Milton’s Paradise Lost Regained: What the Sequel Tells Us about Its More Admired Predecessor

James Banks 

Mentor: Rick Fehrenbacher

Background

            For the past few months, I have been developing an idea for a project on Milton.  My interest in Milton began when a friend who is a high school English teacher asked if I would speak to her class about Milton and his critics.  Reading through Samuel Johnson’s biography of Milton, I thought to ask if and how Paradise Regained (a work almost entirely neglected) can serve as a guide to reading Paradise Lost.  I began researching this question over the break, starting by reading Paradise Regained and rereading Paradise Lost along with other works of criticism, such as Johnson’s biography of the poet, Macaulay’s essays on him, Addison’s introduction on Paradise Lost, the Northrop Frye’s passages on Milton in The Anatomy of Criticism and Stanley Fish’s Surprised by Sin.  Though most of these authors do not discuss Paradise Regained, I wish to discuss their criticism in relation to the interpretation that Paradise Regained suggests of Paradise Lost. 

Current Project

            At this point in the project, I need to read more of the modern criticism which is readily available at the library.  I also need to read and underline certain passages of both Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained more carefully; this is particularly important because, while external criticism is useful, I want the essential body of my paper to be about Paradise Lost/Regained itself rather than about Paradise Lost’s critics and admirers.

Plan for Next Two Months

            I intend to spend the next few weeks researching the two works and particularly Paradise Regained; the criticism on this will be less prestigious, but probably more useful because the critics of this work are more likely to discuss it in light of Paradise Lost than vice versa.  After I have done this, I will assess the criticism and decide which articles and books are informative enough to include in my study.  This research will become the basis of my response.  After this task is completed, I will make an outline for the project and begin the writing process.      

Ideas for How to Present This Work

            My goal for a product is a standard research paper of about twenty pages.  Naturally, I will not only discuss how Paradise Regained and Paradise Lost interpret one another but also what this interpretation should be.  I am particularly interested (as many have been) in the political implications of both of these works and intend to write on this extensively in my essay.  I will be approaching the paper using mainly archetypal assumptions. 

            At the moment, in as far as presentation is concerned, I would like to concentrate on Milton’s historical context as a means of tying Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained to the world.  This is a means of preventing the presentation from becoming overly abstract or remote and also allows for extensive use of visual aids when I present this project in class at the end of the semester.

Tentative Bibliography

Addison, Joseph. “Paradise Lost: General Critical Remarks.” Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1 ed. M. H. Abrams et al. New York: Norton, 1994. pp.

            2206-2209.

Cook, Patrick J. Milton, Spenser and the Epic Tradition. Brookfield, VT: Scolar P, 1996.

Cox, Lee Sheridan. “Food-Word Imagery in Paradise Regained.” ELH 28.3 (Sept. 1961):

            pp. 225-243.

Donnelly, Philip J. “Paradise Regained as Rule of Charity: Religious Toleration and the End of Typology.” Milton Studies 43.1 (2004): pp. 171-197.

Fish, Stanley. Surprised by Sin. Berkeley: U of California P, 1967.

Forsyth, Neil. “Having Done All to Stand: Biblical and Classical Allusions in Paradise Regained.” Milton Studies 21.1 (1985): pp. 199-214

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.

Goldsmith, Stephen. “The Muting of Language and Redemption in Paradise Regained.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 27.1 (Winter, 1987): pp. 125-140

Johnson, Samuel. Lives of the Poets. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, (Year Unknown)

Lieb, Michael and Albert C. Labriola, eds. Milton in the Age of Fish. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2006.

Milton, John. Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. New York: The Modern Library, 1920.

Macaulay, Thomas. Selected Essays of Macaulay. ed. Samuel Thurber. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1891.

Richmond, Hugh M. Christian Revolutionary: John Milton. Berkeley: U of California P,

            1974.

Shoulson, Jeffrey S. “Milton and Enthusiasm: Radical Religion and the Poetics of Paradise Regained.” Milton Studies 47.1 (2008): 219-257.

Thompson, Elbert N. “The Theme of Paradise Lost.” PMLA 28.1 (1913): pp.106-120

Signed,

James Banks

Rick Fehrenbacher