Rating: 
Summary: Moving verse that is thought provoking
Review: Makes one consider the psychology of the characters of Christian thought, which are merely extensions of ourselves. Momements of intense, beautiful verse that Milton does not always maintain.
Rating:
Summary: Moving verse that is thought provoking
Review: Makes one consider the psychology of the characters of Christian thought, which are merely extensions of ourselves. Momements of intense, beautiful verse that Milton does not always maintain.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging, but worth the investment
Review: Milton's masterpieces are heroic complements to the Book itself, portraying both Satan and God in a humanized manner. The story and its essential questions are known to us all, but here they are delivered in full, in the style of Homer. The book is challenging, however. The langauge is dated, and the time investment is steep. For anyone at all interested in Christianity, either personally or historically, there are few better ways to spend your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Amazing!
Review: Mr. Milton is without a doubt, a liteary genius! I got intrested in the book from a quote, which I read in John London's The Sea Wolf. Even though, I am only 17, the views presented in Paradise Lost, as well as Paradise Regained could still be used today. I highly reccomend this book to ones who want to know where it all started.
Rating:
Summary: Classic work
Review: Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till on greater Man
Restore us and regain the blissful seat
Sing, Heavenly Muse...Not a lot people know that 'Paradise Lost' has as a much lesser known companion piece 'Paradise Regained'; of course, it was true during Milton's time as it is today that the more harrowing and juicy the story, the better it will likely be remembered and received. This is not to cast any aspersion on this great poem, however. It has been called, with some justification, the greatest English epic poem. The line above, the first lines of the first book of the poem, is typical of the style throughout the epic, in vocabulary and syntax, in allusiveness. The word order tends toward the Latinate, with the object coming first and the verb coming after. Milton follows many classical examples by personifying characters such as Death, Chaos, Mammon, and Sin. These characters interact with the more traditional Christian characters of Adam, Eve, Satan, various angels, and God. He takes as his basis the basic biblical text of the creation and fall of humanity (thus, 'Paradise Lost'), which has taken such hold in the English-speaking world that many images have attained in the popular mind an almost biblical truth to them (in much the same way that popular images of Hell owe much to Dante's Inferno). The text of Genesis was very much in vogue in the mid-1600s (much as it is today) and Paradise Lost attained an almost instant acclaim. John Milton was an English cleric, a protestant who nonetheless had a great affinity for catholic Italy, and this duality of interests shows in much of his creative writing as well as his religious tracts. Milton was nicknamed 'the divorcer' in his early career for writing a pamphlet that supported various civil liberties, including the right to obtain a civil divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, a very unpopular view for the day. Milton held a diplomatic post under the Commonwealth, and wrote defenses of the governments action, including the right of people to depose and dispose of a bad king. Paradise Lost has a certain oral-epic quality to it, and for good reason. Milton lost his eyesight in 1652, and thus had to dictate the poem to several different assistants. Though influenced heavily by the likes of Virgil, Homer, and Dante, he differentiated himself in style and substance by concentrating on more humanist elements. Say first -- for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell -- say first what cause
Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator and transgress his will,
For one restraint, lords of the world besides? Milton drops us from the beginning into the midst of the action, for the story is well known already, and proceeds during the course of the books (Milton's original had 10, but the traditional epic had 12 books, so some editions broke books VII and X into two books each) to both push the action forward and to give developing background -- how Satan came to be in Hell, after the war in heaven a description that includes perhaps the currently-most-famous line: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, that serve in heav'n. (Impress your friends by knowing that this comes from Book I, lines 261-263 of Paradise Lost, rather than a Star Trek episode!) The imagery of warfare and ambition in the angels, God's wisdom and power and wrath, the very human characterisations of Adam and Eve, and the development beyond Eden make a very compelling story, done with such grace of language that makes this a true classic for the ages. The magnificence of creation, the darkness and empty despair of hell, the manipulativeness of evil and the corruptible innocence of humanity all come through as classic themes. The final books of the epic recount a history of humanity, now sinful, as Paradise has been lost, a history in tune with typical Renaissance renderings, which also, in Milton's religious convictions, will lead to the eventual destruction of this world and a new creation. A great work that takes some effort to comprehend, but yields great rewards for those who stay the course.
Rating:
Summary: Milton Accessible
Review: Ricks provides the most helpful and least pedantic footnotes since James Holly Hanford's edition. They are unobtrusive and on the same page as the text. The text itself is reliable and in modern spelling, but Milton's apostrophes have been retained to make certain that the pronunciations he specified (for metrical reasons) are indicated. There could, perhaps, be wider margins for making annotations.
