Paradise Lost, by John Milton

1388 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An analysis of paradise lost

As he describes St. Bartholomew’s fair in London with negative imagery, the poet echoes a description of hell in Paradise Lost:
A universe of death
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things
Abominable, unutterable, and worse (PL II.622-6)
Wordsworth takes Milton’s repetition of ‘all’ and replicates it with his own anaphora. The technique conveys the ‘blank confusion’ provoked by the sensory overload of urban life. Milton’s hell is associated with a kind of anonymity where all the angels are lost in a confusing crowd, just like Wordsworth’s London. The poets also share their language. Wordsworth reuses ‘perverse’ and ‘monstrous’ and Milton’s ‘universe of death’ (Prel XIII.141) is present in The Prelude as Wordsworth describes his dwindled creativity. These connections demonstrate the way in which Wordsworth discards Milton’s Christian tropes while emulating and secularising other parts of Paradise Lost. His subversion is gentle though, and does not imply a full-scale rebellion.

This is even clearer in the treatment of nature in The Prelude and Paradise Lost. Satan says that ‘terror be in love/And beauty’ (PL.IX.490-91). Likewise, Wordsworth often portrays Nature as a beautiful, formidable force:
I looked about, and lo!
The Moon stood naked in the Heavens, at height
Immense above my head, and on the shore
I found myself of a huge sea of mist,
Which, meek and silent, rested at my feet.
A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved
All over this still Ocean…(Prel XIII.40-6)
Wordsworth captures the awe Nature inspires as he climbs Snowdon. Personifying the moon as standing ‘immense’ above him, he conveys its superiority over mankind. Furthermore,...

... middle of paper ...

...ll extent of their interaction but nevertheless, Wordsworth’s idolisation of Paradise Lost is obvious. The changes made to Miltonic epic in The Prelude are done to update the epic genre for a post-Enlightenment audience - similar to Milton’s Christianisation of the pagan epic. The Prelude’s narrative structure is a perfect example of Milton’s legacy, and confirms that Wordsworth’s emulation and revision originates from an appreciation, rather than an anxiety of, his predecessor.

Works Cited

• T.S. Eliot, Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947)
• Lucy Newlyn, Paradise Lost and the Romantic Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
• William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805 text), in William Wordsworth: The Major Works edited by Stephen Gill (Oxford World’s Classics)
• John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667, revised 1674), ed. Alastair Fowler (2nd ed. Longman)

Show More
Related

  • Satan, the Core of Milton´s Paradise Lost

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    The great debate whether Satan is the hero of Milton’s Epic Poem, Paradise Lost, has been speculated for hundreds of years. Milton, a writer devoted to theology and the appraisal of God, may not have intended for his portrayal of Satan to be marked as heroic. Yet, this argument is valid and shares just how remarkable the study of literature can be. Milton wrote his tale of the fall of man in the 1674. His masterpiece is an example of how ideas of a society change with time. This is because it wasn’t until the 1800’s during the Romantic era, that people no longer saw the hero of literary works as perfect in every way. It started to become more popular to develop the flawed character similar to the ones written in the classics. A literary criterion that is based on a protagonist, who undergoes conflict on the outside and from within and is prevented by a specific flaw to accomplish their main goal, creates an epic Hero. In Paradise Lost, God does not face conflict because he is perfect and all-knowing, and Adam’s conflict is not presented from the very start, Satan’s is. Because Satan is the main character of the work and possesses qualities that would deem him heroic, such as his determination against tough odds, his ability to lead, and his human-like nature to error, he can be seen has the Hero of the famous poem.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein: A Warning Against Masculine Individualistic Freedom

    1657 Words  | 4 Pages

    Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." John Milton: The Major Works. Ed. Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 355-618.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein Compared to Paradise Lost

    613 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley intertwines an intricate web of allusions through her characters' insatiable desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his creature allude to John Milton?s epic poem Paradise Lost. The legendary Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously immaculate world. In one split second sin was birthed, and the perfection of the earth was swept away, leaving anguish and iniquity in its ramification. The troubles of Victor Frankenstein began with his quest for knowledge, and, end where both pieces end: death.

    Read More

  • Comparing Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and William Wordsworth’s The Thorn

    1707 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wordsworth, William. “The Thorn.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. 2B. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. New York: Longman, 1999. 319-325.

    Read More

  • The Power of Milton’s Paradise Lost

    2224 Words  | 5 Pages

    The theological aspects that arise in the excerpt are original sin, grace, atonement, and the resurrection of Christ. Lines 203 through 209 speak about man’s wrong doing to God. “But yet all is not done; Man disobeying, Disloyal breaks his fealty, and sins Against the high Supremacy of Heav’n,…” Milton puts emphasis on the fact that all men must die “He with his whole posterity must die.” These lines introduce the concept of original sin in the excerpt. The doctrine of original sin is that because of Adam’s fall in the garden and their disobedience to God in eating the forbidden fruit, men are held accountable for their sin because of Adam’s disobedience men take on a sin nature.

