LIT 231/LIT 230
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Paradise Lost, Books V, IX-X

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. What does Milton do to the story of the creation and fall of human beings that appears in Genesis?  Obviously, he adds a lot to it.  What kinds of things does he add?  Why might he have added those things?  What is he trying to tell us about his values and his understanding of the world?
2. Who is the hero of Paradise Lost?  Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Ariosto all focused their poems on a hero who represented or symbolized their values in some way (i.e., Odysseus, Aeneas, Dante the Pilgrim, and Ruggiero, respectively).  Does Milton focus on one hero in Paradise Lost?  If not, why not?  If so, who is it?  What do we learn about Milton’s values from that hero (or lack of hero)?
3. Why does Milton tell the story of Abdiel in Book V?  How does the story of Abdiel relate to the story of the fall of Adam and Eve?  God sends Raphael to Adam to “advise him of his happy state” and to “warn him to beware / He swerve not too secure” (V, 234 and 237-238).  Raphael in turn tells the story of Abdiel.  What light does Abdiel shed on the situation of the first humans and on the course of action that they should take under the threat of Satan’s assault?
4. When Adam and Eve argue in Book IX about whether they should stick together or separate, who is right?  Whose fault is it that they fall to Satan’s temptation?  Is it all Eve’s fault?  Is it both their faults?  Is it Satan’s fault?  Is it God’s fault?  How does Milton’s understanding of sin and human frailty compare to Ariosto’s, Dante’s, Homer’s, Virgil’s, and/or Ovid’s?