Historical significance and beautifully descriptive prose aside, I couldn't get into this book at all. Maybe it's too much familiarity with the plot or the inevitability of the impending doom of the ending, but I just found my mind wandering throughout reading Paradise Lost and would find that I had read 10 or 12 pages with absolutely no clue as to what was really going on in what I had just read and then I'd have to re-read it all over again. I can see why Milton's attempt to enlighten his audience as to the events leading up to the fall of man were important and relevant at the time that it was written and can see the significance of his writing on the literature of today, I just did not find Paradise Lost to be personally satisfying or enjoyable.

That being said, there are some passages throughout the text that are extremely rich, beautiful and powerful examples of what the English language can be in the hands of a master author. I appreciate Paradise Lost for what it is and represents, but it just isn't what I like to read. ( )

Link to a review on my personal website. ( )

Milton's epic poem imagining The Fall. There is controversy as to whether the poem is pro or anti Satan. I definitely fall on the pro-Satan side. It's a beautiful statement about the power of knowledge. ( )

Quite liked it ( )

Paradise Lost has been one of the most challenging yet satisfying reads I have ever experienced. The story is about Satan and his fall from heaven. It goes through his battle with God, his fall into hell, his fellow fallen angels, his journey to Eden, and his corruption of the garden of paradise. It is a difficult novel to read because, not only is the language very difficult, but for a christian reader, it sometimes seems as if Satan is heroic and pitiable. I found myself often having to step back and say "remember Walker, this is the same guy who corrupted all of mankind".

I read this Epic because I felt it might fit in well with the topic of Utopias and Dystopias. I was not disappointed. Although the story was not particularly about a Utopia or Dystopia, it dealt with the destruction of the Utopia (Eden), and the seeds which Satan laid to create earth into a Dystopia. After reading the almost atheistically Oriana novel Brave New World, it was fascinating to see a Christian side to the Utopia vs. Dystopia conflict.

Although I enjoyed the Epic, I would not recommend it to many readers under the age of 20. I know that I would not have been able to make heads or tale of it had I not had a background in Vergil's Aeneid. After translating the Aeneid from the original Latin, I knew what to expect from Paradise Lost (which Milton wrote as an allusion to the Aeneid). The prose is extremely difficult, and is made all the more difficult by the numerous Biblical references as well. Unless you have spent significant time reading stories that are written in Epic form, or follow the metrical patterns of Roman literature, I do not think you will understand this Epic. ( )