Paradise Lost Critics

Question 1

“to justify the ways of God to man”

Answer 1

John Milton’s aim with writing PL

Question 2

“Despite - or perhaps because of - his increasing blindness as he composed the work, Milton visualised the worlds of PL in vividly graphic terms”

Answer 2

Nigel Wheale

Question 3

“A vital aspect of the epic which is easily overlooked today is its fundamentally political nature”

Answer 3

Nigel Wheale

Question 4

“Paradise Lost can be read as a carefully coded critique of the institution of monarchy”

Answer 4

Nigel Wheale

Question 5

“Eve is more questioning, more intellectually curious than Adam - she continually pushes the boundaries”

Answer 5

Nigel Wheale

Question 6

“Jealousy then motivates the fallen Eve’s desire to make Adam fall”

Answer 6

Nigel Wheale

Question 7

“Like Achilles, Satan is driven by rage and by a sense of injured merti”

Answer 7

Jane Gibney

Question 8

“In truth, as readers, we are manipulated by Satan all the time”

Answer 8

Jane Gibney

Question 9

Milton didn’t write an epic about fabled knights (his original plan) based on “moral grounds”

Answer 9

John Rogers

Question 10

“Adam rejects Eve’s wandering as Milton rejects the whole genre of wandering, the literary romance”

Answer 10

John Rogers

Question 11

“The whole principle of human wandering is given a divine sanction in Areopagatica”

Answer 11

John Rogers

Question 12

“Eve before the fall had always been in a position to choose to yield to Adam, and here she no longer has a choice”

Answer 12

John Rogers

Question 13

“The narrator is giving a new, authoritative interpretation of the fall”

Answer 13

John Rogers

Question 14

“One of the most convincing elements of Satan’s temptation of Eve is his attempt to turn her act of disobedience into an act of romantic chivalry”

Answer 14

John Rogers

Question 15

Milton was “of the devil’s party without knowing it”

Answer 15

William Blake

Question 16

Milton “broke the stereotypical scapegoating of Eve as essentially a temptress and uniquely gave her responsible motives for her independent movements on the morning of the fall”

Answer 16

Diane Mccolley

Question 17

“Milton’s devil as a moral being is far superior to God”

Answer 17

Percy Bysse Shelley

Question 18

Satan is “the hero of Paradise Lost”

Answer 18

Percy Shelley

Question 19

“The bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton’s genius”

Answer 19

Percy Shelley

Question 20

“Milton writes english like a dead language”

Answer 20

T.S Elliot

Question 21

“The true hero of the poem is in fact the reader: seeing God as malevolant or Satan as attractive is simply an indication of the fallen state, and part of the poem’s purpose”

Answer 21

Stanley Fish

Question 22

“Eve is not demonised after the fall”

Answer 22

Anna Beer

Question 23

Milton demonstrates Eve’s “quiet heroism”

Answer 23

Anna Beer

Question 24

“Art for art’s sake? Art for God’s sake”

Answer 24

Christopher Ricks

Question 25

“The reason why the poem is so good is that it makes God so bad”

Answer 25

William Empson

Question 26

“Satan is english literature’s first terrorist”

Answer 26

John Carey

Question 27

“Milton thought women made only for disobedience”

Answer 27

Samuel Johnson

Question 28

Eve “falls through pride”

Answer 28

C.S Lewis

Question 29

… arguеd that Milton’s portrayal of Satan is so compelling that readers might find themselves drawn to thе charactеr, dеspitе his malеvolеnt intеntions, and that this sympathy highlights Milton’s complex understanding of human nature

Answer 29

C.S Lewis

Question 30

… adapted PL into an opera which explores Satan’s internal conflict on a deeper level

Answer 30

Krzysztof Penderecki (1976)