Paradise Lost Summary & Study Guide

This Study Guide consists of approximately 94 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost Summary & Study Guide

This Study Guide consists of approximately 94 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Paradise Lost.
This section contains 2,185 words
(approx. 6 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Paradise Lost Study Guide

Book I

Book I introduces the main subject matter of the poem: the creation, fall, and redemption of the world and humankind. Milton invokes the aid of the muse and the Holy Spirit as he sets out to perform "Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme," and, through the medium of the epic, to "justify the ways of God to men." In true epic style, Milton begins his story in mid-action (in medias res), after the great battle in Heaven and the fall of the rebel angels. The poem thus introduces its readers first to Satan, the cause of the fall of humankind, at the moment following his own first fall into Hell. Satan and his angels are described lying on a lake of fire in a place where flames cast no light, but only "darkness visible." Satan is the first to rise and, using his great spear...

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This section contains 2,185 words
(approx. 6 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the Paradise Lost Study Guide
Copyrights
Gale
Paradise Lost from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.