โThe greatest epic poem in the English languageย .ย .ย . A work of unparalleled imaginative genius that shapes English literature even now.โ โBenjamin Ramm, BBC.com
ย
Written in blank verse by the seventeenth-century English poet John Milton, this โepic of over 10,000 lines is a dramatic, imaginative version of Satanโs rebellion against God and of Adam and Eveโs eviction from Eden. Set at the beginnings of human history, it shifts us across an expansive universe: Heaven at the topโEarth dangling from itโand Hell at the bottom, a dark gloomy Chaos in between. It tells the story of divine creation, human ambition and hopeless rebellion, but is perhaps most famous for its presentation of Satan, an intensely deep characterโ (New Statesman).
ย
โMiltonโs cosmos is a visionary unfolding and enfolding of the biblical map with others from his vast mental bookstore. Paradise Lost itself is a densely intertextual amalgam of fictional worlds, made newly brilliant by the imagination behind the poetโs now sightless eyes, embodied in blank verse at its most vigorously muscled.ย .ย .ย . That verse flows, twists, ripples and thunders like a team of miraculously tireless and synchronised horses. Itโs the perfect body-mind work-out.โ โThe Guardian