Paradise LostParadise Lost remains as challenging and relevant today as it was in the turbulent intellectual and political environment in which it was written. This edition aims to bring the poem as fully alive to a modern reader as it would have been to Milton's contemporaries. It provides a newly edited text of the 1674 edition of the poem--the last of Milton's lifetime--with carefully modernized spelling and punctuation. Marginal glosses define unfamiliar words, and extensive annotations at the foot of the page clarify Milton's syntax and poetics, and explore the range of literary, biblical, and political allusions that point to his major concerns. David Kastan's lively Introduction considers the central interpretative issues raised by the poem, demonstrating how thoroughly it engaged the most vital--and contested--issues of Milton's time, and which reveal themselves as no less vital, and perhaps no less contested, today. The edition also includes an essay on the text, a chronology of major events in Milton's life, and a selected bibliography, as well as the first known biography of Milton, written by Edward Phillips in 1694. |
From inside the book
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... angels are the focus, too, of many of the striking epic similes (e.g., the rebellious angels lying “thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks / In Vallombrosa” (1.302–3), itself an echo of Aeneid 6.309–10). The fallen angels ...
... angels are God's creatures. Satan, of course, cannot agree that they were “made,” for with that admission the legitimacy of the rebellion collapses. In sight of Eden he admits to himself that God “created” him (4.43), but publicly he ...
... angels to God (6.1–2)—and depth, for the rebel angels dig up “the celestial soil” and find “beneath” the surface raw materials for their arms (6.509–20). It has walls “With opal towers and battlements adorned / Of living sapphire ...
... angelic effort in the poem that are mainly designed, as the angel says, “to inure / Our prompt obedience” (8.239–40), is at least potentially efficacious and clearly intended primarily for Adam and Eve's benefit: “for thy good / This is ...
... angels, the forbidden tree, Heaven, hell, earth, chaos, all; the argument 5 Held me a while misdoubting his intent, That he would ruin (for I saw him strong) The sacred truths to fable and old song (So Samson groped the temple's posts ...
Contents
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The Life of Milton | 407 |
A Chronology of the Main Events in Miltons Life | 425 |