    Read More

  • Lycidas: Poetry and Death

    3790 Words  | 8 Pages

    Living in a period of important religious and cultural flux, John Milton's poetry reflects the many influences he found both in history and in the contemporary world. With a vast knowledge of literature from the classical world of Greek and Roman culture, Milton often looked back to more ancient times as a means of enriching his works. At other times, however, he relies on his strong Christian beliefs for creating spiritually compelling themes and deeply religious imagery. Despite the seemingly conflicting nature of these two polarized sources of inspiration, Milton somehow found a way of bridging the gap between a pagan and a Christian world, often weaving them together into one overpowering story. The pastoral elegy Lycidas, written after the death of a fellow student at Cambridge, exemplifies this mastery over ancient and contemporary traditions in its transition from a pagan to a Christian context. Opening the poem in a setting rich with mythological figures and scenery, then deliberately moving into a distinctly Christian setting, Milton touches upon two personally relevant issues: poetry and Christian redemption. In this way, Lycidas both addresses the subject of being a poet in a life doomed by death and at the same time shows the triumphant glory of a Christian life, one in which even the demise of the poet himself holds brighter promises of eternal heavenly joy.

    Read More

  • Satiation in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World

    2795 Words  | 6 Pages

    Milton establishes himself as the legitimate teller of the tale – and this tale will take us beyond the mythology of the Greeks’Aonian Mount and inoculate us against Hell’s prodigiousness. He is taking us beyond mythological or explanatory pictures of ourselves, to an area where we may bask in a greater comfort:

    Read More

  • Place and Space in Paradise Lost

    1789 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rumrich, John. “Milton's God and the Matter of Chaos.” PMLA 110.5 (1995): 1035-1046. Web. 10 Dec 2013.

    Read More

  • The Elaborate Role Of Religion In British Literature

    1915 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...t, Stephen, gen. ed. “Paradise Lost.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 2012. Print. 36-39.

    Read More

  • Dante’s Inferno in Milton´s Paradise Lost

    1317 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many arguments have been made that Dante’s Inferno glimmers through here and there in Milton’s Paradise Lost. While at first glance the two poems seem quite drastically different in their portrayal of Hell, but scholars have made arguments that influence from Dante shines through Milton’s work as well as arguments refuting these claims. All of these arguments have their own merit and while there are instances where a Dantean influence can be seen throughout Paradise Lost, Milton’s progression of evil and Satan are quite different from Dante. Dante’s influence on Milton is noted by many scholars and is very apparent in several instances throughout Paradise Lost, however, Milton shows a progression of evil through his own vision of Satan and creates a Hell that is less meticulously constructed than Dante’s and more open to interpretation.

    Read More

  • Paradise Lost and The Canterbury Tales

    633 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both plays argue their ideas and opinions about salvation, the hypocrisy of the church and the hypocritical, selfish gains, masked by ‘pious’ work by man, in The Canterbury Tales. The difference in time displays the level of depth that each author can go into challenging the norm and arguing their ideas. In Paradise Lost it is obvious that temptation can come in very attractive forms but only by God’s grace, are we saved. Both authors agree that mankind is flawed and but the knowledge of said shortcomings and the study of what is right is what makes life interesting and worth living and this is what determines salvation: fighting the good fight

    Read More

  • John Miltons's Paradise Lost: Is Satan a Villain or Hero?

    2016 Words  | 5 Pages

    Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. Arthur E. Barker, b. 1875. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. 205-217.

    Read More

  • The Fallen Angels in John Milton's Paradise Lost

    2066 Words  | 5 Pages

    Milton. New York: Norton, 1957. Elledge, Scott, ed., pp. 113-117. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources.

    Read More

  • The Temptation of Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost

    2743 Words  | 6 Pages

    Milton, John. ‘Paradise Lost.’ 1674. Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 2000, 1: 1817-2044.

    Read More

  • John Milton's Paradise Lost as Christian Epic

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Milton's great epic poem, Paradise Lost, was written between the 1640's and 1665 in England, at a time of rapid change in the western world. Milton, a Puritan, clung to traditional Christian beliefs throughout his epic, but he also combined signs of the changing modern era with ancient epic style to craft a masterpiece. He chose as the subject of his great work the fall of man, from Genesis, which was a very popular story to discuss and retell at the time. His whole life had led up to the completion of this greatest work; he put over twenty years of time and almost as many years of study and travel to build a timeless classic. The success of his poem lies in the fact that he skillfully combined classic epic tradition with strongly held Puritan Christian beliefs.

    Read More

More about Paradise Lost, by John Milton

Open Document