Action Plan For The Project:
1. Selection of the topic.
2. Approval of the topic by the teacher in
charge.
3. Research work on the given topic.
4. Exploring the content with multiple
resources.
5. Analysing the literary work properly
which is given by guide.
6. Preparation of a Detailed Report.
Objectives of the ALS Project:
1. Aims to the check the listening capacity.
2. To encourage the abilities.
3. To stimulate the inter and intra personal skills.
4. To determine the innovation and creativity skills.
Index
S.no Topic Pg.no
1. Cover Page
2. Acknowledgment
3. Certificate of Guide
4. Certificate of Student
5. Action Plan
6. Objectives of ALS
7. Paradise Lost- About the Author
8. Composition
9. Structure
10. Synopsis
11. Characters
12. Famous Quotes
13. Interpretation And Critique
14. Christian Epic
15. Black Verse
16. Iconography
17. Report
18. Bibliography
PARADISE LOST
About the author:
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and
intellectual who served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its
Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux
and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667).
Written in blank verse, Paradise Lost is widely considered to be one of the greatest
works of literature ever written.[1]
Writing in English, Latin, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his
lifetime; his celebrated Areopagitica (1644), written in condemnation of pre-
publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences
of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His desire for freedom extended into his
style: he introduced new words (coined from Latin and Ancient Greek) to the English
language, and was the first modern writer to employ unrhymed verse outside of the
theatre or translations.
William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", [2] and he
remains generally regarded "as one of the pre-eminent writers in the English
language",[3] though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death
(often on account of his republicanism). Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a
poem which ... with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to
performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind", though he
(a Tory) described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly
republican".[4] Poets such as William Blake, William Wordsworth and Thomas
Hardy revered him.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Title page of the first edition (1667)
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John
Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with
over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into
twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout. It is
considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of
the greatest English poets of his time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall
of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion
from the Garden of Eden.
Composition
Milton Dictating to His Daughter, Henry Fuseli (1794)
In his introduction to the Penguin edition of Paradise Lost, the Milton scholar John
Leonard notes, "John Milton was nearly sixty when he published Paradise Lost in
1667. The biographer John Aubrey (1626–1697) tells us that the poem was begun in
about 1658 and finished in about 1663. However, parts were almost certainly written
earlier, and its roots lie in Milton's earliest youth." Leonard speculates that the English
Civil War interrupted Milton's earliest attempts to start his "epic [poem] that would
encompass all space and time."
Leonard also notes that Milton "did not at first plan to write a biblical epic." Since
epics were typically written about heroic kings and queens (and with pagan gods),
Milton originally envisioned his epic to be based on a legendary Saxon or British king
like the legend of King Arthur.
Having gone blind in 1652, Milton wrote Paradise Lost entirely through dictation with
the help of amanuenses and friends. He also wrote the epic poem while he was often
ill, suffering from gout, and despite suffering emotionally after the early death of his
second wife, Katherine Woodcock, in 1658, and the death of their infant daughter.
Structure;
In the 1667 version of Paradise Lost, the poem was divided into ten books. However, in
the 1674 edition, the text was reorganized into twelve books. In later printing,
"Arguments" (brief summaries) were inserted at the beginning of each book.
Milton used a number of acrostics in the poem. In Book 9, a verse describing
the serpent which tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden spells
out "SATAN" (9.510), while elsewhere in the same book, Milton spells out "FFAALL"
and "FALL" (9.333). Respectively, these probably represent the double fall of
humanity embodied in Adam and Eve, as well as Satan's fall from Heaven
Synopsis
Gustave Doré, The Heavenly Hosts, c. 1866, illustration to Paradise Lost.
The poem follows the epic tradition of starting in medias res (in the midst of things),
the background story being recounted later.
