View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the Son of God use to draw the circumference of Heaven and Earth?

2. Why does Michael say the tyrant will build a tower?

3. What is Eve amazed that the serpent can do?

4. Over what do Sin and Death build a bridge?

5. After whose image has Eve been fashioned?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Adam also decide to eat the fruit?

2. What do you think the Creation story illustrates about good and evil?

3. Why does God not stop Satan from destroying paradise?

4. Why does Adam still feel hope?

5. What does Adam see on the plain?

6. How does God create another world?

7. How will man get to the promised land?

8. What does Raphael say is man's place in the world?

9. How does the serpent persuade Eve to eat from the tree?

10. What has Adam learned from his experience?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is blank verse? What meaning do the students think it can convey in comparison to lyric poetry? Why do the students think John Milton uses blank verse in Paradise Lost? What kind of texture does it give the poem?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the impact of good and evil within our culture. Do the students think representations of good and evil have had a negative impact on society? Does the division of good and evil make things simpler than what they are? Does Milton subvert any ideas of good and evil in Paradise Lost. How much has the representation of good and evil changed since the 17th Century?

Essay Topic 3

Look at the Fall of Man story that the poem was based upon. What are the similarities between the poem and the story? How much has Milton changed the story? Does Milton's poem have a different meaning from the story in Genesis?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 932 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample