 Hello friends, welcome to arpittakarva.com India's finest online coaching for English literature. Today we will be covering detailed summary of Paradise Lost, the most famous epic poem by John Milton. We have dedicated a full chapter just for this poem. So it is rather very important. So let's not waste any more time and discuss the introduction to Paradise Lost. It's an epic poem and we will not be doing a line by line analysis of the poem because it's very long. However, I will describe it in such a way that you will understand it comprehensively. So let's begin. But before we begin, let us learn some basic facts about this work. This poem was written in a blank verse by Milton and the first version was published in 1667 and it consisted of 10 books while the second edition was published in 1674. It was arranged into 12 books. So as you all must be thinking now, we are going to discuss all the 12 books, but in a manner that will be very simple and interesting. So let's begin with book one where Milton begins with asking a deity, a god, a spirit, or particularly a muse for help. He was calling out to the muse because he believed that the muse will help him write better poetry and secondly, many poets have been following this practice of talking to the muse. Now you all must be very curious. What does he want from the muse? Milton wants the muse to sing and tell about man's first disobedience. Now you are curious again why he wants to shame us humans by telling us about our acts of disobedience. But Milton explains that his goal through this work is to justify the many ways of God to men. He wants to talk about man's disobedience towards God and the result of that disobedience. What disobedience and how you will understand as we move further. Now the first book opens at the time when God threw out rebel angels from heaven into hell. The opening scene is of hell and describes Satan and his trustworthy friends, B.L.C. Bub who has just been thrown out. Why were they thrown out? We will know the backstory in book number 5. When it opens we find that Satan and B.L.C. Bub are both lying in a fiery lake where they discussed if they should take revenge on God. While B.L.C. Bub says that they cannot defeat God, Satan says that he is confident that he can defeat God. So Satan further utters the most famous lines to B.L.C. Bub which is The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. Now after saying this, Satan tries to make the best of his situation in hell. According to him it is better to rule hell than to serve in heaven. Now when he has fully made up his mind he asks an army of fallen angels to get up. They all start to dig the ground and find gold and many other minerals. They further build a temple which is known as Pandemonium which will now be Satan's throne and a meeting place. So if someone has watched the series Lucifer on Netflix, you will be well aware of this throne. Now what does this throne building call us? It is an example of the many ways Satan and his followers try to copy the glory of heaven in hell. Now there are some very important facts that you must remember about Paradise Lost. Book 1, it's a very interesting fact that the opening 16 lines of Paradise Lost comprise only one sentence. Can you imagine that? Nevertheless, another important line in the book says that glory never shall his wrath or might extort from me. Here glory refers to the courage that we should never submit or yield. Moving on to Book 2 now friends, whether hell gang was plotting to get revenge against God by war or through tricks. Now we have Belial, an evil spirit who says that if the fallen angels don't trouble and anger God, he will free them of their punishment. Hence according to Belial, there should not be any kind of war, whether open or hidden or concealed. However, once Belial finishes his talk, Molok says that it doesn't make any sense to worship someone you hate. Hence he suggests that they should keep living in hell, free and to non-accountable, preferring heart liberty before the easy yoke of survival pomp. So they say that we are at least free in hell. There is liberty there but there is a lot of hard work so it's better that we stay here. But at this point, Belzibab interrupts and says that Molok is wrong. He says that God will still rule them in hell. So he says that it's nothing like this, whether we stay in heaven or hell, both the cases God is going to rule us. Now what the fallen angels can probably do to anger God? Belzibab suggests that attacking the common mortal man who he thinks is less in power but more favored by God. Much debate, the fallen angels from hell decide to damage the new world that God has created, which is called earth and seduce the mortal man God has just created. But the only problem was to decide whom they should send. They all unanimously chose their leader as Satan. So thus Satan starts his journey to earth and before leaving he meets his children, sin and death at the gate of hell. But as you know, God is watching everything. He sees Satan reaching earth and predicts the fall of man. However, he also sees that his son Jesus will sacrifice himself to save man. Now what to remember in book one? While Milton introduces Satan and the fallen angels, we find two chief devils to appear in book two known as Molok and Belhill. Moving on to book three. So friends here, Milton again asks for the help of gods and goddesses to help him right because he is suffering from an illness. The illness is blindness. But you all must be curious, what does this man seek now? What does he want now? He again invokes