Paradise Lost John Milton

Humanism had a profound impact on European society during the Renaissance. This movement transformed the thinking processes of many Europeans, altering the way these people viewed themselves, their lives, and their place in the world. Literature...

There is a minor ambiguity in this title, which must be clarified for the purposes of this essay. The emphasis on an impression of the characters changing as you read more of the poem, may indicate the effect on a reader's initial interpretation...

John Milton uses epic similes in Paradise Lost to accomplish many objectives. The most basic of these is to connect the past and the present, as the epic similes are often in present tense and involve a human figure that will not exist until after...

In Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, God's only two commandments to his newest creations, the humans Adam and Eve, contradict each other. This is because God incorporates the contradictory notions of both faith and reason into the law by which he...

"...[F]rom what state

I fell, how glorious once above [the Sun's] sphere;

Till pride and worse ambition threw me down

Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King:

Ah wherefore! He deserved no such return

From me, whom he created what I was

In that...

Perhaps the most seductive method of interpreting existence is through the bifocal lenses of morality. Whether in a religious or non-religious sense, almost every civilization, institution, and human has had its own demarcation of Good and Evil....

In Paradise Lost, Milton plays with the preconceived notions of his readers by presenting perspectives perhaps never before imagined. God is not strictly the protagonist and Satan is not strictly the antagonist, on the contrary Satan is presented...

In Milton's Paradise Lost, angels and men are arranged in a divinely established hierarchy based on their relative proximity to God. Through the course of the epic, characters develop different and often conflicting conceptions of the spiritual...

The world of Milton's Paradise Lost is a world of discourse, full of divine as well as human speech. When God creates Christ, he calls him "thou my Word, begotten son, by thee/ This I perform" (VII. 165-6). Indeed, the concept of the "Word" (Greek...

John Milton's Paradise Lost is an epic that has influenced the Christian perception of God, Satan, sin, and the origin of mankind for centuries. His poetic account of the creation story, though, clearly expands on several aspects within the most...

Part of Milton's genius lies in his ability to stack motif on top of motif, theme on top of theme and image on top of image with high density, without losing any of the effectiveness of his words; in fact, that density increases the effectiveness....

Satan's account

I

169: But see the angry victor hath recalled

170: His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

171: Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail

172: Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid

173: The fiery surge, that from the...

In Metaphysics, Aristotle creates a series of dualities which are intrinsically "male" or "female." Included in this original set of oppositions are light and darkness and good and evil - the former of each duo being inherently associated with the...

Paradise Lost explores the natural aspiration to stand alone and to be distinguished from the multitudes. Adam, Eve, Satan, even God himself strain to assert their superiority and godliness by attempting to wield the most visible proof of godly...

"Paradise has been lost." Frank Henenlotter's 1990 film, a campy retooling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by the name of Frankenhooker (Wolf 344), tells the tale of a mad scientist who, in order to bring his wife back to life, decapitates,...

Milton dedicated his life to the war of good and evil; this is apparent in his epic poem "Paradise Lost," but also in his political battles against the Royalists who abused the power of the monarchy and the Presbyterians who wanted to mandate...

Although God asserts otherwise in Milton's work "Paradise Lost", it seems certain that it was God's will, and not the cunning endeavors of Satan, that provided for the inevitable fall of man. Aware that Satan was the physical manifestation of...

Mel Gibson's recent film, The Passion of the Christ, opens with an ominous scene where Satan endeavours to dissuade Jesus from bearing the cross for the entire human race. What is peculiar about Satan's temptation are the questions that he...

Book Six of John Milton's Paradise Lost is a continuation of the angel Raphael's discourse to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He is recounting the fall of Satan, and focuses on the battles that take place between the angels and rebel angels....

It is important to note that a hero is not always someone who is working for the sake of furthering a just cause and that he does not have to be admired by everyone, including the reader. In fact, John Milton presents his audience with a quite...

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it” (389). While this analysis by William Blake recognizes clear...

The philosophy of Milton’s time focuses primarily on the idea of hierarchy. Hierarchy is necessary in thought because all the categories of being indicate how things are ordered and demonstrate degrees in all the dimensions (Kuntz 8). The ideas of...

Satan is no longer to be feared: he is to be jeered, scorned, and mocked! At least this is the attitude shared by notable scholars like C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther, and Thomas More. Lewis devoted a whole book, The Screwtape Letters, to the cause;...

“After judgement done, mercy shown and redemption promised, the depiction of the hellish trinity- Satan, Sin and Death- appears grotesque.” Discuss.

In opposition to the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost), Paradise...