The is interested in the relationship between Milton's Christian faith and the physical andspiritual modalities of his poetry, and how his faith-act corrupts and purifies theseentanglements. In chapter 1, I define key concepts such as faith-act and poetics of knowing anddesignate their purchase in the arc of my thesis, and then I frame my reading of Milton's laterpoems.

In chapter 2, I explore how the end of Milton's poetic career shows Milton's faith-actprovocatively saying that poetry can get him neither his wants, nor his needs, but testifies that hewants and needs. In that vein, Paradise Regained becomes a poem in doubt of Christian poeticidiom.

Dismantling poetic form, Paradise Regained highlights Milton's turn away from theoffice of poet and towards the office of priest. In seeking a new poetics to express Christianliturgy and sacrament, Paradise Regained does not undermine the material sacraments, butunderscores them.

Praxis and poetics are not Milton's sacraments for God, but Milton'ssacrifices to him. In chapter 3, I inquire into the consequences of Milton's faith-act.

The conflictMilton faces at the outset of Paradise Lost is neither "man's first disobedience," nor his"justify[ing] the ways of God to men," but is the contradiction in terms, as he perceives it, ofreconciliation and poetics. On the one hand, poetry, as Paradise Lost shows, might bear theparadox of the Fall's burden, and humanity's uninhibited joy.

On the other hand, through itspoetics, Paradise Lost exposes its limitations to render God's salvific presence in the world. Ofhis later poems, Paradise Lost is the first shadow of Milton's doubt to descend on the practice ofreconciliatory poetics.

In chapter 4, I demonstrate Milton's skepticism of systematic theology'sability to reveal the God-head, and suggest that Paradise Lost might be a more illuminating formto understanding God's nature. While a current in Paradise Lost focuses on Christian worshipthrough Adam's and Eve's sacramental relationship with each other, heaven's creatures, and theearth, the current also has an undertow.

Abdiel as the theologically gray angel is Milton'sexegetical and eisegetical character employed inside of Paradise Lost so that Milton can performhis faith-act and discover the reconciliatory limitation of form. Milton senses that hispoetry/poetics is not enough to save, and that his later poetry, in fact, transgresses God's will.

However, he paradoxically knows that for him to write poetry is God's will. In the sameway.

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