Milton: Paradise Lost

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Cambridge University Press, 2004 - 136 pages
This volume offers an accessible and stimulating introduction to one of the most influential texts of western literature. This guide highlights Milton's imaginative daring as he boldly revises the epic tradition, brilliantly elaborates upon Genesis, and shapes his ambitious narrative in order to retell the story of the Fall. The book considers the heretical dimensions of Paradise Lost and its theology, while situating Milton's great poem in its literary, religious, and political contexts. A concluding chapter addresses the influence of Milton's sublime poem as a source of creative inspiration for later writers, from the Restoration to the Romantics. Finally, the volume offers an extremely useful and updated guide to further reading, which students will find invaluable.

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Contents

Paradise Lost in Miltons career and age
1
2 Lycidas
7
3 Writing in the English Revolution and the Restoration
11
4 Milton s blindness
19
5 Miltons theological heresies
23
Interpreting Paradise Lost 6 Say first what cause Paradise Lost and beginnings
29
Paradise Lost and epic ambition
31
8 The voice of the poet
37
12 God providence and free will
72
13 Miltons Eden
78
14 Adam and Eve and human sexuality
81
15 The material cosmos of Paradise Lost
89
16 War in Heaven
93
17 Creation
100
18 The tragedy of the Fall
103
19 Postlapsarian history and the inner paradise
111

9 Answerable styles
46
daring ambition and heroic ideology
55
geographical place and internal state
66
The literary afterlife of Paradise Lost
122
Guide to further reading
130
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