It was to justify the ways of God to man! The controversial spirit
observable in many parts of the poem, especially in God's speeches, is
immediately attributable to the great controversy of that age, the
origination of evil. The Arminians considered it a mere calamity. The
Calvinists took away all human will. Milton asserted the will, but
declared for the enslavement of the will out of an act of the will
itself. There are three powers in us, which distinguish us from the
beasts that perish;--1, reason; 2, the power of viewing universal truth;
and 3, the power of contracting universal truth into particulars.
Religion is the will in the reason, and love in the will.

The character of Satan is pride and sensual indulgence, finding in self
the sole motive of action. It is the character so often seen 'in
little' on the political stage. It exhibits all the restlessness,
temerity, and cunning which have marked the mighty hunters of mankind
from Nimrod to Napoleon. The common fascination of men is, that these
great men, as they are called, must act from some great motive. Milton
has carefully marked in his Satan the intense selfishness, the alcohol
of egotism, which would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. To
place this lust of self in opposition to denial of self or duty, and to
show what exertions it would make, and what pains endure to accomplish
its end, is Milton's particular object in the character of Satan. But
around this character he has thrown a singularity of daring, a grandeur
of sufferance, and a ruined splendour, which constitute the very height
of poetic sublimity.

Lastly, as to the execution:--

The language and versification of the 'Paradise Lost' are peculiar in