The Fall
Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve's loss of Paradise; their eating of the Forbidden Fruit has often been called the "Fall" (as in, "fall from innocence" or "fall from grace"), so it's no surprise...
Standing
If being fallen or "slack" is a sign of one's state of sin, doing the opposite – standing – is a sign of goodness, innocence, and distinction. So, for example, in the passage from Book...
Brightness and Light
We never actually see Milton's God; the only real thing Milton says about him is that he's really bright, or that he's like a giant light, hidden away somewhere. One of the ways in which Milton ind...
The One Man
The idea of the "one man" is very important in Paradise Lost. It represents Milton's idea of the difference that one man can make – whether literally or symbolically. The poster child for the...
Paradise
Paradise Lost is about the loss of…well, Paradise. So it's no surprise that images of paradises abound. First and foremost, we have the Garden of Eden. Milton makes it abundantly clear in Boo...