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Paradise Lost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Grant McColley
Affiliation:
Smith College

Extract

Among the significant questions perennially raised by Miltonic criticism, the two most important are the two most variously answered: What is Paradise Lost, and why did Milton write it? If the evidence which follows may be regarded as sufficiently exhaustive, I suggest that Paradise Lost was designed as a non-sectarian epic and more or less deliberately modelled as well as based upon conservative religious literature. The second conclusion is that Milton wrote his greatest poem to justify the ways of the Christian God, and to give artistic-prophetic expression to beliefs which were both vital and sacred to him.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1939

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