Milton: Paradise Lost Paradise Lost

This volume offers a stimulating introduction to one of the most influential texts of western literature, Milton's Paradise Lost.

This volume offers an accessible and stimulating introduction to one of the most influential texts of western literature. This guide highlights Milton's imaginative daring as he boldly revises the epic tradition, brilliantly elaborates upon Genesis, and shapes his ambitious narrative in order to retell the story of the Fall. The book considers the heretical dimensions of Paradise Lost and its theology, while situating Milton's great poem in its literary, religious, and political contexts. A concluding chapter addresses the influence of Milton's sublime poem as a source of creative inspiration for later writers, from the Restoration to the Romantics. Finally, the volume offers an extremely useful and updated guide to further reading, which students will find invaluable.

Chronology; The chronology of events in Paradise Lost; Part I. Paradise Lost in Milton's Career and Age: 1. 'Long choosing, and beginning late'; 2. Lycidas; 3. Writing in the English Revolution and the Restoration; 4. Milton's blindness; 5. The Christian Doctrine and Milton's theological heresies; Part II. Interpreting Paradise Lost: 6. 'Say first what cause': Paradise Lost and beginnings; 7. 'To raise/That Name': Paradise Lost and epic ambition; 8. The voice of the poet; 9. Answerable styles; 10. Satan: daring ambition and heroic ideology; 11. Hell: geographical place and internal state; 12. God, providence, and free will; 13. Milton's Eden; 14. Adam and Eve and human sexuality; 15. The material cosmos of Paradise Lost; 16. War in Heaven; 17. Creation; 18. The tragedy of the Fall; 19. Postlapsarian history and the inner paradise; Part III. The Literary Afterlife of Paradise Lost: 20. Revisions from the restoration to the romantics.

This volume offers an accessible and stimulating introduction to one of the most influential texts of western literature. This guide highlights Milton's imaginative daring, considers the heretical dimensions of Paradise Lost and its theology, while situating Milton's great poem in its literary, religious, and political contexts.