Colonies … have their warrant from God's direction and command; who as soone as men were, set them to their taske, to replenish the earth and subdue it.

The Planter's Plea, 1630¹

While there has been a great deal of interest over the last several years in the relationship between Renaissance literature and the rhetoric of colonialism, and while at the same time there has...