Paradise Lost

PARADISE LOST

BY JOHN MILTON

‘Paradise Lost’ was written by John Milton, the most ambitious and erudite author of English literature,

and it was first published in 1667. It was the first epic poem in English written in blank verse (rhymeless

iambic pentameter) and it is composed of 12 books. It covers the creation of the Cosmos, Satan’s rebellion

and punishment, the creation of Man and the Fall. When he started composing the poem, Milton was blind

and he dictated to the amanuensis all the lines. The major themes are liberty, what it means to be human,

the relationship between humankind and God, social and political identity, sexuality and the nature of

knowledge. It was written in a very elaborate language and it was composed in order to be read aloud. The

founders of the American Revolution were inspired by this poem and they identified in Lucifer. It was

hugely influential and it is the most often illustrated poem of English literature.

John Milton (1608-1674) wrote ‘Comus’, ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Paradise Regained’. In 1658, at the end of the

Republic and the Commonwealth, he began composing ‘Paradise Lost’. Milton was a Puritan Protestant

with specific ideas. In 1660 there was the Restoration and at the head of England there was Cromwell.

Milton saw the end of the Republic, which he considered to be the ideal form of government that England

should have been. Given the historical context, we can find parallelisms in the poem and in the real events.

Milton’s texts are centred on temptation. The fall of mankind is how the Paradise was lost. ‘Paradise

Regained’ is about Satan’s temptation to Christ. At the end, Milton became sort of a member of a Church of

its own because of his strong beliefs. The protagonist of ‘Comus’ is a lady who is captured by the wizard

Comus. He tempts her but the lady manages to say no to him. Finally she is rescued. It was thought as a

play and a woman should have played the part of the protagonist.

Andrew Marvell was a poet and a colleague of Milton. During the Commonwealth he was Milton’s assistant

but he was more resourceful. He wrote a poem on ‘Paradise Lost’:

When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold, Held me a while, misdoubting his intent

In slender book his vast design unfold, That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)

Messiah crowned, God's reconciled decree, The sacred truth to fable and old song.

Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree, Pardon me, Mighty Poet, nor despise

Heaven, Hell, Earth, Chaos, all; the argument My causeless, yet not impious, surmise.

Marvell's poem was the first important criticism of ‘Paradise Lost’. Marvell characterized his early doubts

about Milton's project and he later valued Milton's achievement. Marvell was scared of what Milton was

doing, because he could have ruined the Holy Scripture and the faith because he treated it as old songs

with no value.

The first edition of ‘Paradise Lost’ contained 10 books, but later on Milton added the last two in the second

edition. There is no paratext, no introduction and no comments.

‘Paradise Lost’ is in form of a quarto. A quarto is a book format in which printed sheets have been folded

twice to form four leaves. There is the name of the author but there is not the name of the publisher. It was

published by Samuel Simmons and it was his first copyright possession. He was a printer who acted as

Milton’s publisher. It was a quite simple and unadorned book. Apart from the frontispiece, there was no

substantial paratext and it was lineated 5 by 5. Milton decided that the lines should be that way; the only

text at that time that were like this, were the classics: Milton intended his book to become a classic.

03.10.2022

The first edition of ‘Paradise Lost’ was split into 10 books, while the fourth

edition was split in 12 books. The English poet John Dryden admired Milton:

under the first page of the fourth edition there is a poem by Dryden,

‘Epigram on Milton’ (1688). In the poem, he says that Milton has surpassed

the Greek poet Homer and the Italian poet Dante.

‘Three Poets, in three distant Ages born.

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.

The First in loftiness of thought surpasses;

The Next in Majesty; in both the Last.

The force of Nature could no farther go;

To make a third she joined the former two.’

Homer wrote an epic poem that was linked to Paganism, gods and goddesses, whereas Dante and Milton

wrote Christian poems. To add more, Milton wanted to create a Christian and national epic poem. The

development of these ideas went through different stages. An epic poem is a long narrative poem focusing

on the story of one or several heroic, extraordinary characters. The register is elevated and serious. Epic

poets generally aimed at expressing the values of their culture. A Christian poet understood Christianity as

a culture and understood who shared the same beliefs. Milton had strong beliefs that were not shared by

many people, so it was difficult to write a poem on something he wanted to share, but he had to persuade

his readers.

