Five-minute digest

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Summary

Paradise Lost is John Milton's epic in twelve books of blank verse on the fall of man, written, as the opening invocation says, to assert Eternal Providence and justify the ways of God to men. It begins in the middle of things. Satan and his rebel angels, cast out of Heaven after their war against God, lie stunned on a burning lake in Hell. Satan rouses Beelzebub and the fallen host, who raise the palace of Pandaemonium and debate their course: Moloch urges open war, Belial idle ease, Mammon the building of an empire in Hell, and Beelzebub, voicing Satan's plan, the ruin of God's new creature, man. Satan volunteers to go alone, passes Sin and Death at Hell's gate and crosses Chaos toward the created world. In Heaven the Father foresees the Fall, declares that he made man sufficient to have stood though free to fall, and promises grace; the Son offers to die for mankind and is exalted. Satan, disguised as a young cherub, deceives the archangel Uriel and lands in Eden, where he watches Adam and Eve in their innocent love and is torn by envy and despair. Found whispering at the ear of the sleeping Eve, he is expelled by Gabriel's guards. God sends the archangel Raphael to warn Adam. Over a meal Raphael tells of Satan's revolt, of Abdiel, the one angel of Satan's company who refused to follow him, of the war in Heaven ended on the third day by the Son, and of the six days of creation; Adam in turn tells of his own making and his first meeting with Eve. The next morning Eve proposes that they work apart. Satan, entering a serpent, flatters her and persuades her that the forbidden fruit has given him reason and speech. She eats, and Adam, resolved not to live without her, eats too. Lust, then shame and mutual accusation follow. The Son judges them and clothes them; Sin and Death build a causeway from Hell to the world, and Satan, returning to boast of his success, is turned with his followers into hissing serpents. Adam despairs, but Eve's plea for forgiveness reconciles them, and they pray in repentance. The archangel Michael comes to lead them out of Paradise and shows Adam the course of history from Cain and Abel through the Flood to the promised Redeemer. Comforted that good will come of evil and that he may possess a paradise within, Adam goes out with Eve, hand in hand, into the world.

