PARADISE LOST

John Milton
Overview
 About the Title

• Paradise Lost refers to the expulsion of the first humans, Adam and Eve,
from the Garden of Eden after they commit sin by eating from the forbidden
Tree of Knowledge.
 Who was John Milton

• The major figure who links the Renaissance and the Restoration.
• Milton lived from 1608 until 1674, and saw all of the greatest struggles of the
century.
• He had the clear ambition to make himself one of the great poets in English, in
the line of Chaucer.
• Both classical and Christian influences run through all his work.
• His major work was “Paradise Lost” published in 12 books, in 1667.
 Who wrote for Milton when he became blind?

• By 1652, Milton had become totally blind; the cause of his blindness is
debated but bilateral retinal detachment or glaucoma are most likely. His
blindness forced him to dictate his verse and prose to amanuenses who
copied them out for him; one of these was Andrew Marvell.
 Paradise Lost

• Paradise Lost is the major epic poem in English. Milton had thought about
using the English myth of King Arthur for his great epic poem, but finally
decided to use the more general myth of Creation, with the figures of God
and Satan (the devil), Adam and Eve, and the Fall of Mankind as his subject.
His aim, he said, was:
•This is a very ambitious aim, and the poem has always
caused controversy as many readers and critics see Satan
as the hero. The poem can be read as a religious text,
supporting Christian ideals, or it can be read as the last
great Renaissance text, stressing the freedom of choice of
Adam and Eve as they choose the path of human
knowledge and leave the Garden of Eden, Paradise. At the
end of the poem, they follow the path towards the
unknown future of all humanity.
•Neither Adam nor Eve is blamed for the Fall, when Eve
eats the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and
Adam loses the state of innocence. Satan, God and Man
are equally responsible.
 Points to remember

• John Milton wrote the poem in BLANK VERSE.

• Paradise Lost was written on the biblical theme of
the fall of man.
• Narration of the poem unfolds in the poem
“Paradise Lost”.
• Paradise Lost has two narratives arcs, one about
Satan (Lucifer) and the following Adam and Eve.
• Book IX is the longest book in Milton’s Paradise
Lost.
• Book VII is the shortest book in Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
• !0 books were included in the first edition of
the poem “Paradise Lost”.
• 12 books were included in the second edition of
the poem “Paradise Lost”.
• The second edition was published in 1674
 About the characters

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHvnm7JCtv0
 Paradise Lost by John Milton | Summary &
Analysis

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgD92i5HFW0
Paradise Lost Summary
 Paradise Lost | Context
• Religion and Politics
• John Milton considered himself a radical Protestant Christian. He was deeply
opposed to England's ruling Anglican church. Disdainful of the monarchy in
general, he supported Oliver Cromwell, the English soldier who led
parliamentary forces in the English Civil Wars and who overthrew Charles I
to become England's Lord Protector. After the monarchy became restored,
Milton fled and went into hiding to avoid being jailed or executed.
• Milton wrote many political pamphlets during his life, and he believed
strongly in an individual's right to freedom. He distrusted the institution of
marriage and thought that power led to corruption—for Milton, God was the
only true king, and any human monarch was automatically a tyrant. He
found many of England's leaders unworthy, and his political pamphlets
reflected these arguments.
• Readers have long been interested in Milton's views on religion, given the
religious subject of Paradise Lost. Milton considered himself a Presbyterian,
an offshoot of the Anglican Church. He rejected Catholicism and the use of
bishops and priests, whom he found to be corrupt. He believed that the
separation of the Anglican Church into other Protestant groups was a good
thing, and he encouraged his fellow Presbyterians to "be their own church."
These views were too radical to be accepted by his contemporary
churchgoers, so Milton abandoned Presbyterianism and did not belong to
any church. His ideas continued to evolve until he felt all organized religions
blocked people's access to spirituality.
• Women
• Contemporary readers tend to find Milton's view of women and their role problematic.
His interpretation of the Bible on this subject is quite literal: women are inferior to men
and must submit to them. However, this was the dominant view during Milton's time,
and his stance would not have been considered unusual or insulting. However, Milton's 
Eve is not simply a temptress whose sexuality causes the downfall of humankind,
which was the common interpretation of the biblical fall of man during this time.
Instead, she is a complex being with the strong desire to acquire knowledge and be
taken seriously.
• Milton was somewhat progressive on this issue in an unlikely way: he was an advocate
for divorce in an era in which it was uncommon. Milton believed that if either party in a
marriage found it unsatisfactory, they should be able to ask for a divorce. He also didn't
believe the prevailing notion at the time that marriage was solely for the purpose of
procreation. Rather, he believed that companionship should be the goal of marriage.
• Epic Poetry
• Milton was introduced to classical Greek epics at a young age, and he made it his
goal to write a great English epic. Though initially he wanted to write his epic on an
English subject, the legend of King Arthur, he landed on something as large in scope
as he could possibly get: the story of the fall of man.
• There are many parallels in Paradise Lost to the ancient Greek epics, such as
Homer's Odyssey and Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid. Elements of Greek epics, such as tales
of warfare, heroes, villains, and love, are echoed in Milton's story but on a much
grander scale. Other epic elements in Paradise Lost include invoking a muse to aid
the writer in telling the story, beginning the story in medias res (in the middle) rather
than in chronological order, and using similes and metaphors to show epic
comparisons, such as comparing Satan's spear to the long mast of a ship. Milton
spent over 10 years dictating the poem to his daughters after he became blind, and
he eventually wrote its sequel, Paradise Regained (1671), in which Satan tries and fails
to tempt Jesus Christ.
• Milton writes Paradise Lost in unrhymed blank verse of iambic
pentameter. Iambic means the use of lines with an unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed syllable. When this combination is used five times in a
line, then the scheme is called iambic pentameter. Milton uses run-on lines
without punctuation to avoid limits set by rhymed verse. He piles on epic
similes one after the other in imitation of classical epic poems. In Milton's
time readers expected poems to rhyme and were shocked by his use of
iambic pentameter, which was previously used only in dramas. Although
many critics argue that Satan may be the most interesting character
in Paradise Lost, Milton probably intends the Son to be the hero of the poem
because the Son voluntarily humbles himself to become human and
sacrifices himself for the sins of humankind to "justify the ways of God to
man."
 Glossary (Britannia.com)
• EPIC POEM:a long poem about the actions of great men and women or
about a nation’s history; this style of poetry.
• Fall of Man, in Christian doctrine, the descent of humanity from a state of
innocence lived in the presence of God to a sinful world of misery and death.
After disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were expelled from the 
Garden of Eden and cursed in various ways. According to the Christian
concept of original sin, Adam’s guilt was transmitted to all of humanity; only
the death and resurrection of Jesus could erase the stain of Adam’s
disobedience.