Paradise Lost Criticism
Paradise Lost, John Milton's monumental epic, continues to captivate scholars and readers with its intricate retelling of the biblical story of Adam and Eve's fall from grace. Since its publication, the poem has been hailed as a pinnacle of English literature, inspiring figures from John Dryden to W. H. Auden. Despite critiques of its perceived stylistic challenges, notably by Samuel Johnson, it remains central to literary discourse. The poem's exploration of themes such as free will, predestination, and the justification of God's ways to men underscores its philosophical and theological breadth.
At the core of the narrative is the character of Satan, whose complex portrayal has drawn extensive critical attention. Critics like C. S. Lewis and Joan S. Bennett have noted Satan's compelling nature and his parallels to historical tyrants, reflecting Milton’s political views. The poem's structure, with its twelve-book form, serves to balance Satan's initial dominant presence, as observed by Arthur E. Barker, and highlights the ultimate power of divine authority, as noted by Geoffrey Hartman.
The poem's treatment of gender roles, particularly in the depiction of Eve, provides a rich area for analysis. Critics such as Diane Kelsey McColley and Maureen Quilligan have explored Eve’s introspection and her pivotal role in the narrative, emphasizing her subjectivity and growth. Diane McColley further suggests that Eve embodies the essence of poetry itself, inviting diverse interpretations regarding her character and actions.
Milton’s integration of various literary forms within Paradise Lost enhances its thematic and stylistic complexity. The poem blends epic and religious genres, a point discussed by Mary Ann Radzinowicz and Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, contributing to its enduring influence and depth. The epic's narrative richness is further explored in terms of its political allegory by Louis L. Martz, who highlights Milton's commentary on freedom and revolution.
Throughout history, Paradise Lost has evoked diverse critical responses, from Romantic admiration to modernist skepticism, with figures like F. R. Leavis and T. S. Eliot questioning its consistency. Despite such critiques, its profound narrative and thematic depth continue to engage scholars across various critical lenses, including feminism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction. As Balachandra Rajan notes, the poem's navigation between epic and tragedy keeps it relevant and resonant in literary scholarship, affirming its status as a formidable work of epic and theological literature.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Paradise Lost, John Milton (Literary Criticism (1400-1800))
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Shapes of Things Divine: Eve, Myth, and Dream
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In this excerpt, Colley examines the scene in which Eve observes herself in the pool after her creation. Colley disputes interpretations that view Eve's actions as a narcissistic impulse, instead maintaining that the scene asserts Eve's free will.
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The Gender of the Reader and the Problem of Sexuality
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In this excerpt, Quilligan looks at the role of reading and listening in Paradise Lost, noting that much of the action in the poem turns on whether Eve assumes a mediate position and with whom, concluding that Eve comes close to demonstrating the poem's “fit reader.”
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‘Other Excellence’: Generic Multiplicity and Milton's Literary God
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In this excerpt, Lewalski suggests that Milton made use of earlier epic types, merged with biblical allusions, to approximate divine models of heroism and power, and to convey the wonder of the Creation.
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Love Made in the First Age: Edenic Sexuality in Paradise Lost and Its Analogues
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In this excerpt, Turner examines Milton's depiction of sexuality before the Fall, observing that Milton appears to envision an innocent eroticism and equal partnership not entirely in keeping with the later admonitions of Raphael and Christ.
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‘Smit with the Love of Sacred Song’: Psalm Genres
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In this excerpt, Radzinowicz suggests that the mixture of psalm genres and classical influences apparent in the work allows Paradise Lost to transcend the epic genre and become an expression of religious worship as well.
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Satan and King Charles: Milton's Royal Portraits
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In this essay, Bennett contends that although Paradise Lost is not a true political allegory, a comparison between Milton's prose works on English history and his characterization of Satan reveals a strong connection between the tyranny of Charles I and the false freedom of the fallen angels.
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Fault Lines: Milton's Mirror of Desire
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In this excerpt, Gregerson discusses the development of subjectivity in Paradise Lost, focusing on the issue of sexual difference and subordination.
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Milton's Spectre in the Restoration: Marvell, Dryden, and Literary Enthusiasm
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In this essay, Achinstein compares Andrew Marvell's and John Dryden's responses to Paradise Lost in terms of the postrevolution issues of political and religious toleration.
