Reading Paradise Lost

by Hopkins, David

• ISBN13: 9781118471005
• ISBN10: 1118471008
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-02-11
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Casting a fresh perspective on the greatest long poem in English, David Hopkins guides the reader through the inspiring poetic landscape of Milton's great epic Paradise Lost , a work of literature which has compelled and fascinated readers down the ages and which offers enduring insight into the human condition A welcome aesthetic focus on the poetic experience of reading Paradise Lost rather than its religious or political context Provides a nuanced, unified vision of the poem from a celebrated authority on English poetry of the period Includes consideration of the poem's earlier champions and critics Passionately advocates Paradise Lost 's continuing artistic and philosophical relevance

Author Biography

David Hopkins is Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK. A specialist on English poetry and literary criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he has written two books on John Dryden – John Dryden (1986) and Writers and their Work: John Dryden (2004). His latest work, Conversing with Antiquity: English Poets and the Classics, from Shakespeare to Pope (2010), reflects Hopkins’s interest in the enduring influence on English poetry of the literature and culture of classical antiquity. Prof Hopkins has also edited numerous volumes including (with Paul Hammond) an annotated edition of Dryden’s complete poems.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Paradise Lost: Poem or "Problem"? 1

2 God, Satan, and Adam 23

3 Eden 43

4 The Fall 63

Further Reading 85

Index to lines and passages from Paradise Lost 91

Index to main text and notes 93