Milton and the Search for Meaning

abstract:Many who face death and loss struggle to make sense of God, of issues of fairness and justice, and of the world. For Milton, too, questions of theodicy, right and wrong, and cosmology are integral with a search for meaning. His epic project of asserting and observing Providence—by engaging readers dramatically and poetically as well as philosophically—still encourages us, allowing for distance of time and sensibility, to pursue our individual and collective quests for meaning: perhaps even to discern and articulate a more coherent, if not yet polished, “cosmic syntax.”