the muse but this time addresses it to the holy light. He asks the heavenly light to shine inside him and give him divine knowledge so that he can further share this knowledge with his readers. Book three opens in heaven and we see God pondering over the situation. We learn how Satan is trying to destroy man and how God has predicted that man will fall easily. But why does man fall? God explains that he has made man in such a way that he is sufficient to have stood but free to fall. Which means that man himself chooses to do the right thing or the wrong thing. God has made man with both his capabilities. The right thing to choose is his problem. So now God's son was really worried about the predictions made by God about man's fall. But God assures him that he will renew man's powers. But generations of men will die until someone goes down on earth to help them and redeem them. So he said that he will renew man's powers. But generations of men will die until someone goes down on earth to help them. That's when these things will happen. So while no one volunteers from heaven, it's finally the son of God who comes forward and chooses to save the man from the fall. So friends this is what will happen in the future. But right now let us get back to Satan. In book 2 we saw that Satan left hell. In book 3 Satan lands on earth. But he gets distracted when he sees the gate of heaven from a distance. He climbs up a few steps but he's again distracted by the sun and flies over it. However at the sun he sees an angel standing named Uriel. But he also knows that if he goes up just like this his plans will be known to everyone and they'll be destroyed. So what does he do? He changes form and becomes an innocent looking cherub which you can think as a little angel. So he then asks for the directions to paradise. While Uriel is tricked by Satan's new form he shows Satan the way to paradise. Now friends moving to the next book, number 4. Book number 4 may Satan enters paradise. There he finds Adam and Eve, God's first humans. Then Satan becomes jealous of their happiness. He hears Adam telling Eve that they should not eat the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge. Meanwhile Uriel, the angel we just talked about warns Gabriel and the other angels that one of the fallen angels has entered paradise. They all get into detective mode and soon Satan is caught in the shape of a little frog or toad trying to whisper to Eve in her sleep. But after this discovery he's thrown out of Eden, the Paradise Garden. Then we have the book number 5. Where Adam and Eve wake up from their sleep and Eve tells Adam about the disturbing dream she had. She tells that in a dream she saw an angel who offered her fruit from the tree of knowledge and also promised her that she could become a goddess if she ate from it. But Adam tells Eve to not overthink as it was just a dream. They both go off to work in the fields starting their day with prayers. Now God who was seeing everything sends Raphael another angel to warn Adam and Eve about Satan and also remind them that they can choose whatever they want to but it will eventually determine their fate. So Adam and Raphael meet and Adam keeps on asking the angel Raphael about heaven but he says that he does not know of anything except earth. But Adam keeps on requesting. And eventually Raphael tells Adam and Eve in detail the story of the great war between God and bad angels and he also tells that Satan also whose name is Lucifer was the most beautiful angel of heaven but he became then jealous of the son of God and led a war against God. However within the fallen angels there was an angel known Abdel who stopped his allegeans to Satan and told the fallen angels that they would be defeated one day. Hence he protested and left the followers of Satan. He was welcomed back into the ranks of God and was forgiven by God for his loyalty, obedience and resistance to evil. Moving on to the sixth book my friends it is merely an extension of the angelic or great war Raphael mentioned about in the previous book. So what we get to learn is that in the angelic war Satan's followers fought the battle with the faithful angels for three whole days. But as the war entered the third day God sent a messiah. Now I'm sure you all must be knowing who this messiah could be. Remember God's son who came forward to volunteer and save man from the fall. Yes you are right my dear friends God's son Jesus rides in his flaming chariot as the messiah and rives out all the rebels from heaven and sends them down to hell. Now you must do a quick exercise and reconnect what all we have seen till now because now the poem again gives back to Adam's story in the next book. So in this book number seven friends Adam out of curiosity asks Raphael how heaven and earth first started and also asked as to why Eden was created. Now here it gets very interesting when Raphael tells the story of creation. According to the tale on the first and second days God created heaven, earth, light, day and night. And on the third day dry land was created on earth and mountains emerged. Further seas were created and grass and fruit yielding trees appeared. The fourth day however features the creation of the sun, moon and stars. On the fifth day reptiles were generated in the waters and foul in the air. On sixth day the creation of cattle creeping things such as bees, bees and most interestingly the serpent that was not harmful but obedient. Sat within God took rest and that's why we have seven days in a week and the God who rested is our rest day and it's known as Sunday. So after all this man was formed to govern over all and in the end woman was formed from man. But just when you think Adam's questions would end he keeps going on which we shall see in the next book. Now friends let's talk about book eight where Adam asks Raphael some rather difficult questions such as about the movements of planets in the universe. Though Raphael does answer Adam's questions he insists that Adam should rather focus on earthly knowledge or heavenly knowledge. And finally after so many questions Adam is finally satisfied and he takes us back into his own history. Now listen carefully. When Adam first came down he woke up in sweat and looked here and there and asked how he came there. As an answer he had a dream where someone commanded him he will be the first father of a man. But as we all saw how curious Adam was he again asks whether he will have to live alone. To that God replied that there are a lot of beasts down there and he wouldn't feel alone. But to this Adam argues that all other beasts are less powerful and are rather inferior what he wants is someone equal. So finally God accepts his request and Adam narrates how God made him fall asleep and used one of his ribs to make a woman. And as we all know woke on the Eve. However do remember Adam in this book number 8 also tells Raphael that Eve is also one of his chief flaws and weaknesses. Now after hearing the entire story Raphael finally leaves Adam but while going away he reminds Adam that he was free to avoid any temptation. Adam then thanks Raphael for the wizard in return. Now friends let's talk about book 9 and I hope you remember how Satan was thrown out of Eden but after being gone for many days Satan decides to make a return for this he changes his form into a serpent. Next morning when Adam and Eve wake up for their gardening work they have a small argument when Eve suggests that they both should go in separate directions to work. After much argument Adam finally agrees. It is then when Satan as a serpent finds Eve alone and approaches her. Still wondering what a serpent is it's nothing but a large snake. So now Eve gets very surprised to see that the snake can speak and she is soon induced by him to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. When Adam gets to know about what Eve has done he gets horrified about the consequences but at the end he decides that he will be her partner and share her fate. Hence Adam also eats the fruit. So referring to this event Adam was overcome with female charm and so he ate the forbidden fruit against his better knowledge. It means that he eventually fell in love with a woman and did not use his brain. So after eating the fruit both Adam and Eve are aroused with lust and they lay together and then fall to restlessly. Soon after they wake up with shame finding themselves naked. They cover themselves and in such emotional chaos they both start blaming each other for all that has happened. Now the above incident has been referred to by Milton in the book 9 as fall of man in two stages. Now we will talk about the next book that is book number 10 and you all must be well aware time and again the above books have hinted that choices made will have consequences. Hence after the above incident by Adam and Eve Lord Christ who is the Son of God comes into picture. He sentences the snake or serpent with a curse that it will forever remain a hated enemy of mankind. Secondly, Lord Christ also announces the punishment for Eve. According to the punishment, Eve's pain will increase as she would have to be her children and will forever remain the servant of Adam. So you can say somewhere Eve is responsible for all our pains all women out there can blame Eve. And Adam was not even saved he was also punished and according to the punishment, Lord Christ said Adam would eat bread only by toiling and sweating. This was a curse but more importantly Adam lost God's grace forever. So in short as a man he would have to go out he would have to work hard he would have to earn daily bread. Now as Christ announced the punishment, death and sin of hell and joined their father Satan on earth. Hence Satan sent sin and death as his ambassadors on earth while he himself went back to hell to see if his followers had all become snakes. While all this happened, God also made many changes on earth. He replaced the season of eternal spring with changing seasons and created violent storms winds, hail, ice, floods and earthquakes and finally the punishment which you all must be expecting by now. God sent Adam and Eve expulsion from Eden. So Satan went back to hell to see if his followers had become snakes or not. And God made more changes on earth and introduced more dangerous things because eternally there was spring but now all kinds of seasons and floods started coming on earth and Adam and Eve were removed from Eden. Now we will move to book 11 my friends in which God sends Michael and his group to make the sinning pair of Adam and Eve leave paradise. But before this happens, God commanded Michael to tell Adam everything about what will happen in the future due to his sin. So he sends Michael to God to show Adam and Eve the way out of paradise and tell them what will happen in the future because of his sin. So now friends as the angel Michael comes down to Eden and tells the news of expulsion to Adam and Eve listening to their punishment Eve breaks down in tears. However Michael and Adam go to a hill where Michael tells him everything that shall happen in the future till the great flood. Michael even shows him a scene where there were two men offering