by John Milton

Events in History at the Time the Poem Takes Place

War in Heaven. The immediate prehistory of Paradise Lost is the War in Heaven, during which the rebel angels, under Lucifer (Satan), try to overthrow God the Creator and are flung into Hell as punishment. Lucifer refuses to be subordinate to God or his divine Son (Christ) and decides to achieve a perverse revenge by seducing God's newest creation, Adam and Eve, to his party, or forcing God to destroy them. This subject of heavenly clashes for dominion has a rich history, not just in the Judeo-Christian tradition but in other belief systems as well. Prominent among these are the classical Greek myths upon which Milton draws so frequently in his poem.

Biblical passages that discuss the War in Heaven are actually rather scant; in the New Testament Gospel of Luke, Christ says...