Paradise Lost

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree: Milton’s epic sets out to “justify the ways of God to men.” It opens in Hell, with Satan and his fallen angels roused on the burning lake, and rises to Heaven, where the Son offers himself for mankind while all the angels stand silent. It walks in the garden with Adam and Eve in their innocence, follows the temptation, the fall and their bitter quarrel through to repentance, and gives them the angel Michael’s vision of the history to come and of the Redeemer, until the pair go out from Eden hand in hand, the world all before them, and Providence their guide.