sacrifices. However one man kills the other by hitting a stone. So Adam gets very confused by saying the scene but Michael explains that these men are Cain and Evil who will be your and Eve's first sons. Adam gets horrified but Michael explains that man will die from violence and diseases in the future. Listening to what is waiting in the future Adam also starts crying but Michael explains that all this can be avoided by controlling what one eats and drinks. So now you are seeing how futuristic and how scientific everything is. Basically take care of the food and take care of yourself. You will be good. This is what we all are trying to achieve even today. Let's talk about Book 12. So this book focused on Lord Jesus. Continuing with his explanation in the previous book Michael explains that in later future Israelites that is the people of Israel will become more and more sinful until Jesus appears. However Michael says that Jesus will be crucified but he will be resurrected within three days. Resurrection my friends it's bringing back someone to life. So after the resurrection of Jesus he will leave for heaven but he will have a second coming to earth. So when he comes back he will reward the good and punish the bad on judgment today. So after hearing everything Adam is satisfied with the knowledge. Michael asks him to keep faith and he will have an inner paradise happier than paradise. Both Michael and Adam walk down the hill soon after a flaming sword is placed to block the gates of Eden as Adam and Eve are sent away from paradise. So as Adam and Eve leave paradise hand in hand with wondering steps and slow. They are comforted by their foreknowledge of the coming of Christ as redeemer of mankind. Christ will be Insaniat Kamasiha and that's how paradise lost ends. Pretty big story right? Let's now discuss another important part of our discussion which is critical analysis. John Dryden adapted Paradise Lost for a stage work named The State of Innocence published in 1671. For this he sought and received Milton's permission to put Paradise Lost into a rhyme. By the early 18th century Paradise Lost gained much attention Joseph Addison published a series of essays in The Spectator which was published in 1712. So in this work he ranked Milton's epic with the works of classical antiquity. Next we have Alexander Pope who borrowed heavily from the imagery of Milton's poem and his own work The Rape of the Lock. Constructed a mock epic that essentially became a parody of Paradise Lost. However, Milton's reputation also suffered because of Emil Johnson who was critical of Milton. Though Johnson praised the greatness of Paradise Lost he did not like the use of images from Nature by Milton. Then we have William Blake who famously wrote the reason Milton wrote in Fetters when he wrote of Angels and God and at Liberty when of Devils and Hell is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's Party without knowing it. Now what does this mean? According to Blake, Milton's depiction of God was so inferior to that of Satan that he considered Milton to be Satanist himself. So this, my dear friends, is one harsh criticism. I mean, he didn't tell Satan. He said, let's go, he did bad for Satan but he didn't praise God that much. So you are also Satan. Then my friends we have Shelly's Prometheus In Prometheus Unbound it's modeled after Milton's Satan and this you should remember Shelly also wrote that Milton alleged no superiority of moral value to his God over his Devil. However, despite the criticism it must be noted that in Paradise Lost Milton was not only justifying God's ways to humans in general but he was justifying his ways to the English people between 1640 and 1660. With his work he wanted to tell that the people of England had failed to establish society by deposing the king and also questioned why they had welcomed back the monarchy. So according to him, just like Adam and Eve people had failed due to their own weaknesses their own lack of faith, their own passions and greed, their own sin. Hence God was not to be blamed for the trials and corruptions that happened in England during the times of Oliver Cromwell. And another interesting work that was inspired from Paradise Lost was Milton's God written by William Emson in 1961. Emson concluded after an idiosyncratic and spirited demolition of God's motives and actions that the reason why the poem is so good is that it makes God so bad. Stanley Fish published Surprised by Sin, subtitled The Reader in Paradise Lost in which he tried to bridge the opposing views by arguing that the true hero of the poem is in fact the reader. Now, since we have talked about Paradise Lost, let's talk about Paradise Lost Sequel written by Milton. It is called Paradise Regained. Obviously, it's a sequel. Paradise is lost, you got it. So that's how you remember the second sequence. Part 2. So one of Milton's friends, Thomas Elwood read Paradise Lost and he told Milton, hey friend, you have talked about Paradise Lost but what about Paradise being regained? Hence, as a response, Milton wrote Paradise Regained which was a series of debates between Christ and Satan. So this work was made up of four books and was published along with another work of Milton, titled Samson Agonistase. So, as I said, I have already written it. So, Milton answered his friend Thomas Elwood and wrote Paradise Regained. Now, the chapter is over. So, that's it from my side for this lecture. We will soon meet in the next lecture and till the time we meet next, happy learning, keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpitakarwa.com