Milton's story has two narrative arcs, one about Satan (Lucifer) and the other, Adam
and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other fallen angels have been defeated and
banished to Hell, or, as it is also called in the poem, Tartarus. In Pandæmonium, the
capital city of Hell, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organise his followers; he is
aided by Mammon and Beelzebub. Belial and Moloch are also present. At the end of
the debate, Satan volunteers to corrupt the newly created Earth and God's new and
most favoured creation, Mankind. He braves the dangers of the Abyss alone, in a
manner reminiscent of Odysseus or Aeneas. After an arduous traversal of the Chaos
outside Hell, he enters God's new material World, and later the Garden of Eden.
At several points in the poem, an Angelic War over Heaven is recounted from different
perspectives. Satan's rebellion follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. The
battles between the faithful angels and Satan's forces take place over three days. At the
final battle, the Son of God single-handedly defeats the entire legion of angelic rebels
and banishes them from Heaven. Following this purge, God creates the World,
culminating in his creation of Adam and Eve. While God gave Adam and Eve total
freedom and power to rule over all creation, he gave them one explicit command: not
to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on penalty of death.
The story of Adam and Eve's temptation and fall is a fundamentally different, new kind
of epic: a domestic one. Adam and Eve are presented as having a romantic and sexual
relationship while still being without sin. They have passions and distinct personalities.
Satan, disguised in the form of a serpent, successfully tempts Eve to eat from the Tree
by preying on her vanity and tricking her with rhetoric. Adam, learning that Eve has
sinned, knowingly commits the same sin. He declares to Eve that since she was made
from his flesh, they are bound to one another – if she dies, he must also die. In this
manner, Milton portrays Adam as an heroic figure, but also as a greater sinner than
Eve, as he is aware that what he is doing is wrong.
After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have lustful sex. At first, Adam is convinced that
Eve was right in thinking that eating the fruit would be beneficial. However, they soon
fall asleep and have terrible nightmares, and after they awake, they
experience guilt and shame for the first time. Realising that they have committed a
terrible act against God, they engage in mutual recrimination.
Meanwhile, Satan returns triumphantly to Hell, amid the praise of his fellow fallen
angels. He tells them about how their scheme worked and Mankind has fallen, giving
them complete dominion over Paradise. As he finishes his speech, however, the fallen
angels around him become hideous snakes, and soon enough, Satan himself turns into
a snake, deprived of limbs and unable to talk. Thus, they share the same punishment,
as they shared the same guilt.
Eve appeals to Adam for reconciliation of their actions. Her encouragement enables
them to approach God, and sue for grace, bowing on supplicant knee, to receive
forgiveness. In a vision shown to him by the Archangel Michael, Adam witnesses
everything that will happen to Mankind until the Great Flood. Adam is very upset by
this vision of the future, so Michael also tells him about Mankind's potential
redemption from original sin through Jesus Christ (whom Michael calls "King
Messiah").
Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden, and Michael says that Adam may find "a paradise
within thee, happier far." Adam and Eve now have a more distant relationship with
God, who is omnipresent but invisible (unlike the tangible Father in the Garden of
Eden).
Characters
Satan
Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels, William Blake (1808)
Satan, formerly called Lucifer, is the first major character introduced in the poem. He
was once the most beautiful of all angels, and is a tragic figure who famously declares:
"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (1.263). Following his
vain rebellion against God he is cast out from Heaven and condemned to Hell. The
rebellion stems from Satan's pride and envy (5.660ff.).
Satan is powerful and charismatic. His persuasive powers are evident throughout the
book. He is not only cunning and deceptive: he is also able to rally the fallen angels to
continue in the rebellion after their agonizing defeat in the Angelic War. Though
commonly understood to be the antagonizing force in Paradise Lost,[ Satan may be
best defined as a tragic or Hellenic hero. According to William McCollom one quality
of the classical tragic hero is that he is not perfectly good and that his defeat is caused
by a tragic flaw. Satan causes both the downfall of man and the eternal damnation of
his fellow fallen angels despite his dedication to his comrades. In addition, Satan's
Hellenic qualities, such as his immense courage and, perhaps, lack of completely
defined morals compound his tragic nature.
