English Literature / Unit 9 ENL 0806 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Paradise Lost: Subject, Form and Invocation
Captions available
The idea
Paradise Lost, published in sixteen sixty-seven in ten books and in twelve in sixteen seventy-four, tells the Fall. Its blank verse opens, "Of Man's first disobedience," invokes the "Heavenly Muse," and states its purpose: to "justify the ways of God to men."
In practice
Blank verse, the Fall, God's justice.
Where people slip
The poem announces itself as a theodicy.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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