Elizabeth Marie Pope. Paradise Regained: The Tradition and the Poem; B. Rajan. Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader; A. J. A. Waldock. Paradise Lost and Its Critics

1949 ◽  
Vol os-XXV (97) ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
B. A. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Paradise Regained

The Chronology of Milton's Major Poems

PMLA ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 76 (4-Part1) ◽  
pp. 345-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Shawcross
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Samson Agonistes ◽  
Paradise Regained ◽  
Important Study

The conclusion of Ants Oras as to the chronology of Milton's major poems, based on his important study of the blank vejse, is, I believe, in serious error. Examining strong pauses, both terminal and medial, the distribution of medial pauses over the pentameter line, run-on lines, feminine and masculine pauses, the distribution of polysyllables over the verse line, feminine endings, rhythmical expressions creating shifted stresses, syllabized “-ed” endings, and pyrrhic verse endings, Oras concludes that the traditional chronology for Paradise Lost (from Book I through Book XII), Paradise Regained (from Book I through Book IV), and Samson Agonistes is correct. As a prosodical study, the statistical data presented lead us to a greater understanding of the aforementioned verse techniques as used by Milton than we have heretofore known. Professor Oras' inferences of dated practice are, however, another matter.

'The Excursion' and Wordsworth's Iconography

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon C. Yen
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
The Other ◽  
Long Poem ◽  
Paradise Regained ◽  
The One

This book considers William Wordsworth’s use of iconography in his long poem The Excursion (1814). Through this iconographical approach, it steers a middle course between The Excursion’s two very different interpretative traditions, the one focusing upon the poem’s abstraction, the other upon its touristic realism. The author explores Wordsworth’s iconography in The Excursion by tracing cultural and political allusions and correspondences in an abundance of post-1789 and earlier verbal and pictorial sources, as well as in Wordsworth’s own prose and poetry, especially The Prelude. Particular attention is paid to the complex ways in which The Excursion’s iconographical images contribute to – and also impose limitations upon – the overarching preoccupations of Wordsworth’s writings: the themes of paradise lost and paradise regained in the post-revolutionary context. This study thus revises New Historicist accounts of Wordsworth’s evasion of history by investigating the capacity of apparently ‘collateral’ images to respond to weighty arguments. In elucidating this vital aspect of Wordsworth’s poetic method, it reveals the visual etymologies – together with the nuances and rhetorical capacities – of five categories of images: envisioning, rooting, dwelling, flowing, and reflecting.

The Physics of Vision in Kepler, Descartes, and Milton

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-131
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Retinal Image ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Retinal Projection ◽  
Camera Obscura ◽  
New Model ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
Projection Screen ◽  
Intellectual Context

This chapter provides a new intellectual context for John Milton’s treatment of light and vision in Paradise Lost (1667) by locating Milton’s poem within the framework of seventeenth-century optical theory. It does so by examining the parallels and distinctions between the role played by light in Milton’s model of vision and models proposed by Johannes Kepler and René Descartes. The main argument of the chapter is that Milton adopts Kepler’s theory of the retinal image, which posits that the human eye operates according to the mechanical principles of a camera obscura. But where Kepler and Descartes use the analogy of the camera obscura to explain the properties of light as it relates to vision, Milton uses it to express the fragility of vision within this new model. Speaking from a position of blindness, Milton’s narrator explores the theological and epistemological implications of having light at ‘one entrance quite shut out’, thereby being ‘presented with a Universal blanc’ (PL 3.48–50) in the place of the retinal projection screen.

Repackaging Milton for the Late Seventeenth-Century Book Trade

Making Milton ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 42-52
Author(s):  
Emma Depledge
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Impact

This chapter focuses on the magisterial 1688 folio edition of Paradise Lost, published by Jacob Tonson and Richard Bentley, exploring the possible reasons why these men chose to publish Milton at this time, as well as the impact the edition had both on Milton’s authorial afterlife and on their careers as stationers. The chapter places the 1688 Paradise Lost folio in the wider context of Tonson’s career, including his involvement in pirate publication schemes and his status (from 1678) as Dryden’s publisher, to argue that the 1688 edition of Paradise Lost, one of the most profound turning points in Milton’s authorial afterlife, had less to do with the political context of 1688 and the perceived vendibility of the poem and more to do with Tonson’s own ambitions and frustrations as a stationer.

Predestination and freedom in Milton's Paradise Lost

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Benjamin Myers
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Fluid Sphere ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
History Of

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) offers a highly creative seventeenth-century reconstruction of the doctrine of predestination, a reconstruction which both anticipates modern theological developments and sheds important light on the history of predestinarian thought. Moving beyond the framework of post-Reformation controversies, the poem emphasises both the freedom and the universality of electing grace, and the eternally decisive role of human freedom in salvation. The poem erases the distinction between an eternal election of some human beings and an eternal rejection of others, portraying reprobation instead as the temporal self-condemnation of those who wilfully reject their own election and so exclude themselves from salvation. While election is grounded in the gracious will of God, reprobation is thus grounded in the fluid sphere of human decision. Highlighting this sphere of human decision, the poem depicts the freedom of human beings to actualise the future as itself the object of divine predestination. While presenting its own unique vision of predestination, Paradise Lost thus moves towards the influential and distinctively modern formulations of later thinkers like Schleiermacher and Barth.

Two Schools of Desire: Nature and Marriage in Seventeenth-Century Puritanism

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belden C. Lane
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Nature Imagery ◽  
Evening Star

In Milton's description of the marriage of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, the entire Garden of Eden is seen to participate in the celebration of their union. Spousal and nature imagery are woven together, beauty and desire joined in the mystery of Adam's amazement at this gift of his “other self” newly received from God's hand. Says Adam of his wife,To the nuptial bowerI led her blushing like the morn: all heaven,And happy constellations on that hourShed their selectest influence; the earthGave sign of gratulation, and each hill;Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airsWhispered it to the woods, and from their wingsFlung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub,Disporting, till the amorous bird of nightSung spousal, and bid haste the evening starOn his hill top, to light the bridal lamp.Joyous birds, whispering breezes, welcoming stars—they all share in the couple's holy delight in each other and in God.

‘Paradise Regained’

2021 ◽  
pp. 56-64
Author(s):  
Alastair Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Paradise Regained

This chapter focuses on John Milton’s Paradise Regained, looking at the alleged defects in its style. Several critics have spoken of a barer Miltonic style, found in Paradise Regained and in some other of his works, which contrasts with the grand style of Paradise Lost. This barer style is deliberately plain, and on principle avoids the ornate epic magniloquence of ‘swelling epithets thick-laid’. Indeed, Paradise Regained exhibits some low-style features, such as laconism. However, another approach has been to see Paradise Regained as reflecting a new personal phase in Milton’s development. The chapter then argues that the style of Paradise Regained was innovative, considering the characteristics of this new style. The style of Paradise Regained may be bare by some criteria; but it is incomparably rich in mimetic effects—richer, indeed, than most of Paradise Lost.

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