by Ed Simon
Paradise Lost
BOOK I
Editor’s Synopsis – As the narrative of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad begins, the Trojan War whose violence it recounts is nearly at an end. Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector, and the rest of the invading Greeks had already been arrayed about the besieged city for a decade at the point where Homer invokes the muses. Homer’s other great epic, The Odyssey, similarly begins in the middle of things; not with brave Ulysses having left Troy to return home to Ithaca, but rather with the hero imprisoned on the idyllic isle of the nymph Calypso. Because Milton was a keen reader of the Greek and Latin classics, he too begins his epic in the middle – in media res – not with the epic War in Heaven whereby Lucifer and a third of the angels who had chosen to rebel against God were caste out, but instead after they’ve already been exiled into the inferno, regrouping following their defeat by the divine host. As a rhetorical gambit, in media res engages the reader by rearranging the chronological expectations of the epic, understanding that implication can often be more effective than straightforward recounting. Arguably the most eminently quotable books of Paradise Lost, with some of Milton’s most familiar turns of phrase, the beginning of the epic lays out its authors purpose – to tell tale of humanity’s initial disobedience and the nature of our fall, to justify the ways of God to man, and to do all of this in a language that had never before been accomplished. What follows is Satan’s rallying of his demonic troops, his justifications for their coming assault on God’s new creation of humans, and his self-serving philosophy of greatness. – E.S.
BOOK II
Editor’s Synopsis – Given far less credit as a coiner of neologisms than Shakespeare is, Milton’s Paradise Lost is a font of invented words, including “complacency,” “debauchery,” “dismissive,” “embellishing,” “fragrance,” “lovelorn,” and “terrific,” among hundreds of others. Most of Milton’s innovative language didn’t move beyond the pages of Paradise Lost – “intervolve” and “opiniastrous” are not featured often in everyday conversation – but one word which did became part of regular speech, despite sounding slightly ridiculous, is “Pandemonium.” That word, with its present day connotations of chaos, is always capitalized in Paradise Lost for it refers to a proper noun – the legislative body of demons established in Hell’s capital city of Dis after the expulsion from Heaven. Literally translating to “All Demons,” Pandemonium is the site of the rebel angels’ debates on the proper course of action following their defeat. Introducing a number of arresting characters drawn from demonology and pagan mythology, including Mammon, Beelzebub, and Mulciber, the second book of the poem highlights the verbal dexterity of Satan. Scholars have often seen Pandemonium as evocative of the College of Cardinals, the building itself reminiscent to St. Peter’s, which Milton would have seen while in Rome, while their disputations are characteristic of the political arguments that defined the seventeenth-century. Others may see in Pandemonium a slightly ironic comment on Britain’s own parliament, to which Milton had been a steadfast ally of during the years of civil war (with Lucifer not necessarily so distant from Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell). The book ends with Satan leaving Hell for Eden, as its been agreed that in the temptation of man there is a possibility of demonic victory, their salvation purchased at the cost of our damnation. Before reaching earth, Satan must travel through Chaos (an innovation of Milton’s not attributable to orthodox theology) guided by both Sin and Death, having learned that the former is his daughter born of his brow as if Athena from the head of Zeus, and the later is their child produced through incest, a perverse family reunion of which the Devil has no memory. – E.S.
BOOK III
Editor’s Synopsis – For two books of a poem supposedly written to explain God’s reasoning to humanity, but where we’ve dwelled only in the presence of demons, Paradise Lost finally turns its cosmic attentions to Heaven itself. Here we are introduced to both God and his Son, the two conversing about the nature of the fall of mankind and of humanity’s ultimate agency. Engaged in theological arcana, the Son and God’s discourse illuminates much about Milton’s own religious convictions. As a Puritan, it could be assumed that Milton was inheritor of the Swiss theologian John Calvin’s draconian understanding of human freedom’s limits. Most Puritans, as Calvinists, would believe that individual salvation and damnation have no relation to whatever good works a person might commit, or even if they’re faithful for that matter. Rather everyone’s ultimate fate as concerns salvation is something that God in his omnipotent glory had decided on before the creation of the world. A doctrine known as “predestination,” this rather dreary perspective holds that humans are without agency, purely at the whims of a capricious God. Yet based on the discussion in the third book, Milton seems to allow for much more in the way of human freedom than might be expected for a Puritan. Even more shocking is that God and the Son seem to be too completely discrete beings – that is to say that the narrative of Paradise Lost denies the existence of the Trinity, the Christian belief that the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all intrinsically related while not being reducible into each other, that they’re all aspects of a single God. Finally, the book ends with the Son offering himself as a sacrifice for the redemption of mankind, which has not yet fallen, but inevitably will. – E.S.
BOOK IV
Editor’s Synopsis – Satan, after having been guided towards Paradise by the archangel Uriel at the conclusion of the previous book (the later unaware of the identity of the former), espies Eden and ruminates on his mission. Committing himself fully to the task of corrupting God’s most beloved creation, Lucifer makes his way towards the Garden. From atop the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Satan looks out upon the sylvan perfection of Eden, and for the first time sees that primordial couple who are the subjects of God’s greatest affection. As imagined by Milton, Eden is a state of pastoral perfection, where the first couple live in joyful love. Despite his acknowledgement of the Garden’s moral and physical beauty, Satan only further commits towards his plan to cause the first couple to transgress and thus condemn all of their progeny with sin. While ensconced on his perch, Satan listens to Eve and Adam recount the details of their creation, as well as the single prohibition placed on them being a decree against eating from the very tree in which the fallen angel now creeps. These details are necessary in the formulation of Satan’s strategy to tempt the two into disregarding the dictates of the Lord. Meanwhile, Uriel having realized the cosmic error he has committed, informs the archangel Gabriel of his mistake. Milton ends the fourth book with a tender description of sex between Eve and Adam, which despite how affectionate it is rendered exemplifies the borderline heretical nature of the poet’s theology. Yet despite the potential prurience of imagining humanity’s parents as having sex, Milton follows the teaching of Church Fathers like the fourth-century St. Augustine who believed that fornication in Eden would be possible, though only as a purely rational act, and not through lust. In post-coital bliss, Adam and Eve slumber, while Satan attempts to poison their dreams, only to have this first gesture towards temptation dashed with the arrival of Uriel and Gabriel. – E.S.
BOOK V
Editor’s Synopsis – Despite all of his own marital problems, and his not unearned reputation for being a chauvinist, there is a strangely affecting portrayal of domesticity and gender relations throughout Paradise Lost, never as much as in the fifth book of the epic. Throughout the book, Adam and Eve are depicted as intimate, loving, supportive, tender, and affectionate, despite Milton’s inability to fully disentangle Paradise Lost from the misogynistic history of Christian mythologizing that imparts the fall’s cause to women. Eve, troubled by the dreams which Satan has given to her, shares her nightmares with her husband who is unable to interpret them. Throughout the day, the two engage in the tasks of Eden, singing hymns to God while existing together in the radiance of their love. Raphael, another archangel, arrives at the Garden to warn them of Satan’s machinations, explaining that he will use guile, deceit, and trickery to tempt the couple into sin. Almost by the mid-point of the poem, Raphael provides narrative backstory on the War in Heaven itself, his explanations to Adam of why Satan and his minions were expelled by God happening in flashback. The archangel explains that Satan was incensed by the creation of the first couple themselves, disgusted that God has elevated these creatures of soil seemingly above the very angels of light. Eloquent and convincing, this is the beginning of Satan’s formation of a separate camp within Heaven that will attempt to dethrone God. Raphael explains how Abdiel, another archangel, denounces Satan for his treachery. – E.S.
BOOK VI
Editor’s Synopsis – Having concluded the previous book with a description of Abdiel’s brave denunciations of Satan, Raphael now explains to Adam about the actual waging of the demonic rebellion. Having invented artillery, the disloyal angels wage war against the good angels (who still make up the better part of Heaven’s subjects) as led by the archangel Michael, that contingent responding to Satan’s fire-power by throwing mountains at their adversaries. God ultimately enlists the assistance of His Son, a being that millennia hence will be incarnated in the form of Jesus Christ, who arrives to the battle in a resplendent chariot, casting the evil angels out of Heaven and into Hell where they will be transformed into demons. Because of his martial victory, the Son is properly lauded by the remaining angels as the Messiah. – E.S.
BOOK VII
Editor’s Synopsis – A continuation of the conversation between Raphael and Adam (with Eve listening in), the seventh book recounts the archangel’s summaries of the biblical book of Genesis to the first man, as well as acting as a meditation on creation and inspiration. As regards the first, Milton provides an overview of the traditional understanding of humanity’s creation within Christian tradition, though of course there is something uncanny about Raphael even needing to provide such background to the very beings that just experienced it. Then, as regards inspiration, there is an echo between Adam’s imploration for knowledge from Raphael and Milton’s evocation of the archangel Urania, who acts as his muse. The nature of inspiration is central to Milton’s project, for in invoking the muse (a standard rhetorical maneuver in epics since Homer), he places himself in a venerable classical tradition, but in making that muse Urania, associated with astronomy, he puts Paradise Lost into a cosmic lineage. Furthermore, there is the difficult question of how seriously Milton took the conceit that his was a divinely inspired poem. Written in his head at night and then recounted to his daughters upon waking, with minimal corrections along the way, Paradise Lost certainly has something of the uncanny about both its content and its composition, while being arguably the last of the originally oral poems. – E.S.
BOOK VIII
Editor’s Synopsis – So associated is Milton with issues of faith and belief (and rightly so) that there can be an unfortunate obscuring of his polymathic fascination with multiple disciplines, particularly burgeoning observational and experimental science. Written on the cusp of the scientific revolution (the Royal Society was founded only six years before the publication of Paradise Lost), the epic evidences Milton’s obsessions with new learning and scientific discoveries, particularly as regards astronomy. Often unfairly regarded as among the drier portions of the poem, the eighth book is actually a fascinating overview of both early modern scientific theorizing, as well as an opportunity to enjoy Milton’s own prodigious knowledge. The narrative itself is composed almost entirely with the continuation of Adam’s discussion with Raphael, but here the archangel gives an overview of natural and cosmic history placed alongside sacred history. In particular, there is discussion of the various theories of the solar system’s structure. Milton always made much of his meeting with Galileo, even while Paradise Lost appears to hew closer to the erroneous Ptolemaic model which places the Earth rather than the sun at the center of the solar system (while Raphael seems to discount the importance of scientific curiosity). Regardless, the eighth book is an important document of the ways in which scientific language was deployed in the seventeenth-century, especially in relation to questions of divinity. – E.S.
BOOK IX
Editor’s Synopsis – Among the most venerable of poetic critical genres is that of the ars Poetica, the defense of verse specifically and of representational literature more generally. Often configured as a direct response to the arguments which the ancient Greek philosopher Plato makes in The Republic, whereby the poets are cast out of the ideal state as if rebel angels from heaven, the author of an ars Poetica defends the moral utility of verse in answer to those ancient claims. Book nine of Paradise Lost acts as Milton’s ars Poetica, an argument as to how poetry can uniquely tell this Christian story in a manner that other modes and genres can’t. Here, with only a quarter of the epic left, Milton restates his purpose for writing Paradise Lost, while emphasizing the divine nature of his own inspiration (and the intercession of his muse Urania). At this point the epic turns to tragedy, for despite the high drama of the initial books and the capricious discussions of the middle portion, Milton begins to orient his readers towards the inevitable fall of humanity which was always his main subject. Sobering and strange to think about how for all of the cosmic set-pieces that the reader has encountered – the sulphury environs of Pandemonium and Satan’s travels through the whirling Chaos, the meeting of the heavenly host and Raphael’s details on the War in Heaven – that the main crux of the epic happens in book nine with the simple eating of an apple. Despite all that she knows, despite those warnings from the archangels, it is inevitable that Eve will be convinced by Satan and eat that fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which she ten offers to Adam. Her husband, out of conjugal love and against his better judgement (for Milton remains a chauvinist), joins her in that meal. The result is that the first couple finds themselves naked and alone, aware of their own fallenness and sin. – E.S.
BOOK X
Editor’s Synopsis – The tenth book of Milton’s poem is one of consequences, of punishment and judgement for transgression. The Son is dispatched to Eden to pronounce God’s sentence against Adam and Eve, the future Jesus Christ explaining to the first couple that women shall suffer the pain of childbirth and men the indignities of hard labor for the sin of having ignored God’s pronouncements and of having fallen sway to Satan’s honeyed arguments. The two appeal to the Son for a reprieve, but this punishment is rendered both unto them and all subsequent generations that are born from them (which is all of us). Yet there is a reason for hope in that God has promised that his Son shall one day be born as a man in the form of Jesus Christ, and that his violent death at the crucifixion and subsequent harrowing of Hell shall atone for the original couple’s indiscretion. The rebel angels, busy building a passage from Hell to Chaos, don’t escape God’s judgement, for all of them are transformed into the twisted, mewling mass of bestial serpentine creatures which the word “demons” evokes. – E.S.
BOOK XI
Editor’s Synopsis – Because Milton’s own feelings about the Trinity were historically so ambiguous, and because that aspect of Christian doctrine can be confusing to contemporary readers who consider themselves to be secular, it can be easy to skirt over the fascinating theological issues that Paradise Lost presents, especially in the epic’s penultimate book. Within orthodox Christianity, which adheres to the formulations defined by the ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325, the Trinity is the central doctrine which defines God as existing as a single being composed of three coequal and coeternal divine persons. These three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – are understood as having a single essence, substance, or nature (depending on the translation). All of them are God, and that God is one, despite existing as these three persons. This doctrine is largely what defines the contours of normative Christianity, where despite disagreements before the Nicene Council (indeed why it was called in the first place), the vast preponderance of Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have affirmed belief in the Trinity, even if disagreeing on some of the particulars. By contrast, Milton’s representation of these two persons of the Trinity – the Father and the Son – is slightly scandalous to an orthodox Trinitarian. Despite His omniscience, the Father is sometimes unaware of the Son’s reasoning; furthermore, they have real disagreements as when the later advocates for mercy on behalf of the first couple, and is overruled, seemingly demonstrating the former’s elevated status. Milton’s disbelief in the Trinity would later be substantiated by the discovery of manuscripts he’d anonymously written. – E.S.
BOOK XII
Editor’s Synopsis – Paradise Lost is a poem about dispossession, about disenfranchisement, about being disavowed. Milton’s masterpiece is, at its core, about exile. Written after Milton had seen his own hopes for a republican England dashed with the return of the monarchy; written after the poet had followed Cromwell – a rebellious general who could turn a good phrase just like Lucifer – Paradise Lost is a record of its own author’s being rusticated from an imagined community, from a fantasized utopia. The creator of Paradise Lost had been caste from his own particular type of Heaven. The final book sees the archangel Michael, that martial defender of God’s cosmic order, expelling Adam and Eve from the only home which they had ever known, forced now to wander in the broken and fallen world that is our birthright. For all of his grandiosity, Milton ends the poem with a heartbreaking line as the first couple exit Eden into the cruelty of the world. Yet a reading of Paradise Lost suggests that Milton’s understanding of the fall was more nuanced, for it’s often been argued that he adhered towards an argument that the expulsion from Eden was a Felix culpa, a fortunate fall. Adam and Eve may have traded Eden for a harder world, but it’s also one with both the potential for redemption, and for freedom.
A Guide for Restless Readers
1. A central question regarding Paradise Lost – maybe the central question – is how we’re supposed to interpret the character of Satan. Because he’s so engaging, so visceral, evocative, fascinating, and charismatic, it’s been claimed that Milton (either knowingly or not) understands Satan to be the hero of his epic. Do you think that such an interpretation is bolstered by the poem itself?
2. Critic Stanley Fish argues that part of the function of Paradise Lost is to trick” the reader into identifying with Satan, so that when they realize their error, they’re “surprised by sin.” While reading the poem, did you find your sympathy towards Satan shifting in one direction or the other?
3. Fish has also claimed that there is a pedagogical purpose to the poem, that is helps enact for the reader the experience of the fall itself. Having read the poem, do you feel that it in some way mimics this grander cosmic drama within your own thinking?
4. A central issue in Paradise Lost is the question of evil – where it comes from and what it’s costs are. Some theologians have configured evil as merely the absence of good, while others see it as a vital and powerful force in its own right. What’s your understanding of evil, and what does Milton’s poem have to say about that topic to you?
5. Scholars have long claimed that Milton believed in humanity’s exile from Eden as a Felix culpa, that is a “fortunate fall.” At the conclusion of Paradise Lost, do you interpret Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden as being entirely tragic, or is something gained?
6. Milton renders God and the Son as distinct, separate personalities. If you had to describe the differences between these two characters, how would you do so?
7. The Biblical account of creation in the book of Genesis, especially in its second account wherein Eve is generated from Adam’s rib, has been used to justify misogyny for millennia. In Paradise Lost, how would you describe Milton’s approach towards women in general, and Eve in particular?
8. Adam and Eve’s relationship in the poem is notable a description of an idealized domesticity (or at least idealized according to Milton). What is Milton trying to say about marriage?
9. Paradise Lost is replete with thousands of different references, allusions, and gestures towards literature and mythology both canonical and obscure. What particular allusions did you notice, and how does an understanding of them help further illuminate the poem?