Top Lessons

Free to stand, free to fall
Milton's God says he made man sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Obedience that could not be refused would be no obedience at all, so the poem places the cause of the Fall in the creature's own choice rather than in God's foreknowledge.
Related across the library
- Richard III, Lesson: Religion as a mask
  Religion as a mask. Richard boasts that he clothes his villainy in scraps of Holy Writ and appears to the citizens with a prayer book between two bishops. The play shows the special wickedness of using piety as a tool of ambition.
- Macbeth, Lesson: Ambition unchecked by conscience
  Ambition unchecked by conscience. Macbeth knows the murder is wrong and does it anyway, then must keep killing to stay safe. The play traces how one crime leads to a cascade of others.
- The Trojan War, Lesson: Two kinds of hero
  Two kinds of hero. Hector fights to defend his family and city, knowing he may lose; Odysseus wins by wit, disguise and patience. The book holds up strength, cunning, loyalty and endurance as different shapes of courage and lets readers weigh them.
- Richard III, Lesson: The seduction of the audience
  The seduction of the audience. Richard speaks directly to us from the first line, sharing his plots and jokes, and his wit draws spectators into enjoying what follows. The play teaches how charm and confidence can win assent to evil, and how the audience must learn to see through the man it enjoys.
- On Free Will (De Libero Arbitrio), Summary
  On Free Will, published in Latin at Basel in September 1524 as De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio (a discourse or comparison of passages concerning free will), is Erasmus's public answer to Martin Luther on the question of whether the human will has any part in salvation. Erasmus had long hesitated to write against Luther, whose criticism of abuses he partly shared, but by 1524 he was pressed by friends, princes and churchmen to declare himself, and he chose the one doctrine on which he thought Luther had...
The hell within
Satan boasts that the mind is its own place, but by Book IV he confesses that wherever he flies is Hell, because he is Hell. Pride does not escape its misery by changing place; it carries its prison with it.
Related across the library
- East of Eden, Lesson: Thou mayest
  Thou mayest. Lee's reading of timshel insists that people are not condemned to repeat inherited sin. The novel argues for moral choice against fatalism and heredity.
- Julius Caesar, Lesson: The power of rhetoric
  The power of rhetoric. Brutus speaks to the crowd's reason in plain prose; Antony moves their passions with irony, the wounds and the will. The funeral scene is a lesson in how speech can sway a people for good or ill.
- The Oresteia, Lesson: Trauma is inherited as story
  Trauma is inherited as story. The family curse persists because each generation receives a narrative of injury that demands action. Aeschylus shows memory becoming command.
- Early Black Church Sermons and Addresses, Lesson: Scripture can expose national contradiction
  Scripture can expose national contradiction. The sermons use biblical language to measure American claims against slavery, segregation, and racial violence. Faith becomes a mode of public criticism.
- The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Full Text
  me out and I will make you rich The hope of being no longer poor made the fisherman give way If you will give me your promise to do this I will open the lid I do not think you will dare to break your word The genius promised and the fisherman lifted the lid He came out at once in smoke and then having resumed his proper form the first thing he did was to kick the vase into the sea This frightened the fisherman but the genius laughed and said Do not be afraid I only did it to frighten you and to show you that I i...
One faithful among the faithless
Abdiel alone among Satan's legions answers him with the truth and walks back to God through their scorn. Courage can mean standing apart from a whole company when it is wrong.
Related across the library
- The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives, Lesson: The orator and the sword
  The orator and the sword. Cicero's eloquence wins power but cannot defeat armies. His Life raises the question of what intellect and speech can do in a time of violence.
- Candide: Or Optimism, Xix What Happened To Them At Surinam And How Candide Got Acquainted With
  at least as wretched as he but Candide hoped that the philosopher would entertain him during the voyage All the other candidates complained that Candide had done them great injustice but he appeased them by giving one hundred piastres to each XX WHAT HAPPENED AT SEA TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN The old philosopher whose name was Martin embarked then with Candide for Bordeaux They had both seen and suffered a great deal and if the vessel had sailed from Surinam to Japan by the Cape of Good Hope the subject of moral and...
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Volume One
  the slightest suspicion and when next day taking a fowling-piece powder and shot Dant s declared his intention to go and kill some of the wild goats that were seen springing from rock to rock his wish was construed into a love of sport or a desire for solitude However Jacopo insisted on following him and Dant s did not oppose this fearing if he did so that he might incur distrust Scarcely however had they gone a quarter of a league when having killed a kid he begged Jacopo to take it to his comrades and request...
- Metamorphoses, Book The Fourth.
  the son of Vulcan king of Egypt resolving to cause his father s laws against adultery to be strictly observed and having been informed that a lady of the court had an intrigue with one of the courtiers entered her apartment in the night and obtaining ocular proof of the courtier s guilt caused him to be severely punished He also tells us that the similarity of the name gave birth to the Fable which Homer was the first to relate with a small variation and which is here copied by Ovid Libanius deploring the burnin...
- The Histories, Medical lens
  Herodotus is a treasure-house for the history of medicine. He describes Egyptian medicine as highly specialized, with physicians for each part of the body, and gives the most detailed ancient account of mummification. He tells the story of Democedes of Croton, a Greek physician enslaved by the Persians who heals Darius' dislocated ankle when the Egyptian doctors fail, and later Queen Atossa's breast abscess. He reports Cambyses' madness and considers that he may have suffered from the 'sacred disease' from birth...
Repentance and the paradise within
After blame and despair, Eve's humble plea begins the couple's reconciliation, and their prayer rises to Heaven. Michael teaches Adam that good will come of evil and that faith, virtue, patience, temperance and charity make a paradise within, happier far.
Related across the library
- Metamorphoses, Lesson: Power and its victims
  Power and its victims. Many transformations follow gods' assaults on mortals. Read critically, the poem exposes the abuse of power, including sexual violence, while making art out of it.
- The Bible, Lesson: Wisdom about limits
  Wisdom about limits. Ecclesiastes and the Psalms confront mortality and the fragility of human effort, offering not escape but a way to live within limits.
- The Conquest of Gaul, Medical lens
  The Commentaries say little about doctors, but much about bodies under military pressure. Siege warfare makes hunger the decisive weapon, culminating in the Alesia debate over cannibalism and the expulsion of non-combatants, a classic case for discussions of famine and of medical ethics in siege. Wounds are reported tactically, with officers wounded in the mouth by a sling or carried from the field. The Book VI ethnography links severe illness to vows of human sacrifice, an important if hostile source for Gallic...
- Julius Caesar, Lesson: The power of rhetoric
  The power of rhetoric. Brutus speaks to the crowd's reason in plain prose; Antony moves their passions with irony, the wounds and the will. The funeral scene is a lesson in how speech can sway a people for good or ill.
- Letters and Papers from Prison, Lesson: Responsible action means accepting guilt
  Responsible action means accepting guilt. 'After Ten Years' argues that people of conscience who keep their hands clean may still fail their neighbours. Bonhoeffer's decision to join a conspiracy to kill Hitler embodies an ethics that acts and bears the guilt of acting.
Marriage before and after the Fall
Milton celebrates wedded love as a holy gift in Eden, then shows the same love disordered when Adam chooses Eve over obedience. The poem treats marriage as a partnership whose happiness depends on both partners' loyalty to God.
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- 12 Years a Slave, Summary
  12 Years a Slave narrates Solomon Northup's kidnapping from freedom into slavery and his eventual restoration to his family. Northup is a literate, skilled violinist and laborer living as a free Black man in Saratoga Springs, New York. Two white men lure him to Washington, D.C., with the promise of work, drug him, and sell him under the name Platt after he wakes in chains. When he insists he is free, he is beaten into silence. Transported south, he is sold first to William Ford, whom Northup presents as comparat...
- As You Like It, Lesson: Conversion and restoration
  Conversion and restoration. Two villains are changed in the forest: Oliver, after his brother risks his life for him, and Duke Frederick, after he meets an old religious man. The comedy ends not only with marriages but with repentance and the return of what was stolen. Jaques chooses to go and learn from the convert rather than join the dance.
- The Nibelungenlied, Lesson: Heroic culture is a machine for extinction
  Heroic culture is a machine for extinction. The poem admires courage while showing that heroic consistency leaves almost everyone dead. Its grandeur depends on the terrible cost of men and women refusing humiliation, compromise or retreat.
- Mental Maladies, GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INMATES
  THE VOLUME and their acts in accordance with them Case of a Jewess post-mortem examina- tion of Seat of hallucinations Darwin's and Foville's opinions respecting Sub- jects to which hallucinations usually relate Very common in insanity By some regarded as synonymous with vision How it differs therefrom Remarks on gene- ral treatment ILLUSIONS OF THE INSANE Preliminary remarks Illusions by some authors confounded with hallucinations Distinction pointed out Illusions not uncommon when in a state of health Examples...
- Persuasion, Lesson: Prudence and regret
  Prudence and regret. Anne was right to listen to an adviser she trusted and wrong in the outcome; the novel refuses easy blame while showing the long cost of over-caution.

