This thesis applies an eco-critical lens to its reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) to forge conceptual and thematic parallels with the ecologically oriented process-metaphysics of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It reads Milton’s epic poem as a reflection of traditional Christian themes and analyses its undergirding metaphysics to reveal a vibrant and vitalistic materialism that rejects the mechanistic reduction of matter in seventeenth-century England. This thesis contributes to contemporary eco-theological endeavours to remediate scholarly criticism, originating with Lynn White, that a Christian view of creation necessarily entails environmental domination. Using a framework of comparative religion, it highlights synchronistic parallels between Milton’s animist materialism and Mahāyāna tenets of nonduality and emptiness (sūnyāta) to argue that Paradise Lost functions as an inter-faith ecomodel for positive ecological engagement.
Chapter One analyses the metaphysics of Milton’s cosmos in Paradise Lost to establish a foundation for inter-faith dialogue with a comparative reading of the Aggaňňa Sutta and Avatamsaka Sūtra. Compelling similarities are revealed regarding the intertwining of physical and psychological laws and a joyful appreciation of creation. Chapter Two interprets Adam and Eve as proto-Ecosattvas following the path of eco-dharma. It references the Prajńāpāramitā sūtras (Wisdom Literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism) to analyse Adam and Eve’s Edenic interactions and finds their prelapsarian engagement with creation to be based on reverence and egalitarian kinship. Finally, Chapter Three finds that Satan’s ecologically damaging extractivism is the result of a metaphysical divorce from creation as he epitomes the Three Poisons (triviṣa) of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The iconography of the poisons in the Wheel of Life (Bhāvacakra) is referenced to illustrate an inter-medial synergy between its pictorial representations and satanic imagery in Paradise Lost. Overall, this thesis contends ii that the vitalist materialism constituting the cosmos in Paradise Lost promotes an ecologically engaged ethic that resonates synchronistically with the environmentally aware metaphysics of Mahāyāna Buddhism; therefore, Milton’s epic encourages inter-faith dialogue concerning contemporary environmental issues.
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