Satan's status as a protagonist in the epic poem is debated. Milton characterizes him
as such, but Satan lacks several key traits that would otherwise make him the definitive
protagonist in the work. One deciding factor that insinuates his role as the protagonist
in the story is that most often a protagonist is heavily characterized and far better
described than the other characters, and the way the character is written is meant to
make him seem more interesting or special to the reader. For that matter, Satan is both
well described and is depicted as being quite versatile in that he is shown as having the
capacity to do evil while retaining his characteristic sympathetic qualities and thus it is
this complex and relatable nature that makes him a likely candidate for the story's
overarching protagonist.
By some definitions a protagonist must be able to exist in and of themselves and the
secondary characters in the work exist only to further the plot for the
protagonist. Because Satan does not exist solely for himself, as without God he would
not have a role to play in the story, he may not be viewed as the protagonist because of
the continual shifts in perspective and relative importance of characters in each book
of the work. Satan's existence in the story involves his rebellion against God, and his
determination to corrupt the beings which God creates, in order to perpetuate evil so
that there can be a discernible balance and justice for both himself and his fallen
angels. Therefore, it is more probable that he exists in order to combat God, making
his status as the definitive protagonist of the work relative to each book. Following this
logic, Satan may very well be considered as an antagonist in the poem, whereas God
could be considered as the protagonist instead.
Satan's status as a traditional hero in the work is similarly up to debate as the term
"hero" evokes different meanings depending on the time and the person giving the
definition, and is thus a matter of contention within the text. According to Aristotle, a
hero is someone who is "superhuman, godlike, and divine" but is also human. A hero
would have to either be a human with God-like powers or the offspring of God. While
Milton gives reason to believe that Satan is superhuman, as he was originally an
angel, he is anything but human. However, one could argue that Satan's faults make
him more human than any other divine being described in Milton's work, as Torquato
Tasso and Francesco Piccolomini expanded on Aristotle's definition, and declared that
to be heroic one has to be perfectly or overly virtuous. In this regard, Satan repeatedly
demonstrates a lack of virtue throughout the story as he intends to tempt God's
creations with evil in order to destroy the good which God is trying to create.
Therefore, Satan is not a hero according to Tasso and Piccolomini's expanded
definition. Satan goes against God's law and therefore becomes corrupt and lacking of
virtue, and, as Piccolomini warned, "vice may be mistaken for heroic virtue." Satan is
very devoted to his cause. His cause is evil but he strives to spin his sinister aspirations
to appear as good ones.[citation needed] Satan achieves this end multiple times throughout
the text as he riles up his band of fallen angels during his speech by deliberately telling
them to do evil to explain God's hypocrisy and again during his entreaty to Eve. He
makes his intentions seem pure and positive even when they are rooted in evil and,
according to Steadman, this is the chief reason that readers often mistake Satan as a
hero. Although Satan's army inevitably loses the war against God, Satan achieves a
position of power and begins his reign in Hell with his band of loyal followers,
composed of fallen angels, which is described to be a "third of heaven." Satan's
characterization as the leader of a failing cause folds into this as well and is best
exemplified through his own quote.
Fall'n Cherube, to be weak is miserable
Doing or Suffering: but of this be sure,
To do ought good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his Providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from thir destind aim. (1.157–168)
as through shared solidarity espoused by empowering rhetoric, Satan riles up his
comrades in arms and keeps them focused towards their shared goal. Similar to
Milton's republican sentiments of overthrowing the King of England for both better
representation and parliamentary power, Satan argues that his shared rebellion with
the fallen angels is an effort to "explain the hypocrisy of God," and in doing so, they
will be treated with the respect and acknowledgement that they deserve. As scholar
Wayne Rebhorn argues, "Satan insists that he and his fellow revolutionaries held their
places by right and even leading him to claim that they were self-created and self-
sustained" and thus Satan's position in the rebellion is much like that of his own real
world creator.
Adam
Adam is the first human created by God. Adam requests a companion from God:
Of fellowship I speak
Such as I seek, fit to participate
All rational delight, wherein the brute
Cannot be human consort. (8.389–392)
God approves his request then creates Eve. God appoints Adam and Eve to rule over
all the creatures of the world and to reside in the Garden of Eden.
Adam is more gregarious than Eve and yearns for her company. He is completely
infatuated with her. Raphael advises him to "take heed lest Passion sway / Thy
Judgment" (5.635–636). But Adam's great love for Eve contributes to his disobedience
to God.
Unlike the biblical Adam, before Milton's Adam leaves Paradise he is given a glimpse
of the future of mankind by the Archangel Michael, which includes stories from
the Old and New Testaments.
Eve
Eve is the second human created by God. God takes one of Adam's ribs and shapes it
into Eve. Whether Eve is actually inferior to Adam is a vexed point. She is often
unwilling to be submissive. Eve may be the more intelligent of the two. She is generally
happy, but longs for knowledge, specifically for self-knowledge.When she first met
Adam she turned away, more interested in herself. She had been looking at her
reflection in a lake before being led invisibly to Adam. Recounting this to Adam she
confesses that she found him less enticing than her reflection (4.477-480). Nonetheless,
Adam later explains this to Raphael as Eve's
Innocence and Virgin Modestie,
Her vertue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won. (8.501–503)
But Adam's judgment is not always sound. And Eve is beautiful.
Though Eve does love Adam she may feel suffocated by his constant presence. In Book
9 she convinces Adam to separate for a time to work in different parts of the Garden.
In her solitude she is deceived by Satan. Satan in the serpent leads Eve to the forbidden
tree then persuades her that he has eaten of its fruit and gained knowledge and that
she should do the same. She is not easily persuaded to eat, but is hungry in body and in
mind.
The Son of God
The Judgment of Adam and Eve: "So Judged He Man", William Blake (1808)
The Son of God is the spirit who will become incarnate as Jesus Christ, though he is
never named explicitly because he has not yet entered human form. Milton believed in
a subordinationist doctrine of Christology that regarded the Son as secondary to the
Father and as God's "great Vice-regent" (5.609).
Milton's God in Paradise Lost refers to the Son as "My word, my wisdom, and effectual
might" (3.170). The poem is not explicitly anti-trinitarian, but it is consistent with
Milton's convictions. The Son is the ultimate hero of the epic and is infinitely
powerful—he single-handedly defeats Satan and his followers and drives them into
Hell. After their fall, the Son of God tells Adam and Eve about God's judgment. Before
their fall the Father foretells their "Treason" (3.207) and that Man
with his whole posteritie must dye,
Dye hee or Justice must; unless for him
Som other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death. (3.210–212)
The Father then asks whether there "Dwels in all Heaven charitie so deare?" (3.216)
And the Son volunteers himself.
In the final book a vision of Salvation through the Son is revealed to Adam by Michael.
The name Jesus of Nazareth, and the details of Jesus' story are not depicted in the
poem though they are alluded to. Michael explains that "Joshua, whom the Gentiles
Jesus call," prefigures the Son of God, "his name and office bearing" to "quell / The
adversarie Serpent, and bring back [...] long wander[e]d man / Safe to eternal
Paradise of rest."
God the Father
God the Father is the creator of Heaven, Hell, the world, of everyone and everything
there is, through the agency of His Son. Milton presents God as all-powerful and all-
knowing, as an infinitely great being who cannot be overthrown by even the great army
of angels Satan incites against him. Milton portrays God as often conversing about his
plans and his motives for his actions with the Son of God. The poem shows God
creating the world in the way Milton believed it was done, that is, God created
Heaven, Earth, Hell, and all the creatures that inhabit these separate planes from part
of Himself, not out of nothing. Thus, according to Milton, the ultimate authority of God
over all things that happen derives from his being the "author" of all creation. Satan
tries to justify his rebellion by denying this aspect of God and claiming self-creation,
but he admits to himself the truth otherwise, and that God "deserved no such return /
From me, whom He created what I was”.
Raphael
Raphael is an affable archangel whom God sends to Eden:
half this day as friend with friend
Converse with Adam, [...]
and such discourse bring on,
As may advise him of his happie state,
Happiness in his power left free to will,
Left to his own free Will, his Will though free,
Yet mutable; whence warne him to beware
He swerve not too secure: tell him withall
His danger, and from whom, what enemie
Late falln himself from Heav'n, is plotting now
The fall of others from like state of bliss;
By violence, no, for that shall be withstood,
But by deceit and lies; this let him know,
Lest wilfully transgressing he pretend
Surprisal, unadmonisht, unforewarnd. (5.229–245)
Raphael discusses at length with the curious Adam what has transpired and pertains to
present and future happiness. He admonishes Adam kindly. The extent to which Eve is
present with or interested in Raphael is unclear.
Michael
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, William Blake (1808)
Michael is an archangel who is preeminent in military prowess. He leads in battle and
uses a sword which was "giv'n him temperd so, that neither keen / Nor solid might
resist that edge" (6.322–323).
God sends Michael to Eden, charging him:
from the Paradise of God
Without remorse drive out the sinful Pair
From hallowd ground th' unholie, and denounce
To them and to thir Progenie from thence
Perpetual banishment. [...]
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveale
To Adam what shall come in future dayes,
As I shall thee enlighten, intermix
My Cov'nant in the womans seed renewd;
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace. (11.103–117)
He is also charged with establishing a guard for Paradise.
When Adam sees him coming he describes him to Eve as
not terrible,
That I should fear, nor sociably mild,
As Raphael, that I should much confide,
But solemn and sublime, whom not to offend,
With reverence I must meet, and thou retire. (11.233–237)
Famous Quotes:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the
courage never to submit or yield.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so
deep...”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend...”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“For so I created them free and free they must remain.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“What hath night to do with sleep?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Solitude sometimes is best society.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
Interpretation and critique
The writer and critic Samuel Johnson wrote that Paradise Lost shows off "[Milton's]
peculiar power to astonish" and that "[Milton] seems to have been well acquainted
with his own genius, and to know what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more
bountifully than upon others: the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the
splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful."
Milton scholar John Leonard interpreted the "impious war" between Heaven and Hell
as civil war:
Paradise Lost is, among other things, a poem about civil war. Satan raises 'impious
war in Heav'n' (i 43) by leading a third of the angels in revolt against God. The term
'impious war' implies that civil war is impious. But Milton applauded the English
people for having the courage to depose and execute King Charles I. In his poem,
however, he takes the side of 'Heav'n's awful Monarch' (iv 960). Critics have long
wrestled with the question of why an antimonarchist and defender of regicide should
have chosen a subject that obliged him to defend monarchical authority.
The editors at the Poetry Foundation argue that Milton's criticism of the English
monarchy was being directed specifically at the Stuart monarchy and not at the
monarchy system in general.
In a similar vein, C.S. Lewis argued that there was no contradiction in Milton's
position in the poem since "Milton believed that God was his 'natural superior' and
that Charles Stuart was not." Lewis interpreted the poem as a genuine Christian
morality tale. Other critics, like William Empson, view it as a more ambiguous work,
with Milton's complex characterization of Satan playing a large part in that perceived
ambiguity. Empson argued that "Milton deserves credit for making God wicked, since
the God of Christianity is 'a wicked God.'" Leonard places Empson's interpretation "in
the [Romantic interpretive] tradition of William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley."
Blake famously wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "The reason Milton wrote
in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is
because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." This quotation
succinctly represents the way in which some 18th- and 19th-century English Romantic
poets viewed Milton.
Speaking of the complexity of Milton's epic are John Rogers' lectures which try their
best to synthesize the "advantages and limitations of a diverse range of interpretive
techniques and theoretical concerns in Milton scholarship and criticism."