Verified Quotes

Frequently cited

“Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Montaigne is a primary witness to Renaissance medicine from the patient's side. His kidney stones (renal colic with haematuria and gravel, from roughly 1578) generate first-person records of pain, regimen, spa cures and the passage of stones, together with a sceptical polemic against physicians that echoes Pliny and anticipates later therapeutic nihilism. 'Of the Force of Imagination' gathers suggestion, sympathetic symptoms, sexual impotence relieved by a ritual trick, and the mimed clyster, cases that read tod...
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Siddhartha: An Indian Tale, Medical lens
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Where the Red Fern Grows, Medical lens
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Frequently cited

“I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Life of Pompey
more worshiped the rising than the setting sun The young Pompey to Sulla, when Sulla at first refused him a triumph.
Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the First Edition, note (A xi)
Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected Kant insists that neither religion nor legislation is exempt from reason's tribunal.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Château d'If chapters ('The Abbé's Chamber' to 'The Cemetery of the Château d'If')
Faria's cataleptic attacks, treated with drops of a red liquid; the third attack kills him.
Tanglewood Tales, Summary
Tanglewood Tales is Nathaniel Hawthorne's second book of Greek myths retold for children, a sequel to A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. In a short introduction called The Wayside, Hawthorne pretends that the stories were written by his young friend Eustace Bright, a Williams College student who had told the first set to a group of children at Tanglewood in the Berkshires; Eustace visits Hawthorne's snowy Concord hillside with six new stories, and Hawthorne agrees to act as editor. The introduction explains the p...
Journey of the Magi, Lines 24-28
And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins, In the dawn valley the travelers pass images that foreshadow the Crucifixion without recognizing them.

