Research summary
John Milton’s Paradise Lost is one of the most noteworthy masterpieces of the English Renaissance. But what many people may not know is that it also played a role in the inception of two nineteenth-century religions: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventism.
Dr. John Rogers, Canada Research Chair in Early Modern Literature and Culture, is working on identifying the unmistakably literary origins of the theology of these two religious movements, which currently claim more than 30 million followers. He and his research team are also exploring why and how so many pious but minimally educated, minimally literate nineteenth-century Americans took on the unlikely challenge of reading Milton’s daunting work.