Paper no- 1 Paradise lost as a epic poem

To evaluate my assignment

 What is Paradise lost as a epic poem

Name : Riddhi Maru

Semester : 1

Batch : 2016/2018

Submitted To : Department of English

Email id : riddhimaru27@gmail.com

Paper No : 1

Unit : 3.Paradise Lost 

1. What is Paradise lost as a epic poem
                  

Introduction

Paradise lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17^th, Century English poet john Milton. The first version, published in 1667. Consisted of ten book with over ten thousand, Lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674. Arranged into twelve books with minor revision throughout and a note on the verification.

The poem concerns the biblical story of the fall of man : the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the garden of Eden. Milton’s purpose. Stated in book 1, is to….

“Justify the ways of god to men”

• Paradise lost as an epic poem?

Paradise lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17^th century English poet John Milton(1608-1674)…..It is considered by critics to be Milton’s Major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

Milton’s story has two narrative areas. On about Satan and the other following Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and banished to hell. Or as it is also called in the poem.

No more of talk where god or angel.

Guest

With man, as with his friend, familiar used

To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial discourse unblended.

Paradise lost epic poem opens in bell, where Satan and his followers are recovering from defeat in a war they waged against God. The build a palace, called pandemonium, where they hold council to determine whether or not to return to battle instead they decide a safer course of revenge can be planned. Satan undertakes the mission alone. At the gate of bell, he meets his offspring, sin and death, who unbar the gates for him. He journeys across chaos till he sees larger globe which is heaven god sees Satan flying towards this word and foretells the fall of man, his son, who sits at his right hand, offers to sacrifice himself for man’s salvation. Meanwhile, Satan enters the new universe. He flies to the sun, where he tricks an angel, Uriel into showing him the way to man’s home.

Satan gains entrance into the garden of Eden. Where he finds Adam and Eve and becomes jealous of them. He overhears them speak of god’s commandment that they should not eat the forbidden fruit. Uriel warns Gabriel and his angel, who are guarding the gate of paradise, of Satan’s presence, Satan is apprehended by them and banished from Eden go sends Raphael to warn Adam and Eve about Satan. Raphael recounts to them how jealousy against the son of god lea a once favored angel to wage war against god in heave and how the son, Messiah, cast him and his followers into hell. He relates how the world was created So, mankind could one day replace the fallen angel in heaven.

Satan returns to earth and enters a serpent. Finding Eve alone he induces her to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Adam, resigned to join in her fate, eats also. Their innocence is lost and they become aware of their nakedness. In shame and despair, they become hostile to each other. The son of god descends to earth to judge the sinners, mercifully delaying their sentence of death sin and death, sensing Satan’s success, build a highway to earth, their new home. Upon his return to hell, instead of a celebration of victory, Satan and his crew are turned into serpents as punishment Adam reconciles with Eve. God sends Michael to expel the pair from paradise, but first to reveal to Adam future events resulting from his sin. Adam is saddened by these visions, but ultimately revived by revelation of the future coming of the savior of mankind. In sadness, mitigated with hope. Adam and Eve are sent away from the garden of paradise.

Milton’s paradise lost is a long, narrative poem told in a serious manner, using elevated language, featuring characters of a high position. All of these characteristics suggest the work is an epic poem.

The piece also begins in medias res [Latin for in the middle of things] as homer’s epic poems do. The speaker also invokes, following the custom of the Greeks, help from the supernatural to inspire and guide him in the telling of the tale.

The manner and language of the poem as well as the request for help, are revealed in the opening of the poem.

Op man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of the forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater man.

Restore as, and regain the blissful seat

Sing heavenly muse, that on the secret top

Or oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd [Moses]. Who first taught the chosen seed?

In the beginning how the heavens and earth

Rose out of chaos…. I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar.

Above the Anion mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

                                    The serious tone and elevated language are obvious [The speaker is not just writing a narrative. He is attempting to do something never before done in literature for instance.] but what may be most notable, or at least most interesting, is the speaker’s connection of the muses from Greek myth to the holy spirit of the Rible. The speaker fuses the Greek and the Christian, or as some would phrase it, the pagan with the Christian. In preparing to fell the epic take of Satan’s fall from heaven, the speaker equates the Mases and the holy spirit.

• Doug Stuva

Milton’s religious view reflects the time in which he lived and the church to which he belonged. He was not always completely orthodox in his ideas, but be was devout, his purpose or them in paradise lost is relatively easy to see, if not to accept. Milton begins paradise lost by saying that he will sing “of man’s first Disobedience” so that he can “assert eternal providence, and justify the ways of god for man”. The purpose or theme of paradise lost them irreligious and has their parts.

1. Disobedience
2. Eternal providence
3. Justification of god to man

• Justification of god to man:

Eternal providenc moves the story to a different level. Death must come into the world but the son steps forward with the offer to crifice himself to death in order to defeat death. Through the son, god is able to temper divine justice with mercy, grace, and salvation, without the fall this divine love would never have been demonstrated because Adam and Eve disobeyed, god, mercy, grace, and salvation occur through god’s love and all mankind, by obeying god can achieve salvation. The fall actually produces a new and higher love from God to Man. Adam and Eve all men are sinful as Adam says “o goodness infinite, goodness immense! / that all this good of evil shall produce, / and evil turn to good”. The fall of man then turns evil into good and that fact shows the justice of god’s actions or in Milton’s terms, “justifies the ways of god to man”.

The picture is an apt illustration for his opening thesis in paradise lost.

What is me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That to the height of this great argument

I may assert eternal providence,

And justify the ways of god to man

                                    John Milton’s at ‘a life beyond life’ which featured illustrated etchings by Gustave Dore for paradise lost. One illustration was of Satan on his flight to the Garden of Eden. As he travels, Satan pauses to tell the sun how conflicted he is over his fallen state.

O sun to tell thee how I hate thy beams

That bring to my remembrance from what state

I fell how glorious once above thy sphere

Till pride and worse ambition threw me down

Warring in heaven against heavens matchless king

Ah wherefore! He deserved no such return

From me, whom he created what I was

In that bright eminence and with his good

Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.

                               Speaking these lines is a tragic Satan, fully aware that he has brought himself to ruin, as told by a poet, who had also come to political ruin. The reader can sympathize with such a character and isn’t that the role of great literature? To draw on the reader’s empathy?

                               By the end of the poem, however, Milton restores the balance of sympathy forwards Adam and Eve. They walk bravely, hand-in-hand, out of the garden into the sunset ready to begin “his story”. In contrast the character of Satan is reduced to a hollow hero, receiving accolades from a hissing mod of Demi - devils. He is cursed and like the monster in Frankenstein, he is he is unreconciled with his creator.

                             So happy birthday, John Milton [December 9^th], but let us not forget, that while your character Satan may dwell in evil, it was you who helped to cancel Christmas.