Frequently cited

“The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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The Sign of the Beaver, Chapter 25
The family arrives and explains the delay: all were sick with typhus, and the baby born in Massachusetts has died.

Frequently cited

“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Pericles' Funeral Oration, Book II.37
Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. Pericles defines the Athenian constitution by whom it serves.
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Finney's claim that revival follows proper means frames conversion as something structured environments can promote.
The Spirit of the Laws, Book XI, ch. 4
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Calvin frames suffering as a field for trust, correction, endurance, and communal support.

Frequently cited

“Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Essays and Aphorisms, On Human Nature, 'Free-will and Fatalism'
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Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1
I am determined to prove a villain Richard announces his choice of villainy, with a play on determined as both resolved and fated.
The Collar, Lines 4-5
My lines and life are free; free as the rode, Loose as the winde, as large as store. The speaker claims an unlimited freedom; lines may mean both his lot in life and his verses.
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toward the love and practice of righteousness for he was a very pious man and submissive to the rules of the monastery And he burned with zeal against those who acted otherwise For this reason it was that his life ended with a fair death

“So much the rather thou, celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate; there plant eyes”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Mark Antony's Funeral Oration ("Friends, Romans, countrymen"), Act 3, Scene 2 (first speech)
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Essays: First Series (Self-Reliance and Other Essays), Full Text
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Frequently cited

“Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear; Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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The Pilgrim's Progress, Full Text
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“Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Loss changes the meaning of earlier pleasure. The final despair retroactively darkens the sequence. Memory turns erotic presence into evidence of absence.
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“So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard The Curfeu tolls the Knell of parting Day The lowing Herd winds slowly o'er the Lea The Plow-man homeward plods his weary Way And leaves the World to Darkness and to me Now fades the glimmering Landscape on the Sight And all the Air a solemn Stillness holds Save where the Beetle wheels his droning Flight And drowsy Tinklings lull the distant Folds Save that from yonder Ivy-mantled Tow'r The mopeing Owl does to the Moon complain Of such as wand'ring near her sacred Bow'r Mole...
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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism as well as abilities of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House But different men often see the same subject in different lights and therefore I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve This is no time for ceremony The question before the House is one of aw...
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, Paragraph 1
I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Her answer to counsellors who warned her against coming among armed men.

Frequently cited

“Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, That all was lost”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“then wilt thou not be loth To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A Paradise within thee, happier far”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XII (Project Gutenberg #26, 1674 twelve-book text).Quote card

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We Hold These Truths, Church and state
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Medical Lens

Milton wrote the poem blind, and the invocation to Light in Book III is one of the great first-person passages on the loss of sight, turning bodily blindness into a prayer for inward vision. In the poem's theology disease and death enter the world with the Fall: Death is an allegorical figure born of Sin, and in Book XI Michael shows Adam a lazar-house containing a catalogue of seventeenth-century diseases, from convulsions, epilepsies and catarrhs to demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy and moon-struck madness, attended by Despair. Satan's inner torment in Book IV gives a theological account of despair rather than a medical one.

Disability Deformity Death Dying Plague Epidemic Madness Psychosis Melancholia Depression Epilepsy Seizures Fever Infection

Book III
The invocation to holy Light laments the poet's blindness and asks for inward sight.
Book IV
Satan's soliloquy on Mount Niphates: the self-made hell of envy and despair.
Book X
Sin and Death come to the world to prey on all created things after the Fall.
Book XI
Michael's vision of the lazar-house lists the diseases, madness and melancholy that will afflict Adam's descendants.

Paradise Lost

Summary

Top Lessons

Free to stand, free to fall

The hell within

One faithful among the faithless

Repentance and the paradise within

Marriage before and after the Fall

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens