There are a lot of challenges in reading 17th-century literature; add to Paradise Regained a basic question as to what exactly is being read. Is this a stand-alone pocket epic or intended follow-up to another epic?
Yes to both is the best answer I can offer. Whether you read it for the history, the religion, or the craft itself, John Milton serves up a challenging, engaging, if unfulfilling treatment of New Testament themes, modelled on how he did the Old Testament in Paradise Lost.
Literature is a subjective medium, so defining greatness in it is tricky. Time makes this trickier; one generation’s masterpiece might just leave their descendants dazed and confused. Scholars are Beowulf’s main audience now; does anyone still read Pilgrim’s Progress?
Paradise Lost had a time capsule feel not long after its creation. Religiously, John Milton’s Puritan form of Christianity had already fallen out of favor in his homeland by the time of its publication; stylistically, its use of blank verse was even more out-of-step.
Why then, has it mattered as long and as deeply as it does?
