J. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST

The poem is the fruit of a lifetime's labour and intense study. The subject is "man's disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise"; the purpose is to write a poem in praise of God; in the words of On His Blindness, he wanted to use his poetic gift "to serve therewith my maker". He originally conceived it in the form of a drama then he changed to an epic. Epic is an ancient form of poetry originating in an age of military aristocracy long before writing was invented. The so-called primary epics are close to the society they were born in, like the classical Iliad and Odyssey, or the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. Secondary epics, like Virgil's Aeneid are written for a more developed society remote from the conditions they describe. He originally conceived it in the form of a drama then he changed to an epic. Epic is an ancient form of poetry originating in an age of military aristocracy long before writing was invented. The so-called primary epics are close to the society they were born in, like the classical Iliad and Odyssey, or the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. Secondary epics, like Virgil's Aeneid are written for a more developed society remote from the conditions they describe.

Milton wanted to talk about an important and solemn subject in his work and for this reason he decided to compose an Epic Poem. Every epic poem had to contain some precise elements (called epic conventions) that we can find also in this Poem: At the beginning of the poem there is a statement which explains its main theme or argument. The setting of the epic poem must be wide, large and in fact this poem is set in the Universe: Heaven, Hell, Eden. The main characters must be warriors, heroes and in fact we find here God, Satan, Christ, Man and lots of fallen angels. Of course the age of Milton was different from the ancient age so we find Lucifer who can be seen as a philosophical hero.

Milton's View of the Universe According to Milton's conception, the universe was composed first of Heaven, or the Empyrean, where God and his angelic subjects dwell. Below Heaven lies Chaos where there is a continuous battle of storm, wind and wave and stunning sounds. Hell is at the bottom of Chaos. The shape of Miiton's Hell owes much to Dante: the infernal landscape has a lake of fire, dry land that burns like fire and regions of excessive cold and heat intersected by rivers. The World (i.e., earth, seas, stars) is the centre of the universe and hangs by a gold chain from the floor of Heaven.

This Epic Poem is divided into 12 books. Book 1 we can find the theme of this Epic: the disobedience of Man to God and his consequent expulsion from Heaven, the rebellion of Angels and their arrival to Hell as punishment. In book 2 the Angels meet to decide what to do. In book 3 God is making his speech to man to explain his freedom to choose between good and evil. Then His Son offers himself to save mankind. In book 4 Satan is observing the happiness of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Heaven. In book 5 God sends Raphael to alert Adam of the danger.

In book 6 we have the war in heaven. In book 7 and 8 there is the narration of the creation of the earth and the Universe. In book 9 Eve is tempted by Satan and tasted the forbidden apple. Adam imitates her to follow the same destiny. In book 10 the Son arrives to Eden and Adam and Eve are expelled. Satan comes back to Hell in triumph. In book 11 and 12 Adam and Eve abandon Paradise and enter in a hard world of sacrifices.

When Milton wrote his poem, he was already familiar with the Copernican conception of the Universe (=the sun in the centre and all the other planets turning around it) but he decided to use, in the poem, the Ptolemaic system. He did so for different reasons: The Ptolemaic conception of the Universe was well known by all the people; It gave limits to the universe and his work was easier also because It put man and God on the two opposite ends of the chain and it was easier to describe the attempt of man to join God.

Out of Chaos we find the Earth and around it the other planets turning around it, sun included. He used this theory not to justify it but to demonstrate that there was a close connection between the visible and the invisible world, between the material and the spiritual, divine world. The Heaven described by Milton is composed by God sitting on His throne in the centre. He is surrounded by 9 orders of Angels because the tenth order included Satan who rebelled and is now in Hell. Hell is below Chaos which is the opposite of his reign.

Paradise Lost was published 300 years after Dante’s Divina Commedia. The two writers were very different in culture, religion, aim. Anyhow both affirmed to have a divine inspiration. Satan is different in the two works: in Dante he is a means of punishment, in Milton he is a symbol of divine justice. Their aspect too is different: Dante’s Satan is similar to a mythic monster with three heads, wings, a body like a satyr. He is in the centre of the earth and he is blocked forever into ice. Milton’ s Satan is a changing creature: he is a fallen angel, then he becomes a predator, then he becomes a snake and uses the same colours used by Dante: Milton’s snake has red eyes and yellow neck. Dante's and Milton's Satan

Style As the subject of the poem was so important, also the language was elevated: he used the blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) and the poetic diction is very complex with Latinisms, inversions and other figures of speech.