Paraphrase Activity: Milton
The Purpose of Paraphrasing
When reading (particularly when reading difficult texts), paraphrasing can enhance your comprehension of the
material. It can also help you to grasp more complex meanings that might otherwise remain hidden (ex:
figurative language).
Techniques for Paraphrasing
1. If the passage is an excerpt, examine its context. What is the situation? What is happening? To whom?
2. Read the passage all the way through one time.
3. Reread the passage, looking more closely at each segment. (A new segment is often indicated by
punctuation, a change in tone, or a new speaker.)
4. If you see words that are unfamiliar, use context clues or a dictionary to determine their meaning.
5. Paraphrase the passage using your own words, not the words of the original.
6. Paraphrase using the same point of view and verb tense as the original.
7. If the syntax is confusing or awkward, find the subject and verb. Then rearrange the order of the words.
8. If you want to include material that is implied, but not directly stated in the passage, you can set it off
using square brackets: [
].
Paraphrase Activity: Use the above Techniques to complete the following paraphrase.
From Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 61-74:
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace, flamed. Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place eternal justice had prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far removed from God and light of heaven,
As from the center thrice to the utmost pole.
Paraphrased Lines
There was a frightening prison, surrounded on every side
by fiery flames, giving it the appearance of an enormous
oven. But, strikingly, these burning fires gave off
darkness—a kind of observable darkness— instead of light
[as fires normally do]. And this darkness, acting as light,
revealed a number of terrible, sad sights…
Sample Close Reading
Milton’s narrator, speaking to his reader, opens his description of Hell with these details of its
terrible, paradoxical landscape. This passage appears in Book I, shortly after the narrator has described
the nine-days fall of the rebel angels, who now lie on the “fiery gulf” of a burning lake.
The description is full of contradictory, seemingly impossible physical attributes. He calls Hell
a “dungeon,” indicating it as a place of captivity, and compares the scene to a “furnace” engulfed in
fire. The “flames” give out “No light,” but instead a sort of “darkness visible,” the antithesis of light
created by God. Milton is depicting a hellish landscape full of dark, perverted images. Another
impossible phenomenon is the “sulphur unconsumed,” by which the fire is somehow “fed.” Even the
basic laws of physics are perverted here in Hell. The diction is repetitive, with emphasis on the neverending nature of Satan’s punishment (“never,” “without end,” “ever-burning”). Structurally, the
passage is in fact part of a much longer sentence, which begins with the fall of the rebel angels (line
50) to their ending location in Hell (line 74). The ongoing, convoluted nature of the sentence parallels
the epic fall and ongoing punishment of the former angels. There is an interesting allusion here to
Prometheus and other Greek criminals, who are also punished for eternity.
The meter of this passage is fairly regular, with two possible exceptions. Line 65 opens with a
trochee, “Regions,” which has the effect of emphasizing the vastness of those regions. Later, the
possible extra syllable on “fiery” calls attention to the paradox of a body of water on fire. More
importantly, Milton plays with enjambment in lines 65, 66, 67 and 68. When line 67 breaks suddenly
on “end,” we feel the abruptness of that literal end of the line, which underscores the fact that God’s
punishment will not end. It “still urges” Satan and his cronies on. Unlike Christians who can be saved
through Christ’s redemption (“comes to all”), the fallen angels are doomed to eternal “torture.”
In terms of sound, we hear a number of alliterative s’s in lines 64-66, underscoring the sinister
nature of Hell and its inhabitants. Later, the awkward repetition of “u” sounds (“urges,” “deluge,”
“burning,” “sulphur,” “unconsumed”) calls attention to that strange image of eternal fire.
Ultimately, what Milton is doing via his narrator’s description in these lines, is establishing his
own personal vision of Hell. He is alluding to classical and Biblical sources, as well as Dante’s
descriptions of Hell in Inferno. The mention of “doleful shades,” for instance, echoes the “doleful
creatures” of Isaiah 13:21 (King James Version), which describes the punishment of Babylon and other
evil cities. Yet, as is typical with Milton, he is attempting to outdo those predecessors. By outdoing
them, he is “assert[ing] Eternal Providence,” as indicated in his invocation. Through Hell’s perverse
imagery, Milton is also setting up Satan as the ultimate in perversion.