I conclude that Raphael’s digestive ontology and his unreliability as a narrator reveal a body of evidence that urges readers to find the fallible Raphael, not the infallible God, accountable for the Fall. This thesis argues that closer scrutiny of Raphael’s role is mandated by the dissonances he creates in Paradise Lost. Furthermore, certain striking resemblances between Raphael’s digestive ontology and Satan’s discourse demand us to hold its function more suspect. Details within the epic indicate that his digestive ontology fails to thoroughly account for the operations of the prelapsarian universe, particularly prelapsarian human bodies. Raphael’s digestive ontology-according to which every form of creation engages in digestion-relies on his authority alone and has no divine sanction. I discuss the authority, applicability and function of Raphael’s digestive ontology with due consideration for the emphatic fallibility of Miltonic angels. What underlies this consensus is the digestive ontological model presented by the archangel Raphael in Book V of Paradise Lost. This thesis reconsiders the common critical consensus that John Milton was a monistic materialist.
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