Dra. C García-Navarro.

Universidad de Almería1

JOHN MILTON’S PARADISE LOST

ALLUSIONS
When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not
accidental. Can you figure out why?
There are literally hundreds of allusions in Paradise Lost, many of them to
the Bible. Rather tan list every single posible allusion, we've listed some of
the most important ones below. Any decent edition of the poem will list
many that we've left out. And ofcourse, the entire poem is one gigantic
allusion to the book of Genesis, from which the story of Adam and Eve is
taken.
BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS
 Jesus Christ (1.4)
 Moses (1.8; 1.338)
 Adam and Eve (1.29)
 Genesis 2:17 (1.32)
 Leviathan, from Isaiah 27:1 and Job 41:34 (1.201)
 Exodus 10:13-5 (1.338)
 1 Kings 11:1-9 (1.383-91)
 2 Samuel 12: 26-27 (1.396)
 2 Chronicles 34:4-5 (1.418)
 Genesis 11:4 (1.694)
 Psalms 2:4 (2.191)
 1 Kings 12:11 (2.701)
 Revelations 21:19 (2.1050)
 Genesis 6:4 (3.463; 11.573-627)
 Genesis 11:1-9 (3.466-7)
 Genesis 28.17 (3.510-5)
 Exodus 28:17-24 (3.597)
 Revelation 12:3-12 (4.1-5)
 1 Corinthians 11:15 (4.308)

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 Dra. C García-Navarro. Universidad de Almería2

 Psalms 2:6-7 (5.603)

 2 Timothy 4:7 (6.30)
 Genesis 2: 19 (6.76)
 2 Kings 19:37 (6.365)
 Matthew 3:17, 17:5 (6.728)
 Mark 1:11 (6.728)
 Ezekiel 10: 9-10 (6.749-59)
 Proverbs 8: 25-30 (7.7-12)
 Genesis 2:19-20 (8.350).
 Genesis 2:18 (8.445)
 1 Peter 3:7 (9.383)
 Songof Solomon 6:2 (9.442)
 Romans 2:14 (9.654)
 1 Timothy 2:14 (9.916)
 Samson and Delilah (9.1059-60)
 Luke 10:18 (10.84)
 Isaiah 61:10 (10.222)
 Luke 1:28 (11.158)
 Genesis 32:1-2 (11.214)
 Ezekiel 40:2 (11.377)

CLASSICAL/MYTHOLOGICAL ALLUSIONS
 Hesiod’s Theogony 713 ff. (1.50; 197-200)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 5.325-31 and 346-58 (1.197-200)
 Virgil’s Aeneid 3.570-7 (1.230-7)
 Hesiod’s Theogony 126-39 (1.510 ff.)
 Homer’s Iliad 3.3-6 (1.576)
 Home’s Iliad 1.591-5 (1.740-6)
 Virgil’s Aeneid 1.430-6 (1.768-70)
 Homer’s Iliad 2.87-90 (1.768-70)

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 Prometheus (2.181)
 Horace’s Odes 1.2.2-3. (2.174)
 Hercules (2.542-6)
 Medusa (2.611)
 Tantalus (2.614)
 Scylla (2.660)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 14 (2.660)
 Hecate (2.662)
 Homer’s Iliad 8.15-24 (2.1005)
 Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica 2.552-611 (2.1017)
 Homer’s Odyssey 12.234-259. (2.1019-20)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 10 (3.17)
 Homer’s Iliad 2.594 (3.35)
 Homer (3.35)
 Tiresias (3.36)
 Horace’s Ars Poetica 464-7 (3.471)
 Cleombrotus (3.473)
 Hesperides (3.568; 4.250)
 Hermes (3.603)
 Virgil’s Aeneid 1.164-5 (4.137-42)
 Ovid’s Metamorphosis 5 (4.269 ff.)
 Daphne (4.273)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 3.402-510 (4.461ff.)
 Pandora (4.714)
 Homer’s Iliad 8.69-72 (4.997)
 Virgil’s Aeneid 12.725-727 (4.997)
 Homer’s Odyssey 10.275 (5.285 ff.)
 Pomona (5.378)
 Hesiod’s Theogony 736-57 (6.1-10)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 13.15 (6.521)

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 Hesiod’s Theogony 664-735 (6.871)

 Bellerophon (7.18)
 Bacchus (7.33)
 Orpheus (7.34)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1.151 (7.280)
 Dryad (9.387)
 Delia (Diana) (9.387)
 Pomona (9.394)
 Ceres (9.395)
 King Alcinous (9.441)
 Odysseus (9.441)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 4.563-603 (9.505)
 Aesculapius (9.506)
 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15.669-74 (9.506)
 Delos (10.296)
 Herodotu’s Histories 7.35 (10.307-310)

HISTORICAL PEOPLE AND PLACES

 Galileo (1.288; 3.590; 5.261-2)
 Busiris, a.k.a. Ramses II of Egypt (1.307)
 The Black Sea (9.77)
 The Sea of Azov (9.78)
 The River Ob (9.78)
 Arctic Ocean (10.290)

OTHER REFERENCES
 Dante’s Inferno 3.9 (1.66)
 Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso 17.14 and 18.158 (1.583-4)
 Dante’ Inferno 33.93-117 (2.595 ff.)
 Edmund Spenser’s FaerieQueene, 1.1.14 (2.651)

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 Dante’s Inferno 1.85 (2.864)

 Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene 4.2.47 (2.960 ff.)
 Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso 34 (3.459)
 William Shakespeare’s Hamlet 2.2.306-15. (8.15)
 Edmund Spenser’s FaerieQueene 2.11.1 (8.15)
 Edmund Spenser’s FaerieQueene 2.7.55 (9.648).