John Milton''s epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) is a literary landmark. His reworking of Biblical tales of the loss of Eden constitutes not only a gripping literary work, but a significant musing on fundamental human concerns ranging from freedom and fate to conscience and consciousness.
Designed for students new to Milton''s complex, lengthy work, this sourcebook:
* outlines the often unfamiliar contexts of seventeenth-century England which are so crucial to Paradise Lost
* completes the contextual study with a chronology and reprinted documents from the period
* examines and reprints a broad range of responses to the poem, from early reactions to recent criticism
* reprints the most frequently studied passages of the poem, along with extensive commentary and annotation of unfamiliar or significant terms used in Milton''s work
* provides cross-references between the textual, contextual and critical sections of the sourcebook, to show how all
