1. John Milton
Life
The greatest poet and pamphleteer during the bourgeois revolution in the mid-17th century as well as the greatest author of Puritanism.
Major Works
Textual Study
Paradise Lost
The Plot of the Epic
The theme of the Epic
The image of Satan
On His Blindness
The General Idea of the Sonnet

2. Life before the Puritan Revolution
Born in 1608, began to love books when young, wrote good verses at scarcely more than 10;
Went to St. Paul’s at 12, and Cambridge at 15, proud and independent in ways of thinking; master’s degree in 1632, then retired to his father’s country house.
Poems written b4 leaving Cambridge: L’allegro describing happiness; Il Penseroso describing meditation; Lycidas an elegy praising a dear friend; and Comus in praise of maidenly chastity.
Traveled on the European Continent in 1538 and returned the next year at the news that trouble had sprung up in England between the king and the people, and that war might come of it.

3. Life during the Puritan Revolution
Married Mary Powell in 1642, but unhappy, pamphlets on marriage;
Wrote and published his best-known prose work, Areopagitica, appealing for the freedom of the press;
As the spokesman of the Revolution; printed Defence of the English People; asserting the sovereignty of the people over the divine right of kings;
Became totally blind at the beginning of 1652;

4. Life after the Revolution
Was marked out for persecution with the Restoration of Charles II, but escaped from death to his blindness;
Dictated his epic, Paradise Lost, finished in 1665;
Published Paradise Regained in 1671;
Ended his writing life with the publication of Samson Agonistes; 力士参孙
Died in 1674.

5. Paradise Lost: an Overview
Milton’s masterpiece, and the greatest English epic. It is a long epic in 12 books, done in blank verse. The stories were taken from The Old Testament: the creation; the rebellion in Heaven of Satan and his fellow-angels; their defeat and expulsion from Heaven; the creation of the earth and of Adam and Eve Eve; the fallen angels in hell plotting against God; Satan’s temptation of Eve; and the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden.

6. Paradise Lost: the Story
Led by the freedom-loving Satan, the rebellious angels rise against God himself, but in the battle with the hosts of angels that remain true to God they are finally defeated. Satan and his followers are banished from Heaven and driven into hell. But there amidst flames and poisonous fumes, Satan and his adherents are not discouraged. The epic opens with the description of a meeting of the fallen angels in hell. Satan’s proud spirit is unyielding; he fearlessly withstands all agonies and passionately strives for revenge and victory.

7. Paradise Lost: the Story
Satan chooses for his battlefield the most perfect of spots ever created by God—the Garden of Eden, where live the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, who are allowed by God to enjoy the supreme beauties and bounties of Paradise, provided they do not eat the fruit that grows on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan desires to tear them away from the influence of God and make them tools in his struggle against God’s authority.

8. Paradise Lost: the Story
God learns of his intention, however, and sends the Archangel Raphael to warn Adam and Eve of Satan’s plan. The Archangel reminds them of their vow of obedience and gives a detailed narration of Satan’s rebellion. Raphael goes on to relate God’s creation of heaven and earth, and ll living creatures. But on Adam’s request for an explanation of the rotation of the celestial bodies (an echo of Galileo’s teachings) Raphael advises him not to inquire into matters which do not concern him directly and then leaves him.

9. Paradise Lost: the Story
No sooner is Raphael gone than Satan assumes the shape of a serpent and appears before Eve. He persuades her to break God’s command. Eve eats an apple from the forbidden tree and plucks another one for Adam. God sees all this, and Adam and Eve, husband and wife, are both deprived of immortality, exiled from Paradise and doomed to an earthly life full of hardships and sufferings, to eat bread by “the sweat of face”.

10. Paradise Lost: the Theme
The poem, as we are told at the outset, was “to justify the ways of God to man”, i.e. to preach submission to the Almighty. But the reader soon gets the impression that the main idea of the poem is the heroic revolt against God’s authority.

11. The Image of Satan
Satan in the poem is a rebel who rises against God and, though defeated, still seeks for revenge. He is by far the most striking character in the poem.
Satan is the real hero of the poem. Like a conquered and banished giant, he remains obeyed and admired by those who follow him down to hell.
He is firmer than the rest of the fallen angels.
One can't help but admire Satan's stubbornness and determination in the face of so much which goes against him, and his incredible efforts to achieve his goals.

12. The Image of Satan
It is Satan, passing through the guarded gates of hell and boundless chaos, amid so many dangers, and overcoming so many obstacles, makes man disobey God.
Though defeated, he prevails, since he has won from god the third part of his angels, and almost all the sons of Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs, for the thunder which overwhelmed him left his heart still unvanquished.
Though feebler in force, he remains superior in nobleness.

13. Characterization Satan---is the real hero of the poem
He is admired and respected by his fellow-angels. He goes through many obstacles and makes revolt against God. Though weaker in force, he remains superior in nobility. He welcomes his defeat and his torments as a glory, a liberty and a joy.(spirit of revolution)
B. Satan is the spirit questioning the authority of God.

14. 2) God
God is a selfish despot, surrounded by his angels who are eternally singing his praises. His angels are silly. He is cruel and unjust in the fight against Satan.
3) Adam and Eve
They embody the powers of man. Their strong and insatiable desire for knowledge, common to all Renaissance humanists, comes to conflict with submissions to God’s will. The curiosity for knowledge opens a wide road to an intelligent and active life.

15. Literary Features: Miltonic
The epic is written in blank verse.
characteristics:
1）Blank verse used here is the long and sometimes seemingly interminable sentence construction, so that a passage goes on and on, and the meaning is suspended and not completed, till the end of the sentence comes with the period. This way makes the verse sound oratorical , logical and picturesque.
2) Pauses may come almost anywhere in a line of verse, breaking the monotony of the pause falling inevitable at the close of a line.

16. Paradise regained
This epic shows how mankind, in the person of Christ, withstands the temper and is established once more in the divine favor.

17. On His Blindness: its Theme
The theme of the octave is that the poet might be punished by God for not using his poetic ability, despite the fact that it is his blindness that led to his inability;
In the sestet, the poet resolves his doubt. God does not demand that one works one’s way into heaven but rather one merely has faith and accepts whatever afflictions that God might send.

18. The Difference between the Octave and Sestet
Consider that Milton uses the first person pronoun no less than eight times in the Octave, yet not once in the Sestet. This is a very clear message (is it not?) that the poet is thinking purely of himself in the Octave whereas he is thinking of God in the Sestet.
The Octave is very self-centred. It is exaggeratedly full of self-pity. His soul is bent over with the weight of his struggles, plodding like an old man under the burden of his woes, weighed down by the yoke of fate.
The Sestet has a much lighter tone. There is a sense of relief. Faith has been restored. The burden has slipped from the poet's shoulders and he can stand upright, confident once again.

19. Contribution
1. He is the greatest poet and pamphleteer during the bourgeois revolution in the mid-17th century as well as the greatest author of Puritanism.
2. The beauty in the verse form, together with the great significance of the humanist, revolutionary ideas contained, makes Paradise Lost estimated the greatest epic in the English language. He and Shakespeare have always been regarded as two patterns of English Verse.
3. He is a master of blank verse. He first used blank verse in non-dramatic works.