Paradise Lost influenced His Dark Materials

The trilogy takes its name from Book II of Paradise Lost, prints the lines as its epigraph, and Pullman has described the whole work as Milton's story told from the other side. He has also said, of Milton and Blake, that he is of the Devil's party and knows it, which is Blake's line about Milton turned into a plan. The Fall is rewritten as the thing that had to happen: Lyra and Will repeat it, and the book treats the consequence as a gain rather than a loss.