Milton's Socratic Rationalism focuses on the influence of Milton's years of private study of classical authors, chiefly Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle, on Paradise Lost. It examines the conversations of Adam and Eve as a mode of discourse closely aligned to practices of Socrates in the dialogues of Plato and eponymous discourses of Xenophon.

David Oliver Davies is associate professor of English and classics at the University of Dallas and director of the Ph.D. program in literature at the Institute of Philosophic Studies.

Chapter ONE: Preliminaries
Chapter TWO: Prologue
Chapter THREE: Eve's First Words
Chapter FOUR: An Interlude
Chapter FIVE: Becoming Dear
Chapter SIX: "No more of talk" (9.1)