The Temptation of Art in <i>Paradise Regained</i>

ABSTRACT This article argues that the banquet scene in Paradise Regained represents the temptation of art and shows Milton working out an underrecognized aesthetic theory. The article situates Milton’s scene in relation to Hans Belting’s argument that iconoclasm birthed aesthetic autonomy because it required defenders of art objects to understand art as simultaneously capturing and departing from nature. For Milton, Eden’s destruction makes the temptation of art appealing as it claims to re-create Paradise while opening up a space for human creativity beyond the divine. Satan sells the fantasy of art as a portal back to Eden, but it is in the fallen, social world that art becomes necessary at all.