Paradise Lost

by John Milton

Overview

“The greatest epic poem in the English language . . . A work of unparalleled imaginative genius that shapes English literature even now.” —Benjamin Ramm, BBC.com
 
Written in blank verse by the seventeenth-century English poet John Milton, this “epic of over 10,000 lines is a dramatic, imaginative version of Satan’s rebellion against God and of Adam and Eve’s eviction from Eden. Set at the beginnings of human history, it shifts us across an expansive universe: Heaven at the top—Earth dangling from it—and Hell at the bottom, a dark gloomy Chaos in between. It tells the story of divine creation, human ambition and hopeless rebellion, but is perhaps most famous for its presentation of Satan, an intensely deep character” (New Statesman).
 
“Milton’s cosmos is a visionary unfolding and enfolding of the biblical map with others from his vast mental bookstore. Paradise Lost itself is a densely intertextual amalgam of fictional worlds, made newly brilliant by the imagination behind the poet’s now sightless eyes, embodied in blank verse at its most vigorously muscled. . . . That verse flows, twists, ripples and thunders like a team of miraculously tireless and synchronised horses. It’s the perfect body-mind work-out.” —The Guardian

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504062107
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

John Milton was an English poet and intellectual, who was employed as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State, and later under Oliver Cromwell. Milton wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, written In blank verse.

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PARADISE LOST the printer to the reader
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Paradise Lost"
by .
Copyright © 2003 John Milton.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note on the Text

Paradise Lost

• Andrew Marvell, “On Paradise Lost”
• The Verse
• Book 1
• Book 2
• Book 3
• Book 4
• Book 5
• Book 6
• Book 7
• Book 8
• Book 9
• Book 10
• Book 11
• Book 12

In Context

• Reproductions of the 1674 Paradise Lost
• The Cosmography of Paradise Lost
• Illustrations of Paradise Lost
• Selections from the Bible
  • Genesis 1–3: The Creation
  • Genesis 18: Angels and God
  • Job 1: Satan
  • John 1.1–14: The Son
  • 1 Timothy 2.8–15: Eve in the New Testament
  • Revelation 12: The War in Heaven
• from Hesiod, Theogony
• John Milton’s Early Plans for Paradise Lost
• from John Milton, Areopagitica (1644)
• from John Milton, De Doctrina Christiana (c. 1658–74)
  • from The Epistle
  • from Chapter 2, Of God
  • from Chapter 5, Of the Son of God
  • from Chapter 7, Of the Creation
  • from Chapter 30, Of the Holy Scripture

Permissions Acknowledgments

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Barbara Lewalski is the doyenne of the community of Milton scholars, but she also remains committed to the enterprise of teaching. In this exemplary edition of Paradise Lost both qualities are in evidence: the text is scrupulous and the scholarship rigorous, but both the introduction and the notes are accommodated to the needs of students who will be coming to the poem for the first time. This is an edition that will please students and professors alike, and its sheer quality is a tribute to Barbara Lewalski's passion to provide readers with all the help they need to understand the greatest of all English poems."
–Gordon Campbell, University of Leicester

"Teachers and scholars will welcome Barbara Lewalski’s Blackwell edition of Paradise Lost, one not only informed by the erudition of a prominent and highly respected Miltonist but advantaged by her sound decision to reproduce the original language, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italics of the 1674 text."
–Edward Jones, Editor, Milton Quarterly

"For the student or general reader, looking for an old-spelling edition that is faithful to the original punctuation, this edition has much to recommend it. Its annotation is crisp, purposeful and well-judged."
–Thomas N. Corns, University of Wales, Bangor

"A superb teaching text. Lewalski’s edition respects Milton’s original poem and offers supremely clear introductions, bibliography and special material to guide the student reader and educated lay person alike to new discoveries in a work that, quite simply, has it all: good, evil, God, Satan, humans, angels, love, despair, war, politics, sex, duty, and sublime poetry—set in a cosmic landscape that inspires wonder and seduces new readers in every generation."
–Sharon Achinstein, Oxford University

Editorial Reviews

Even a dozen critical essays, representative of the postmodern wave that has largely displaced liberal humanism in English studies in the years in which they were written (1970-96), do not dethrone Satan as the flawed hero of Milton's masterwork. Contributors vivisect, yet manage to convey, the contemporary relevance of the seminal 17th century epic poem with interpretations from Marxist/ historicist, feminist, psychoanalytic, and poststructuralist approaches. The editor provides a concisely informative introduction to the English Revolution and modern contexts for deconstructing . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

Booknews

Wonderful! Hughes' edition is unexcelled! —Carol V. Kaske, Cornell University

From the Publisher