Paradise Lost Essays

12th Grade

Paradise Lost

In John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, the audience’s opinion on the anti-hero Bosola and his moral integrity changes throughout the play due to his sudden catharsis and change in behavior after he realizes the consequences of his working for the...

College

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost, the epic poem written in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton narrates the biblical account of the Fall of mankind. Eve is the only character that is both female and human in the poem and Milton’s depiction of...

College

Paradise Lost

Words with the root “obedient” or “obedience” appear thirty-two times in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, while the root word “loyal” appears only four times. Nevertheless, ties of loyalty are central to the narrative of man’s first fall. Questions...

College

Paradise Lost

As proposed by Immanual Kant, the Enlightenment consisted of having “the courage to use your own understanding,” and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Descartes’ Meditations, and Cervantes’ Don Quixote collectively provide instances that both affirm...

College

Paradise Lost

John Milton conforms much to the popular misogyny of his time - the belief that women are inferior to men, and wives subservient to their husbands. However, his epic Paradise Lost explores the positive and important role women in that society...

12th Grade

Paradise Lost

Humans have instincts. However, some are often suppressed and viewed by society as immoral and unnatural because not all of them have pure intentions. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Milton retells the story of Adam and Eve and their fall from...

College

Paradise Lost

Milton’s exploration of heroism in Paradise Lost has been the focus of much debate and controversy since the poem was first published. Critical attention has shifted through the years from Satanism to feminism, from the exultation of Adam to the...

College

Paradise Lost

In Paradise Lost, John Milton endows angels with magnificent qualities, both positive and negative. Through symbolism, he shows their greatness. In a meaningful shift from earlier ideas of his time, Milton’s angels are shown to possess full free...

College

Paradise Lost

The potential for political meaning in the metaphors, allegories and allusions of Paradise Lost is rich for interpretations due to the shifting associations of political ideologies with various sides, in order to prove a spectrum of arguments. The...

College

Paradise Lost

In Book IV of Paradise Lost, Eve relates her birth and her first meeting with Adam. She claims to first have been distracted by her reflection on a pond, where she would have stayed had a voice not warned her away. The person on the pond “started...

12th Grade

Paradise Lost

An antagonist is essential to any story. Establishing a clear “bad guy” gives the story more emotion, uniting the reader with the protagonist(s) against a common enemy that is easy to hate. Every story has an antagonist, but only some are evil....

College

Paradise Lost

Following the story of Genesis, John Milton’s Paradise Lost gives insight to Adam and Eve’s Fall from Paradise and Satan’s war against God in heaven. While all of the characters add crucial detail to the storyline, Eve is arguably one of the most...