The Only Use of
Paradise Lost
in
Flowers for Algernon -- Short Story
- I remembered how great I thought John Milton was, but when I picked up Paradise Lost I couldn't understand it at all.†
p. 18..7
Definition:
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(Paradise Lost) admired Milton epic poem of original sin (1667)editor's notes: Milton's goal was to write an epic poem in English that would be comparable to Homer's Odyssey. He said the poem was to "justify the ways of God to men" -- to explain the apparent conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will.
Milton was blind when he dictated the over 80,000 word poem in blank verse; i.e., unrhymed iambic pentameter (10-syllable lines with every other syllable stressed).
The poem is challenging to read, but even those who have not read it are often familiar with some of its lines such as:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
…who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
In 1671 Milton published a sequel, Paradise Regained about Jesus' triumphant resistance to Satan's temptation.