10. Even though its rarely thought of as such, Milton’s poem is one that’s often concerned with science, whether in terms of astronomy or the natural world. What were some passages that you thought exemplified this interest?
11. Milton’s language has often been frustrating to readers; his syntax complicated, diction obscure, allusions esoteric. What’s a portion of the poem that you thought was confusing? If you examine it again, can you parse what it might be saying or why it might be important?
12. A master rhetorician, much of the language Milton deploys in Paradise Lost is intended to be beautiful, even if obscure. What’s a passage from the epic that you found to be beautiful and why?
13. From Mammon to Gabriel, Beelzebub to Raphael, there are a multitude of minor characters within Paradise Lost that remain arresting. Which did you find to be particularly interesting?
14. Milton is known for invention – his own words, his own plot points. Paradise Lost, while obviously based on books of the Bible ranging from Genesis to Revelation, also has a lot which is unique to Milton. What’s something which you noticed is idiosyncratic to Milton’s vision, and what does the choice which the author made do in terms of changing the meaning of the story?
15. Despite being such a dramatic narrative in certain portions of the poem, Paradise Lost is the rare canonical work of literature to never have a major cinematic adaptation. If you were to cast a film version of Milton’s masterpiece, what actors would you choose for the most pivotal roles and why?
Suggestions for Further Reading
Other Works by John Milton
Areopagitica and Other Writings. Penguin Classics, 2016.
Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems. Modern Library, 2012.
The Essential Prose of John Milton. Modern Library, 2013.
The Major Works. Oxford World Classics, 2008.
Milton’s Latin Poems. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Milton: The Complete Shorter Poems, Routledge, 2006.
Biographies of John Milton
Beer, Anna. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
Campbell, Gordon and Thomas N. Corns. John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Forsyth, Neil. John Milton: A Biography. New York: Lion Hudson, 2008.
Lewalski, Barbara. John Milton: A Critical Biography. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.
McDowell, Nicholas. Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.
Moshenska, Joe. Making Darkness Light: A Life of John Milton. New York: Basic Books, 2021.
Wilson, A.N. The Life of John Milton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Related Works
Ackroyd, Peter. Milton in America. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1997.
Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Penguin Classics, 2006.
Blake, William. The Complete Poems. London: Penguin Classics, 1978.
Bronte, Charlotte. Shirley. London: Penguin Classics, 2006.
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. London: Penguin Classics, 2009.
Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1989.
Elliot, George. Middlemarch. London: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights, 1959.
Lewis, C.S. Perlandra. New York: Scribner, 2003.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: MacMillan Collector’s Library, 2016.
Pullman, Philip. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. New York: Random House, 2001.
Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York: Random House, 2008.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.
Context and Criticism
Dexter, Raymond. The Influence of Milton on English Poetry. London: Kessinger Publishing. 1922
Dobranski, Stephen. Reading Milton in Troubled Times. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2022.
Eliot, T. S. “Annual Lecture on a Master Mind: Milton”, Proceedings of the British Academy 33 (1947).
Empson, William. Milton’s God. New York: Praeger, 1979.
Evans, J. Martin. Milton’s Imperial Epic: Paradise Lost and the Discourse of Colonialism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Evans, J. Martin. The Miltonic Moment. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.
Fish, Stanley. Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Fish, Stanley. Versions of Antihumanism: Milton and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017.
Hawkes, David, John Milton: A Hero of Our Time (Counterpoint Press: London and New York, 2009)
Hill, Christopher. Milton and the English Revolution. London: Faber, 1977.
Hobsbaum, Philip. “Meter, Rhythm and Verse Form”. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Hunter, William Bridges. A Milton Encyclopedia. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980.
Labriola, Albert and Edward Sichi. Milton’s Legacy in the Arts. State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.
Le Comte, Edward. Milton and Sex. London: Macmillan, 1978.
Leonard, John. Faithful Labourers: A Reception History of Paradise Lost, 1667–1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Lewalski, Barbara. Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth Century Religious Lyric. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Lewis, C.S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. New York: HarperOne, 2022.
Milner, Andrew. John Milton and the English Revolution: A Study in the Sociology of Literature. London: Macmillan, 1981.
Poole, William. Milton and the Making of Paradise Lost. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
Ricks, Christopher. Milton’s Grand Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Schwartz, Regina. Remembering and Repeating: On Milton’s Theology and Poetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Smith, Nigel. Is Milton Better than Shakespeare? Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Simon, Ed. Heaven, Hell and Paradise Lost. New York: Ig Publishing, 2023.
***
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.