Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

by John Milton, John Bradshaw, John Lemoinne, et al.

Book Overview

Concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men" and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and fre e will.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393092305
• ISBN13: 9780393092301
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 546 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.2" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The definitive Paradise Lost resource

It is a laborious read, but John Milton's Paradise Lost is worth it. First published in 1667, Paradise Lost remains, many contend, the greatest poem ever published in English, and Milton is deemed second only to Shakespeare among the pantheon of English writers. When reading Milton, be prepared for hundreds of references to Greek and Roman mythology that few of us (myself included) are familiar with as well as works saturated in biblical references and allusions and much obscure vocabulary. Happily, this Norton Critical Edition includes hundreds of notes--footnotes, so there is no disruptive flipping back and forth! This edition also offers dozens of critical essays on Paradise Lost, some dating back to its publication, a couple of Milton's prose works and an extensive glossary. Whether reading for pleasure or for (school) credit, this NCE of Paradise Lost is a godsend.

an Invaluable text

I ordered this text to help write a paper, and it has ended up serving as my primary text for my research. The text is at least as good as any of the other editions I have looked at, the footnotes are top-notch, and the critical articles are some of the siminal works. My only gripe is that there are no visual markers in the text for the footnotes, they are simply at the bottom of the page, signified by line number. Because of this, I sometimes don't realize that there are footnotes on a particular line, but this is a minor problem.

"Once lost, but I was found"

Rating Paradise Lost on a 5-star chart is not even fair.Some books are not to be rated at all, `cos they do deserve more.Paradise Lost deserves your time and your mind.