Chapter Themes of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

"every poem has two parents – its mother being the mass of experience, thought, and the like, inside the poet, and its father the pre-existing Form (epic, tragedy, the novel, or what not) which he meets in the public world… The matter inside the poet wants the Form: in submitting to the Form it becomes really original, really the origin of great work."

Paradise Lost

: An English Epic?

Paradise Lost

is perhaps one the finest example of the epic tradition. In composing the poem John Milton was, for the most part, following in the manner of epic poets of past centuries.

Paradise Lost

is an epic whose closest structural affinities are with Virgil's Aeneid. There are influences of epic traditions and the presence of epic features other than Virgilian however. Homeric elements are its Iliad-like subject, the death and woe resulting from an act of disobedience; the portrayal of Satan as an Archillean hero motivated by a sense of injured merit and also as an Odyssean hero of wiles and craft; the description of Satan's perilous Odyssey to find a new homeland; and the battle scenes in heaven. The poem also incorporates a Hesiodic gigantomachy. There are numerous Ovidian metamorphoses. Milton incorporates an Ariostan Paradise of Fools; and finally Spenserian allegorical figures (Sin and Death).

The debate in the parliament of hell resembles that in Book II of the Iliad. The debate is essentially about the means the fallen angels will take to exact revenge on God – force or guile. The proposals of Satan and those of Moloch parody the simple tactics of Achilles and the subtle approach of Odysseus. The parallel between the destruction of Eden and of Troy become more developed later in the text. Satan and his followers writhe on the Burning Lake "Nine times the space that measures Day and Night" (I.50), as they fell nine days from heaven (VI.871). Critics have been quick to make parallels with Hesiod’s account of the fall of the Titans (Theogony, 664-735) and the plague of nine days and prospect of nine days at sea at the opening of the Iliad. Satan’s first words (I.84-5) to Beelzebub are related to Virgil: "alas, how chang’d from that which you were" (II,274).

Milton made important changes, however: the rejection of a martial theme, and the choice of an argument that emphasizes the hero's transgression and defeat instead of celebrating his virtues and triumphs. Milton retained the formal motifs and devices of the traditional heroic poem but invested them with Christian matter and meaning. In this sense his epic is something of a ‘pseudomorph’ – that is it retains the form of classical epic but replaces its values and contents with Judeo-Christian concepts. Milton does not attempt to imitate the classical epic, rather he chooses to redefine classical heroism in Christian Humanist terms. The answer to the question why Milton drew on such a range of sources for his epic lies in great part with the eclectic tenets of Renaissance Humanist scholarship.

It is important, before continuing with an examination the epic characteristics and conventions of Paradise Lost, to review for a moment exactly what an ‘epic’ is. Renaissance critics generally thought of epics as long poems treating heroic actions or other weighty matters in a high style, thereby evoking awe or wonder. Essentially an ‘epic’ is a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in a series of adventures which form an organic whole through their relation to a central figure of heroic proportions and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.

The following are some common characteristics of the ‘epic’ genre:

· The hero is a figure of heroic stature, of national or international importance, and of great historical or legendary significance;

· The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe;

·