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2. Major Works
Paradise Lost
For many years Milton had planned to write an epic poem, and he probably
started his work on Paradise Lost before the Restoration. The
blank-verse poem in ten books appeared in 1667; a second edition, in which
Milton reorganized the original ten books into twelve, appeared in 1674. It
was greatly admired by Milton’s contemporaries and has since then been
considered the greatest epic poem in the English language. In telling the
story of
Satan’s rebellion against God and the story of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, Milton attempted to explain the evil in this world and, in
his own words, to “justify the ways of God to man.”
Planned in 1640, the epic was not finished until
1665. In his total blindness, Milton had to dictate to other people who
noted it down. For Paradise Lost, Milton received 5 pounds as the
initial payment and 5 pounds additional on the sale of the first three
editions. Milton’ s widow finally settled all claims on the publication for
8 pounds, making a total of 18 pounds. Paradise Lost is about Adam
and Eve--how they came to be created and how they came to lose their place
in the Garden of Eden. It’s the same story you find in the first
Chapter of pages of Genesis, expanded by Milton into a
very long, detailed, narrative poem. It also includes the story of the
origin of Satan. Originally, he was called Lucifer, an angel in heaven who
led his followers in a war against God, and was ultimately sent with them to
hell. Thirst for revenge led him to cause man's downfall by turning into a
serpent and tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.
The story opens in hell, where Satan and his followers
are recovering from defeat in a war they waged against God. They build a
palace, called Pandemonium, where they hold council to determine whether or
not to return to battle. Instead they decide to explore a new world
prophecied to be created, where a safer course of revenge can be planned.
Satan undertakes the mission alone. At the gate of hell, he meets his
offspring, Sin and Death, who unbar the gates for him. He journeys across
chaos till he sees the new universe floating near the larger globe which is
heaven. God sees Satan flying towards this world and foretells the fall of
man. His Son, who sits at his right hand, offers to sacrifice himself for
man's salvation. Meanwhile, Satan enters the new universe. He flies to the
sun, where he tricks an angel, Uriel, into showing him the way to man's
home.
Satan gains entrance into the Garden of Eden, where he finds
Adam and Eve and becomes jealous of them. He overhears them speak of God's
commandment that they should not eat the forbidden fruit. Uriel warns
Gabriel and his angels, who are guarding the gate of Paradise, of Satan's
presence. Satan is apprehended by them and banished from Eden. God sends
Raphael to warn Adam and Eve about Satan. Raphael recounts to them how
jealousy against the Son of God led a once favored angel to wage war against
God in heaven, and how the Son, Messiah, cast him and his followers into
hell. He relates how the world was created so mankind could one day replace
the fallen angels in heaven.
Satan returns to earth, and enters a serpent. Finding Eve
alone he induces her to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Adam, resigned
to join in her fate, eats also. Their innocence is lost and they become
aware of their nakedness. In shame and despair, they become hostile to each
other. The Son of God descends to earth to judge the sinners, mercifully
delaying their sentence of death. Sin and Death, sensing Satan's success,
build a highway to earth, their new home. Upon his return to hell, instead
of a celebration of victory, Satan and his crew are turned into serpents as
punishment. Adam reconciles with Eve. God sends Michael to expel the pair
from Paradise, but first to reveal to Adam future events resulting from his
sin. Adam is saddened by these visions, but ultimately revived by
revelations of the future coming of the Savior of mankind. In sadness,
mitigated with hope, Adam and Eve are sent away from the Garden of Paradise
The epic poem, from its very inception, was a mixture of
genres. Homer joins epic and tragedy in the Iliad, and epic and romance in
the Odyssey. Virgil's epic is also a "history," and Dante's epic is also a
"comedy." The Renaissance epic is distinguished by its fusion of
genres--epic and romance in Boiardo,
Ariosto, and Tasso; and epic, romance,
and pastoral in Spenser and Sidney. Milton's epic [Paradise Lost] is even
larger in its compass, subsuming all the genres, small and large. Eve's love
song in the fourth book is recognizable as an irregular sonnet, and the
morning hymn of the fifth book as a well-formed ode. The speeches of the
devils in the second book are grotesque perversions of oratorical form.
Still further, within Paradise Lost there is a large infusion of masque,
romance, and comedic elements; and there is, besides, the mock-epic of the
first two books and the brief epic of the last two; there are the pastoral
books and the tragic ones. When Milton acknowledged the pre-eminence of
epic, then, he did not merely endorse a critical commonplace; he
acknowledged that epic was at the apex of all genres because, in
potentiality at least, it contained them all.
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