The universe that Milton imagined with Heaven at the top, Hell at the bottom, and Earth in between is a hierarchical place.
God literally sits on a throne at the top of Heaven.
Angels are arranged in groups according to their proximity to God.
On Earth, Adam is superior to Eve; humans rule over animals..
Raphael says that God sends the Son down into Chaos to create Earth.
The Earth is first formed out of Chaos and given light and dark, or night and day, in equal measure.
Land is separated from water, and animals are created to populate both land and sea.
The creation takes six days, and Adam and Eve are created last..
Even if Milton knew the Copernican cosmology, he based his universe on the more traditional Ptolemaic system.
Here, God sits on the throne surrounded by ten orders of angels.
On the other hand, the chaothic realm of Hell.
In the centre of the universe, God created the earth..
Milton believed in a God that was infinite, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient (Fallon 33).
Yet he also believed that humanity fell of its own free will and that God both created the circumstances of, and foreknew, that fall..
geocentric or heliocentric debate is but one small part of the cosmos that Milton presents in.
Paradise Lost.
In general terms, Milton describes a universe with Heaven at the top, Hell at the. bottom and Chaos in between.
By the end of the epic, a bridge connects Hell to Earth..
The Hierarchical Nature of the Universe, Paradise Lost is ready hierarchy as much as it is about obedience.
The format of the universe—with Heaven above, Hell beneath, and Earth inside the center—offers the universe as a hierarchy primarily based on proximity to God and his grace..
Milton's theme in Paradise Lost, however, does not end with the idea of disobedience.
Milton says that he will also "assert Eternal Providence." If Man had never disobeyed God, death would never have entered the world and Man would have become a kind of lesser angel..
Yet, and this is the important point to register, nobody doubts that in its final shape the Miltonic universe forms a complete whole.
Milton’s treatment of space is, then, double-faced.
The universe, including:
Milton sets the observed universe of Earth, the planets, and the stars inside one vast physical space which also contains Hell and Heaven proper (‘Heaven’ here meaning the literal dwelling place of God and the angels).
Milton’s universe also contains a region called “Chaos” or “Ancient Night.” Milton describes this region as .
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Milton is one of the first writers on record and the first creative writer we know of to use the term “space” as a name for the cosmos.
The OED quotes a line from Book 1 of Paradise Lost where, shortly after being banished to Hell, Satan proposes a change in strategy to his followers.
American astronomer
