Character guide

Adam

major

Also known as So Adam, Adam aught

Adam wakes into Paradise as its lord and gardener, naming the creatures and receiving the one prohibition that defines his freedom. His deepest tension is not appetite but attachment: he reasons, argues, and chooses with a mind built for command, yet knows that Eve is 'flesh of his flesh' and that solitude was the one thing God called not good. When Michael later leads him up a hill to see the future of his race, Adam's grief and hope become the story's human center, the point where cosmic rebellion finally touches a single mortal heart.

Eve

major

Also known as fair Eve

Eve begins in a bower of flowers, recalling her own creation and the voice that led her to Adam, and her days are spent in shared work and gentle discourse. Yet she is the one Satan targets first, whispering ambition into her ear while she sleeps, and her desire to know and to act independently of Adam becomes the hinge on which Paradise turns. Her choice is not simple weakness but a complex blend of curiosity, love, and the wish to be more than a reflection, and her fall carries the weight of every human decision that follows.

Satan

major

Also known as the Arch-Fiend, the Fiend, The Fiend, the guileful Tempter, The Tempter, Lucifer

Once the brightest of the seraphim, Satan now lies thunderstruck on a burning lake, rallying his shattered host with rhetoric that makes defeat sound like defiance. His tragedy is that he cannot stop being himself: even as he flies toward Eden, he feels Hell within him, and his soliloquy to the sun is a confession that pride and ambition have made gratitude impossible. He matters because he is the engine of the poem's action, the tempter whose inward torment is more vivid than any fire, and whose war against God will be fought not with armies but with a single whispered word.

God the Father

major

Also known as The Eternal, The incensed Father, Father, the Most High Eternal Father, the Almighty, the Almighty Father, The Almighty

From his throne, God the Father beholds the fallen angels and announces that their failure has not diminished Heaven, for he will create a new world and a race of men to fill the vacant seats. His speech to the Son is both a plan and a judgment, declaring that mercy and justice will meet in the incarnation, and that human obedience must be freely chosen to be worthy. He is not a character of psychological conflict but of absolute clarity, and his presence sets the terms against which every other being's freedom is measured.

Michael

supporting

Also known as Gabriel, The great Messiah, Messiah, their King Messiah

Michael first appears as the warrior prince who drives the rebel angels from Heaven, and later as the gentle but solemn guide who comes to evict the first humans from Eden. He is the poem's bridge between divine decree and human experience, showing Adam a vision of history from Cain and Abel to the Flood and beyond, and tempering the terror of expulsion with the promise of a Redeemer. His role is to make the fall not just a punishment but a lesson, and his hand on Adam's arm as they descend the hill is one of the poem's most human gestures.

Death

supporting

Also known as Sin and Death, Sin

Death is born from Satan's incestuous union with Sin, a monstrous figure who sits at the gates of Hell and claims dominion over all that falls. He is less a personality than a principle, the embodied wages of sin, and his confrontation with Satan at the gate is a grotesque family reunion that reveals the self-destructive logic of evil. In the poem's moral architecture, Death matters because he is what Satan's rebellion ultimately produces: not freedom but a kingdom of endless ruin, and his shadow stretches over every choice made in Eden.

Raphael

supporting

Raphael arrives in Eden as God's messenger, but he lingers as a guest, answering Adam's questions about the cosmos with patient, playful erudition rather than dogma. His warmth toward Adam and Eve — he eats with them, teases them gently, and praises their union — makes his warning about Satan feel like friendship rather than decree. He matters because he gives the poem its most humane voice of heaven: a being who trusts reason and admiration over fear, and whose visit marks the last calm before the temptation begins.

Uriel

minor

Also known as Archangel, The Archangel Uriel, the false Archangel, the Archangel

Archangel who guards the sun and is deceived by Satan in disguise.

The Serpent

supporting

Also known as Serpent, The guilty Serpent, The adversary Serpent, the wily Adder

To Eve, the Serpent is a wonder: a beast that speaks, reasons, and claims to have eaten forbidden fruit and risen rather than died. Underneath the pleasing form is Satan, using envy and rhetoric as weapons because open force failed in Heaven. The Serpent matters because it makes temptation feel like discovery — the first voice in the poem to offer Eve a version of herself she has never considered, and the hinge on which Paradise turns.

Abdiel

minor

Also known as the Seraph Abdiel, Abdiel stern, Seraph, the Seraphim Abdiel, Seraphim

Loyal seraph who defies Satan's rebellion and returns to God's side.

Beelzebub

minor

Fallen angel and second-in-command to Satan in Pandemonium.

Moloch

minor

Fallen angel who advocates for open war against Heaven in Hell's council.

Belial

minor

Fallen angel who counsels inaction and deceit in Hell's parliament.

Mammon

minor

Fallen angel who suggests building Pandemonium rather than fighting Heaven.

Chaos

minor

Personification of primordial disorder who rules the realm between Heaven and Hell.

Sin

minor

Allegorical figure born from Satan's head, keeper of Hell's gates.

Zephon

minor

Angel who guards Paradise and confronts Satan in disguise.

Thammuz

minor

Pagan deity mentioned among the fallen angels in Hell's catalogue.

Asmodeus

minor

Fallen angel and demon mentioned among the rebellious spirits.

Peor

minor

Pagan deity referenced among the fallen angels in Hell's muster.

Jove

minor

Also known as So Jove, Ammonian Jove

Pagan god compared to Satan in Milton's epic similes.

Hermes

minor

Also known as Volatile Hermes

Messenger god referenced in classical allusions within the poem.

Titan

minor

Primordial deity mentioned in mythological comparisons.