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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does God say on the first day?

2. By whom has the poet been inspired?

3. What does God say will happen to Adam if he eats from the tree of knowledge?

4. What does Eve leave to do at the beginning of Book 8?

5. What does God create on the fifth day?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does Raphael say woman is inferior to man?

2. Why does Adam still feel hope?

3. How will man get to the promised land?

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

5. How will Jesus save mankind?

6. In what way are angels similar to humans?

7. How does the serpent explain his human speech?

8. What has Adam learned from his experience?

9. What will happen when a tyrant rises?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Paradise Lost is written in the third person. Why do you think Milton chose to write the poem in the third person? How do you think the meaning of the poem would have changed if it were written in the first person?

Essay Topic 2

Choose one of the characters from the poem.

1) What is the character's background.

2) What are the character's motivation and goals?

3) What do you think the character adds to the story? How would the poem change if the character were taken away?

Essay Topic 3

Why do you think Milton represents Paradise as he does? Is it more serious than modern day representations? What sort of tone does Milton's Paradise give to the poem? How would this tone change if you swapped Milton's representation for a more modern day representation?

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