Book I: This first Book proposes first in brief the whole Subject, Mans disobedience, and the
loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was plac't: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the
Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many
Legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the
great Deep. Which action past over, the Poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan
with his Angels now fallen into Hell, describ'd here, not in the Center (for Heaven and Earth may
be suppos'd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurst) but in a place of utter darknesse, fitliest
call'd Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake, thunder-struck and,
astonisht, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in Order and
Dignity lay by him; they confer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his Legions, who lay till
then in the same manner confounded; They rise, thir Numbers, array of Battel, thir chief Leaders
nam'd, according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and the Countries adjoyning. To these
Satan directs his Speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly
of a new World and new kind of Creature to be created, according to an ancient Prophesie or
report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many
ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this Prophesie, and what to determin thereon he refers to
a full Councell. What his Associates thence attempt. Pandemonium the Palace of Satan rises,
suddenly built out of the Deep: The infernal Peers there sit in Counsel.
1. Milton the poet is not the narrator of PL: the narrator functions both as instrument and as
character in the narrative drama of the poem, along with Satan, God, the Son, Adam and Eve,
and so forth. He also serves as surrogate for the reader, who is also fallen and sinful, and, to that
extent, shares his sympathies. Finally, the mind of the narrator is the poem's mind, the
imaginative conceiver and articulator of the narrative drama in all its peculiar vagaries and
intricacies, a role to which the narrator himself constantly calls attention both by explicit
meditation and by certain implicit signals. That is, Milton the poet dramatizes his own
experience, and thereby fictionalizes it, through the person of the narrator.
2. The biographical details or intimations that appear in the invocations would seem to suggest,
however, that the narrator somehow resembles Milton and dramatizes the dilemmas the man
faced while composing Paradise Lost. Therefore, we should, perhaps, read the invocations as
dramatic enactments of Milton's own pursuit of poetic and narratival authority. Thus, the
narrator's problematic inspiration simulates Milton's own. Moreover, as with all narrative
statements or exposition in Paradise Lost, the reader must appraise the invocations as poetic, and
so formal, occasions that exist at one remove from Milton himself. Milton also dramatized
himself in his sonnets, in which the speaker enunciates Milton's concerns without necessarily
being Milton.
3. The narrator's authority in PL--that is to say, the basis upon which he claims to have
knowledge about God's ways and the manner in which he represents and justifies these ways to
the reader--derives from the person or persons entreated in the invocations. The identities of
these persons is rendered in metaphoric or symbolic terms. As in the sonnets, the speaker's very
act of asking for assistance predicates a reply, which can only be the continuance of the narrative
drama itself. The episodic occurrence of the invocations enacts, as well as it can, the speaker's
uncertainty and partiality.
Paradise Lost has many of the elements that define epic form. It is a long, narrative
poem; it follows the exploits of a hero (or anti-hero); it involves warfare and the
supernatural; it begins in the midst of the action, with earlier crises in the story
brought in later by flashback; and it expresses the ideals and traditions of a people. It
has these elements in common with the Aeneid, the Iliad, and the Odyssey.
The poem is in blank verse, that is, non-rhyming verse. In a note he added to the
second printing, Milton expresses contempt for rhyming poetry. Paradise Lost is
composed in the verse form of iambic pentameter—the same used by Shakespeare. In
this style, a line is composed of five long, unaccented syllables, each followed by a
short, accented one.
The central story line is built around a few paragraphs in the beginning of Genesis—
the story of Adam and Eve. The epic also uses elements from many other parts of the
Bible, particularly involving Satan’s role. Focusing his poem on the events
surrounding the fall of Adam and Eve, Milton intended, in his words, to “justify the
ways of God to men,” by tracing the cause and result for all involved.
BOOK I
A brief introduction mentions the fall of Adam and Eve caused by the serpent, which
was Satan, who led the angels in revolt against God and was cast into hell. The scene
then opens on Satan lying dazed in the burning lake, with Beelzebub, next in
command, beside him. Satan assembles his fallen legions on the shore, where he
revives their spirits by his speech. They set to building a palace, called Pandemonium.
There the high ranking angels assemble in council.
Book One
1. Examine the narrator's invocation (lines 1-25) and his epic question and answer (lines 26-49).
a) What is the source of the narrator's authority?
b) What kind of persona would you say is established when one puts all three elements--the
invocations, question, and answer--together? Characterize this poet-narrator--comparing him to
the narrators of Spenser and Chaucer would be helpful.
2. What purposes do the lines (50-83) serve that immediately follow the invocation and question
and answer?
3. Examine the first speech that Satan makes, the one he makes only to his arch-lieutenant,
Beëlzebub. Also examine the latter's response to this speech as well as Satan's counter-response
to Beëlzebub's words. (84-124, 128-55, 157-91)
a) Work out what the arguments of these two speakers are.
b) Is Satan a skilled rhetorician? How so?
c) Try to explain some of Satan's errors in logic.
d) Does Beelzebub know something Satan doesn't; or does he admit something that Satan will
not admit?
4. From lines 195-210, we are treated to Milton's first major extended simile. Actually, it is a
series of similes, and a complex one at that. Examine these lines--in what way are they relevant,
even vital, to the task of Milton and his narrator in describing heavenly things that really are not
describable from a fallen human perspective?
5. Examine Satan's primal poetic elegy--lines 242-55. What purpose/s does it serve? What
resolution or statement does this elegy lead Satan to make?
6. Yet another extended series of similes occurs from lines 283-313. Again, how do these similes
dramatize the situation in which Milton and his narrator find themselves?
7. In general, what purpose do lines 337-522 serve?
8. Read Satan's speech to his whole army from lines 622-62.
a) This speech is in part a "revisionist" history of the bad angels' fall--explain how this is so.
Why is Satan's version in error?
b) What is Satan's basic plan for the "future?"
9. What human impulse do lines 670-738 describe?
10. Observe the end of Book One, the assembling of the council (752-98). Concentrate especially
upon lines 777-98. In what way is Milton having some fun at the angels' expense here? What is
he saying about the degree of "reality" that one can attribute to them?
http://www.paradiselost.org/ in plain English
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/ParadiseLost.html#Milton