Empson's view is complex. Leonard points out that "Empson never denies that Satan's
plan is wicked. What he does deny is that God is innocent of its wickedness: 'Milton
steadily drives home that the inmost counsel of God was the Fortunate Fall of man;
however wicked Satan's plan may be, it is God's plan too [since God in Paradise
Lost is depicted as being both omniscient and omnipotent].”Leonard calls Empson's
view "a powerful argument"; he notes that this interpretation was challenged by
Dennis Danielson in his book Milton's Good God (1982).
Christian epic
Tobias Gregory wrote that Milton was "the most theologically learned among early
modern epic poets. He was, moreover, a theologian of great independence of mind,
and one who developed his talents within a society where the problem of divine justice
was debated with particular intensity." Gregory says that Milton is able to establish
divine action and his divine characters in a superior way to other Renaissance epic
poets, including Ludovico Ariosto or Tasso.
In Paradise Lost Milton also ignores the traditional epic format of a plot based on a
mortal conflict between opposing armies with deities watching over and occasionally
interfering with the action. Instead, both divinity and mortal are involved in a conflict
that, while momentarily ending in tragedy, offers a future salvation. In both Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained, Milton incorporates aspects of Lucan's epic model, the
epic from the view of the defeated. Although he does not accept the model completely
within Paradise Regained, he incorporates the "anti-Virgilian, anti-imperial epic
tradition of Lucan" .Milton goes further than Lucan in this belief and "Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained carry further, too, the movement toward and valorization
of romance that Lucan's tradition had begun, to the point where Milton's poems
effectively create their own new genre".
Blank verse
Blank verse was not much used in the non-dramatic poetry of the 17th century
until Paradise Lost, in which Milton used it with much license and tremendous skill.
Milton used the flexibility of blank verse, and its capacity to support syntactic
complexity, to the utmost. Milton also wrote Paradise Regained and parts of Samson
Agonistes in blank verse.
Although Milton was not the first to use blank verse, his use of it was very influential
and he became known for the style. When Miltonic verse became popular, Samuel
Johnson mocked Milton for inspiring bad blank verse, but he recognized that Milton's
verse style was very influential. Poets such as Alexander Pope, whose final, incomplete
work was intended to be written in the form, and John Keats, who complained that he
relied too heavily on Milton, adopted and picked up various aspects of his poetry. In
particular, Miltonic blank verse became the standard for those attempting to write
English epics for centuries following the publication of Paradise Lost and his later
poetry. The poet Robert Bridges analyzed his versification in the monograph Milton's
Prosody.
Iconography
The Shepherd’s Dream, from "Paradise Lost", Henry Fuseli (1793)
In Sin, Death and the Devil (1792), James Gillray caricatured the political battle
between Pitt and Thurlow as a scene from Paradise Lost. Pitt is Death and Thurlow
Satan, with Queen Charlotte as Sin in the middle.
The first illustrations to accompany the text of Paradise Lost were added to the fourth
edition of 1688, with one engraving prefacing each book, of which up to eight of the
twelve were by Sir John Baptist Medina, one by Bernard Lens II, and perhaps up to
four (including Books I and XII, perhaps the most memorable) by another hand. The
engraver was Michael Burghers (given as 'Burgesse' in some sources). By 1730 the
same images had been re-engraved on a smaller scale by Paul Fourdrinier.
Some of the most notable illustrators of Paradise Lost included William Blake, Gustave
Doré, and Henry Fuseli. However, the epic's illustrators also include John
Martin, Edward Francis Burney, Richard Westall, Francis Hayman, and many others.
Outside of book illustrations, the epic has also inspired other visual works by well-
known painters like Salvador Dalí who executed a set of ten colour engravings in
1974. Milton's achievement in writing Paradise Lost while blind (he dictated to
helpers) inspired loosely biographical paintings by both Fuseli and Eugène Delacroix.
Report of the Project:
Bibliography:
www.wikipedia.com
www.poetryfoundation.org
www.britannica.com
www.sparknotes.com
www.paradiselost.org
www.bl.uk
www.goodreads.com
