paradise lost · milton

Milton's blank-verse epic of 1667 retells the fall of Satan and the fall of man in order to 'justify the ways of God to men'. Its magnificent, dangerously sympathetic Satan, its unfallen Eden and its account of free will, obedience and loss make it the great Protestant poem, and an argument about liberty written by a defeated republican.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, edited by Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg (Oxford University Press, 2008). Read in full over two sessions, Sophomore Spring at Torrey Honors.