Allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise LostThe fact that Milton's Paradise Lost is unsurpassed - and barely equaled - in English literature is generally accepted by critics and scholars. However, it is less certain that it may have serious flaws, whatever they may be, because it is on this point that opinions vary. The allegory of sin and death (II. 648-883) is particularly interesting for some. Robert C. Fox is surprised that it has not been the subject of much more critical discussion: "Are Milton's readers intrigued by this episode and, unable to explain its significance, do they prefer to pass it over in silence? is its meaning so obvious that no interpretative remarks are necessary? » (“The Allegory” 354). Whatever the answer to Fox's question, his argument is sound; in a study of the bibliography of the Modern Language Association from 1950 to 1980, less than twenty references specifically devoted to this allegory can be identified, and many of them, rather than delving into the question of its relevance and /or its importance in the whole work, simply investigate its tradition and sources. Merritt Y. Hughes, referring to scholars who have commented on the allegory, writes that "for two centuries critics agreed that the shift to pure allegory in Sin and Death was a stain on the poem and an external encrustation . Recently they have wondered whether this is not part of the structural irony of the whole design" (177). It is this latter view on which this article focuses; the allegory is indeed integral of the whole of Paradise Lost, and not an error of judgment on Milton's part, as some critics think. It is defensible on two levels, both in terms of structure and in terms of content. presence of allegorical figures -- abstractions -- in the epic which some critics object to, it is necessary here to discuss both the allegory and the epic form. Thrall and Addison Hibbard, is defined as "an extended metaphor in which objects and people in a story... are equated with meanings that lie outside [it]", uses characters who "are generally personifications of abstract stories' the qualities, action and setting representative of the relationships between these abstractions. The allegory attempts to evoke a dual interest, one for the events, characters and setting presented, and the other for the ideas they are supposed to convey or the meaning they carry." (7-8).