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Paradise Lost and the Colonial Imperative
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In this essay, Stevens addresses the issue of colonialism in Milton's poem, countering an earlier argument that Paradise Lost maintained an implicit critique of empire.
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Shapes of Things Divine: Eve, Myth, and Dream
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Paradise Lost, John Milton (Poetry Criticism)
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From The Lives of the English Poets
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In the following excerpt, which originally appeared in his nine-volume work on the lives of the English Poets, Johnson examines the epic's defects—claiming that we do not readily identify with the human protagonists and noting that “none wished it longer than it is”—as well as its greatness, saying that “in reading Paradise Lost we read of universal knowledge.”
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From The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton
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In the following excerpt, which originally appeared in his edition of Milton's poetry, Moody praises Paradise Lost as one of the greatest poems and declares that it is the epic's style which is its surest claim to enduring admiration.
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From A Preface to Paradise Lost
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In the following essay, which originally appeared in his highly influential full-length treatment of Paradise Lost, Lewis calls Satan 'the best drawn of Milton's characters' but insists that the poet did not admire his creation.
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Milton's “Satan” and the Theme of Damnation in Elizabethan Tragedy
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In the following essay, originally published in English Studies in 1948, Gardner considers the character of Satan, responding to other critics' assessments of him and determining that Milton developed the figure dramatically throughout the poem and “expended his creative energies and his full imaginative powers in exploring the fact of perversity within a single heroic figure.”
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Structural Pattern in Paradise Lost
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In the following essay, originally published in Philological Quarterly in 1949, Barker discusses how in Paradise Lost Milton moved away from a Virgilian ten-book, five-act structure to a twelve-book form that ultimately serves to reduce Satan's power over the poem.
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Milton's Counterplot
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In the following essay, which was originally published in ELH: A Journal of English Literary History in 1958, Hartman claims that there are two plots in the epic that work to contrapuntal effect and which serve to emphasize God's remoteness and power.
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Adam Unparadised
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In the following essay, Kermode contends that the basic theme of Paradise Lost is the recognition of lost possibilities and says that to embody this theme Milton exhibits life in a “great symbolic attitude” and not through explanations of how and why.
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The Descent to Light
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In the following essay, which was originally published in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology in 1961, Allen suggests that Paradise Lost should be thought of as an allegory about allegory and sees the movement in the epic as similar to that in the myths of Orpheus and Hercules, as the characters descend into darkness before ascending to light.
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The Language of Paradise Lost
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In the following essay, which was originally published in 1964 as a introduction to his edition of the first two books of Paradise Lost, Rajan surveys other critics' responses to the style of the epic and claims that the work's diction, sound, and imagery contribute to the poetic result of a lucid surface whose depths are charged with meaning.
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Milton's Passionate Epic
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In the following essay, Fixler shows that Milton conceived Paradise Lost as a form of devotional celebration, a revelation and praise of God and his mysteries.
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Milton on Women—Yet Once More
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In the following essay, Lewalski responds to a feminist study of Paradise Lost that looks at the work in terms of sociological role definitions and asserts that such analyses are limited in their ability to assess the true complexity of Milton's treatment of women and the universality of the poem's concerns.
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The Power of Choice
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In the following excerpt from his full-length study of Milton's poetry, Martz discusses the importance of the notion of choice in the epic, pointing out that for Milton human dignity depends on the power of choice—which includes choosing to err as well as make amends for errors.
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The Politics of Poetry: Feminism and Paradise Lost
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In the following essay, Webber claims that Milton, however awkwardly and imperfectly, breaks new ground when he raises issues concerning women's rights and importance.
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Paradise Lost: The Uncertain Epic
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In the following essay, Rajan argues that Paradise Lost is a mixed-genre poem whose primary genre of epic undergoes revisionary treatment in Milton's hands and holds that the work seeks its identity between possibilities of epic and tragedy, or loss and restoration.
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Eve and the Arts of Eden
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In the following essay, McColley argues that for Milton, Eve is the embodiment of poetry, as “she personifies poesy in her work, in the imagery associated with her, and in the method of her vocation.”
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Thir Sex Not Equal Seem'd’: Equality in Paradise Lost
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In the following essay, Wilding argues that in Paradise Lost Milton is less concerned with the issue of sexual equality than with the revolutionary aim of achieving total human equality, “of restoring us to that still unregained blissful seat.”
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From The Lives of the English Poets
(summary)
- Further Reading