Paradise Lost Analysis

Paradise Lost Analysis

Literary Devices in Paradise Lost

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve's loss of Paradise; their eating of the Forbidden Fruit has often been called the "Fall" (as in, "fall from innocence" or "fall from grace"), so it's no surprise...

Setting

Paradise Lost takes place right around what Christians would say is the beginning of human history. The poem begins after Satan's unsuccessful rebellion and the creation of the universe. Milton's c...

Narrator Point of View

The narrator of Paradise Lost is an omniscient third person. This means that the narrator is not a character in the story (like Satan or Adam or Eve), but rather an external observer that can enter...

Genre

Paradise Lost is an epic poem; epic poems are…you guessed it, epic! They tend to be really long (hundreds of pages or more!) and usually deal with incredibly serious, heroic topics. So, for e...

Tone

Milton's takes his poem very seriously; Adam and Eve's fall was, for him, one of the greatest of human tragedies [it "brought death into the world, and all our woe," (1.3)]. Satan's rebellion, his...

Writing Style

Milton writes in a very elevated, allusive, and dense style. If we had to pick one word to sum up his style that word would be Latinate. Latinate means characteristic of the Latin language (a "dead...

What's Up With the Title?

Paradise Lost is an elaborate retelling of the most important – and tragic – incident in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Genesis narrates the creation of the world and...

What's Up With the Ending?

The ending of Paradise Lost is one of the most beautiful and depressing scenes in all of English literature. Just think about it: humankind's one chance to have the perfect world (no suffering, no...

Tough-o-Meter

Paradise Lost is an incredibly difficult poem; even those who have read it multiple times still have trouble with certain parts, and it still takes a lot of patience (and time!) to read through it....

Plot Analysis

Satan and his legions wake up in Hell.The poem opens with Satan, who has just fallen from Heaven and wakes up on burning lake. He realizes he's lost everything and is now stuck in a horrible place....

Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis: Unclassifiable

In this section we like to explain how a particularly literary work fits into one of seven basic plots; the problem here is that Mr. John Milton has made the task difficult, actually nearly impossi...

Three Act Plot Analysis

Satan plots revenge in Hell (Books 1-2).Satan is kicked out of Eden (Book 4); Raphael and Adam have a long talk (Books 5-8).Adam and Eve eat the fruit and are forced leave Paradise (Books 9-12).

Trivia

Milton composed Paradise Lost entirely blind. That means, he dictated it out loud! (Source)Milton always looked sort of young and girlish. His Cambridge buddies nicknamed him the "Lady of Christ's...

Steaminess Rating

There are several sex scenes in Paradise Lost. In Book 2, we learn that Satan had sex with his daughter Sin and produced Death, who in turn raped his mother Sin. As a contrast, in Book 4 Adam and E...

Allusions

There are literally hundreds of allusions in Paradise Lost, many of them to the Bible. Rather than list every single possible allusion – which would probably take a few years – we've listed som...