Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is a Christian epic based on a biblical theme, namely- the

fall of man. Is a heroic poem, which focuses on the tragic ambiguity of man as a
moral being. Its style demands a verse which is characterised by dignity and
flexibility, ‘’ English heroic verse without rhyme’’, known as blank verse. He
introduces the relationship between the four great theatres of action: Heaven,
Eden, Hell, and the postlapsarian world (the world after the fall).
Milton’s epic similes provide the only link between cosmic scenery of the
epic and the world of ordinary men in their day-to-day activities through out of
history and geography. Paradise Lost shows Milton as Christian Humanist, using
all the resources of the European literary tradition that had come down to him:
biblical, classical, medieval, Renaissance. Imagery from classical fable and
medieval romance, allusion to myths, legends and stories of all kinds,
geographical imagery deriving from Milton’s own fascination with books of
travel and echoes of the Elizabethan excitement and the new discoveries,
Biblical history and doctrine, Jewish and Christian learning. The description of
Eden in book four is indeed one of the finest examples of Milton’s use of pagan
classical imagery for a clearly defined Christian purpose. The poem is about
‘’Man’s First Disobedience’’, ‘’ And Justify the ways of God to men’’, then arises
the question if God is almighty, why is there evil in the world. Milton uses myth
for what it is, the imaginative projection of all man’s deepest hopes and fears.
The central paradox lies at the very heart of Paradise Lost, namely the concept
of loss and recuperation, or the fact that free will can be achieved only after
the Fall. The book gets influences from Arminianism, which puts the free will in
opposition to the predetermination and rejects the question of it.
Book one shows the fallen angels in Hell beginning to recover from their
defeat. Milton uses rhetorical verse in the speeches of the perverted creatures
and this points out that he was aware the Evil has its own attractiveness. The
speeches of Satan and his followers in books I and II are magnificent in their
own way. Satan is shown as a hero, that embodies the superficial seductiveness
of evil.
The description of Satan’s regal state at the beginning of book II is a
magnificent evocation of all the barbaric splendour which the Greeks so
shuddered at in the Persians. As poets such as Blake, Shelley and Coleridge
said, in Satan there are trace of true heroism in him. Then we encounter the
concept of ‘’ the corruption of the best become the worst’’. All great works of
literature contain more than their ostensible subject: starting from a particular
set of beliefs, a story such as the biblical story of the Fall or a journey through
the underworld, the true poet, in presenting his material, keeps reaching out at
every point aspects of the human situation, which are real and recognizable,
whatever our believes may be. In the end, Paradise, the ideal world of innocent
idleness, has become an inhabitable, as the characters look back on it for the
last time, the angels guarding it seem dreadful figures from another world. It is
a great and memorable ending.

Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were published together after

the second half of the 17th century. The former apparently written after the
publication of Paradise Lost, both works had clearly been long maturing in
Milton’s mind. Paradise Regained is a much more limited poem than Paradise
Lost, dealing only with one’s specific aspect of Christian story in four books.
Milton is here treating of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness as what
might be call a ritual re-enactment of the original Fall, only this time with
temptation withstood instead of succumbed to. Milton is following a well-
established Christian tradition, and is preferring to see Christ as heroic man
rather than as God incarnate. The triumph of Christ is therefore redemptive for
mankind.
Milton presents Samson Agonistes as a classical tragedy on a biblical
theme and is perhaps, Milton’s final way of reconciling his Christianity with his
Humanism. This tragedy is in the form of a series of dialogues between Samson
and the various people who visit him, one at a time, with intervening
monologues by Samson, comments by the chorus, and the final reported
account of Samson’s death, which represents the fallen hero’s achievement. It
is the only successful Greek tragedy in English, but its inner substance is not
really Greek, the theme of a fall hero’s achievement of a new kind of heroism is
not Sophoclean, but Christian in a very Miltonic way. The autobiographical
overtones in the play are obvious and have often been commented on. The
struggle of this tragedy fluctuates between despair and belief.