The opening of "Paradise Lost" features the author stating his intent, his reason for creating. John Milton seeks to “justify the ways of God to men.” The very notion is a huge undertaking, but is that Milton’s only reason for his grand retelling of Satan’s exile from heaven, it is possible that Paradise Lost is in some passages, autobiographical in nature? Paradise Lost may also serve in allegorical form as Milton’s confession of hubris, via his portrayal of Satan as an epic anti-hero and possible avatar of Milton himself. John Milton had planned Paradise Lost for a long time, even before the advent of Cromwell’s Commonweath, but how much is autobiographical and who does Satan, the epic anti-hero represent over the 12 volumes? Milton’s characterization of God, poses other questions, Milton may be drawing parallels with himself and Oliver Cromwell in his depiction of God as aloof and detached. Perhaps it is as simple as the allegory for losing the possible paradise that Cromwell’s commonwealth could have delivered, but ultimately failed, coupled with the loss of his vision. Chapter One Commonwealth Lost Milton, a formidable critic of the state, launched many impassioned speeches against King Charles I prior and during the English Civil war. A fortnight after Charles’s beheading, Milton produced a pamphlet, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which Milton advocated the taking of the Kings Head and deconstructed the notion of ‘The Divine Right of Kings’. He asks that the populace trust their government, but not be afraid to question its decisions. He asserts that Tyrants should be overthrown for the good of the people, rather than advocating Charles’s execution itself. He defended the right for the government to carry out the act, rather than the act itself. Milton’s case was not that Charles I was guilty as charged, but that Parliament had the right to prosecute him. 1 Milton laid out in the pamphlet a vision, his vision, for this new era for England; he defends the act of beheading and lays out groundwork for the future. In some interpretations, he describes his own interpretation of a ‘paradise’ state. And surely they that shall boast, as we doe, to be a free Nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove, or to abolish any governour supreme, or subordinat, with the government it self upon urgent causes, may please thir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to coz'n babies; but are indeed under tyranny and servitude; as wanting that power, which is the root and source of all liberty, to dispose and œconomize in the Land which God hath giv'n them, as Maisters of Family in thir own house and free inheritance. Without which natural and essential power of a free Nation, though bearing high thir heads, they can in due esteem be thought no better than slaves and vassals born, in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting Lord. Whose government, though not illegal, or intolerable, hangs over them as a Lordly scourge, not as a free government; and therfore to be abrogated. How much more justly then may they fling off tyranny, or tyrants; who being once depos'd can be no more the privat men, as subject to the reach of Justice and arraignment as any other transgressors. It is then something of an irony that Milton became one of the foremost critics of Cromwell’s Commonwealth. The new regime could be just as intolerant of free speech or any form of dissent as the previous. In November 1644, prior to the Kings execution in 1649, Milton published Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. It is a powerful defence of free speech, while also demonstrating that Milton may have perceived that his ‘Paradise’ is already on its way to being ‘Lost’. For books are not absolutely dead things, but ...do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men....Yet on the other hand unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God's Image; but he who destroys a good Book, kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.  Milton believed that writing, the construction of a book was as an extension of the author himself, and as Man was created by God, a book is a manifestation of the divine. By censoring a book, you are, by proxy, censoring God. Cromwell’s government had set up a board of censorship, requiring all printed works to be approved before publication, The Licensing Order of 1643. Milton was not a complete libertarian, but was ap