An epic poem should begin with a sort of formula: in most cases, it started with an invocation to a god, a

goddess or a muse who was good enough to tell the story and who could help the poet. The aim of the first

lines was to summarize the entire story, for example like in ‘Iliad’, ‘Odyssey’, ‘Aeneid’, ‘Orlando Furioso’,

‘Gerusalemme Liberata’ and ‘The Faerie Queene’. Tass, who wrote ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’, tried to write a

Christian epic poem, in which he referred to Christianity instead of the invocation to Pagan gods, because

he wanted to adapt the beginning to the current religion professed in Italy.

A key feature of an epic poem is the beginning in medias res (= in the middle of things): the subject of an

epic poem is very vast and it is difficult to start it from the beginning. For example, Homer referred to the

furies of Achilles, which took place in the tenth year of the War of Troy.

BOOK 1 – The listener has to wait five lines to understand what the poem is about and the poet invokes a

heavenly muse to tell the story. The first noun of the poem is ‘mans first disobedience’: the centre of the

poem is humanity. The first line presents an enjambment and it must be completed. The sound ‘F’ is

pressured and there are no rhymes. The sounds give the poem a certain rhythm: the lines are free, the

rhythm is iambic and the listener can play with it. One of the key words is ‘first’, which changes the rhythm

of the whole sentence. The ‘mans first disobedience’ refers to Adam, Eve and the Fruit of the Forbidden

Tree. Readers will expect to find no suspense at all because they are dealing with the Sacred Scripture

which they all know. In the lines ‘whose mortal tast / Brought Death into the World’, Milton plays with the

words ‘mortal’, which comes from Latin, and ‘death’, which comes from German. Milton is talking about

Adam and humanity itself, involving the listener in the story. Adam and Eve brought death in the world and

provoked the loss of Heaven, until Jesus (‘one greater Man’) restored humanity and regained Heaven.

The ‘Heav’nly Muse’ is a Christian muse. In classical mythology, there were nine muses, daughters of Zeus.

The muse invocated by Milton is Urania, muse of the sky. Urania, who is ‘on the secret top / Of Oreb, or

of Sinai, didst inspire / That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed’, inspired the shepherd Moses who

taught the Judes how to behave. In the Bible, the reader does not understand the place where the Tables

of the Law has been created, even if it is thought to be Mount Oreb or the Sinai. Milton wanted to leave the

readers free choice in deciding the place.

In every epic poem there is the character of the hero. In ‘Paradise Lost’, there are many theories on who

the hero is. That could be Lucifer, Adam, or Jesus (called ‘the second Adam’ because he is the second son of

God and he redeems Heaven). This is something which deals with the whole humankind. In the lines ‘That

Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, / In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth / Rose out

of Chaos’, the reader get a little lost: there is a continuous flow of thoughts.

This poem is an adventurous song: ‘Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence / Invoke thy aid to

my adventrous Song’. Milton creates a closer relationship with the Muse by using no formality thanks to the

pronouns ‘thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’ and ‘thine’ (‘you’ subject, ‘you’ object, ‘your’ and ‘yours’). The Aonian Mount

(‘That with no middle flight intends to soar / Above th' Aonian Mount’) is the Mount Helicon, which was

sacred to the classical muses. Milton is talking about his religion, which is the true one and which surpasses

the Pagan one of the classical gods. The song is adventurous because it has to fly above Pagan tradition.

Milton uses irony: he borrows a passage from ‘Ariosto’ (‘Dirò d’Orlando in un medesimo tratto / cosa non

detta in prosa mai, né in rima’). He also refers to Saint Paul’s letters to the Romans 5:19 ‘For as by one

man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous’.

The poet invokes the Holy Spirit (‘And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer / Before all Temples th' upright

heart and pure’) which cares about the human heart that has to be pure. It knows everything because it

was present from the very beginning and it witnessed what the story is about (Instruct me, for

Thou know'st; Thou from the first / Wast present’). The Holy Spirit has been figured as a dove (‘and with

mighty wings outspread / Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss’). The Abyss is the primordial Chaos.

The Holy Spirit impregnated the Cosmos (‘And mad'st it pregnant’) creating the Chaos. This idea was in

previous editions of the official Bible of the Church of England. Milton is asking the Spirit to enlighten what

is in the dark (‘What in me is dark / Illumin, what is low raise and support’) and to help him writing the

poem. He wanted to go beyond what any other Pagan poet did. Milton believed in something which was

not accepted by the Church of England, because he believed that at the beginning, God created everything

from Chaos. There is no distinction in kind between substance and spirit, only in degree (monism). On the

contrary, in the Genesis, God created the Heaven and the Earth, but it does not specify from what.

But Milton also says why he is writing the poem: ‘I may assert Eternal Providence, / And justifie the wayes

of God to men’. He aims at explaining the Providence because he believes in a God that loves humanity. The