We’ve all heard about the classics and assume they’re

Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

22

(5) It is also part of 

storytelling that a story 

begins with things 

in one position and 

concludes with them in 

the opposite position. 

(6) The initially impres-

sive Satan is part of 

Milton’s technique of 

the guilty reader.

buzz words that might mislead us if we did not 

subject them to analysis. The effect of the speech is 

to rouse the demons to a frenzy of defiance hurled 

against God and Heaven (lines 663–69).

For Reflection or Discussion

The first thing to do is absorb and relish the bril-

liance of the writing. Then we need to get a grip 

on our responses. The framework of apparent and 

hidden plots continues in full force. The apparent 

grandeur of Satan is countered by other data that 

uncovers his evil and the ultimate futility of his 

battle against God. For example, we read that “his 

form had yet not lost / All her original brightness” 

(591–92); the word “yet” lets us know that eventu-

ally Satan loses all his brightness, and the word 

“all” implies that he has already lost some of his 

brightness. The right analytic framework is thus to 

ask what details contribute to the apparent plot of 

seeming grandeur and to the hidden plot of Satan’s 

evil and futility.