Rating:
Summary: Satan needs a hug
Review: The connected plot of "Paradise Lost" and its accompanying poem "Paradise Regained" contains no surprises for anyone who is even casually familiar with the Bible. Milton, however, does something remarkable the Bible doesn't do--he inflates Satan from a mere flat symbol of evil into a complex personality that enlivens his identity as the principal enemy of God, Jesus, and man. Who is Satan, where did he come from, why does he do the things he does, and, most importantly, why is he an indispensable part of the Christian myth? Milton takes the initiative of asking and answering these questions.
Divided into twelve "books," "Paradise Lost" begins with a war in Heaven instigated by the angel Lucifer who, with the help of many rebellious cohorts, tries to wrest control of the celestial kingdom from God. Like a school principal putting kids in detention for starting a food fight in the cafeteria, God deals swiftly and severely with the miscreants, hurling them "headlong flaming from the ethereal sky/With hideous ruin and combustion down/To bottomless perdition, there to dwell/In adamantine chains and penal fire." That's powerful stuff.
The rebel angels, now transformed into devils for their treachery, are imprisoned in Hell, a hot, smelly, miserable place, with Lucifer (now named Satan) their lord to dwell in a palace called Pandemonium--the place of all demons. Milton assigns names of heathen gods to the devils and allows three of them to offer advice on the proper course of action for the hell-bound. The bellicose Moloch insists on resuming war with Heaven, the rational Belial believes a peaceful acceptance of their sentence will eventually restore them to God's good graces, and the pragmatic Mammon suggests they should establish and rule Hell as their new dominion rather than return to Heaven as servants. But Satan has another idea--to travel through Chaos (the dark, lifeless void connecting the realms) to Earth to corrupt Man, the new being with whom God plans to replace the expelled angels in Heaven.
Satan would be uninteresting if he were no more than a fist-shaking, teeth-gnashing villain, but Milton endows this vilest of creatures with the most human of consciences. While on his nefarious mission, as he rapturously views the luxuriant Eden, he laments, "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;" and the jealousy mixed with sorrow is palpable. He knows he did wrong and momentarily regrets his misbehavior, but he also knows that there can never be a reconciliation between him and God, and therefore resigns himself to be forever the king of evil and vie for man's soul. It is here that Satan eavesdrops (pun not intended) on Adam and Eve talking about the Tree of Knowledge, the fruit of which they are forbidden to eat.
Regarding the Tree of Knowledge, the poem inevitably raises the issue of entrapment. What is the purpose of the Tree? Simply that God demands obedience, and obedience can be tested only if there exists something to provide an opportunity to disobey. The material component of this opportunity is the Tree; the human component is the Tempter, who of course is Satan. Jesus, as narrated in "Paradise Regained," is the exemplary resister of Temptation, rejecting Satan's offer of world domination and his challenges to test his faith in God by turning stones to bread and casting himself from the top of the temple's spire. Through embellishment and dramatization, Milton makes ideas like these more explicit in the "Paradise Lost/Regained" poems than they are in the Bible.
Completely blind by the time he wrote these poems, John Milton was a man of strong but curious convictions--he defended the freedom of the press, but he lauded Cromwell and condoned regicide. As poems, "Paradise Lost/Regained" can be read as sacred, reflecting much of English religious thinking of the seventeenth century, or as heroic, subtly illustrating Milton's assiduous efforts to reform religion and government. But regardless of its subtext, it's no wonder that "Paradise Lost" has become one of the most celebrated accomplishments in the English language--the book of Genesis could not have been re-imagined more vividly, more terrifyingly, more beautifully.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifieing, Majestic, Beautiful
Review: This book is truly a master to all epic poems, it is frightening at times, and beautiful at other times.. All though school I had only heard what a great work dante was, But after reading this, it makes Dante look like a comic book. Truly a masterful Epic. and if you enjoyed dante, you will adore this very much.
Rating:
Summary: A Tremendous Book
Review: This is a very great and meaningful book. Not only is the verse beautiful and moving, but the subject-Adam and Eve's downfall at the hands of Satan, is one that you can think and live on for years. The message is hopeful, the story is rich, and everything is as nearly perfect as possible in Paradise.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning verse, unintended complications
Review: While Paradise Lost features some of the most wonderful passages ever written in the English language, the poem also provides an unwitting expose to the absurdity of Christian mythology. There is a palpable tension evident in every aspect of the work, as Milton endows Satan with nobility, Adam and Eve with compassion, and God and the angels with preening vanity and megalomania, only to pull back after every passage and try to negate his own words with addendums or disclaimers. The verse isn't consistent in its brilliance, but much of it is first rate, particularly in the first hundred pages or so as the rebellious angels recover from their disaster and map out their defiance.
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