Paradise Lost

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Title page of the first edition

Paradise Lost (interpreting. Paradise Lost ), published in 1667, is an epic poem in blank verse of the English poet John Milton . It tells the story of the fall of the angels into hell , the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan , the fall of man and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden . The work is also interpreted as a parable of the political situation in England in the middle of the 17th century: in 1660 the Puritan Revolution failed under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell , who was strongly supported by the liberal Milton, and the Stuart King, Charles II, ascended after the restoration the monarchy the throne. Milton escaped the death sentence only thanks to a general amnesty. The epic is divided into ten, later twelve books, each with between 640 and 1200 lines.

content

Satan, engraving by Gustave Doré , in John Milton's Paradise Lost

overview

In twelve books, Milton sings about the biblical story of the fall of Adam and Eve, as well as the prehistory of the fall of Satan and his followers in great detail. The author has taken the events of the fable core taken from a few chapters of the Old Testament ( Genesis , chapters 1-3) around transcendental scenes based on motifs from Isaiah's prophecies (chapters 14, v.12-15) and Ezekiel (Kp. 28, V. 12-15) as well as from the Apocalypse of John (Kp. 12, V. 7-9) and expanded to include the New Testament image of God. The Son of God defeated the jealous Satan and his army on behalf of the omniscient Father with the angels at his side. Later the Son of God sacrifices himself to save humanity from destruction. Milton repeatedly cites myths and people from ancient Greece and Rome. Central is a long dialogue between the cherub Raphael and Adam (books 5 to 8), in which the archangel not only describes the motives of Satan to the first man, who acts out of envy of the Son of God, and describes the battle between good and evil, but also Adam also teaches about God's motives for creating Paradise and the dangers that lurk there.

1. After the fall of Hell, Satan gathers his companions around him, raises them up again and calls a council to debate another uprising.
2. In the council there is no majority in favor of violent action against God, but there is a ruse: Satan reports on the creation of man and proposes to ponder his ruin.
3. God foresees the seduction of Adam and Eve; as his creatures, like the angels, they are endowed with free will. His son sacrifices himself to prevent the downfall of humanity. Satan has overcome the gates of hell and is flying through space in search of the newly created earth.
4. Satan, tormented by self-doubt, observes from the tree of knowledge the happy couple Adam and Eve in idyllic paradise.
5. Archangel Raphael tells Adam the prehistory of Paradise: Satan's rebellion against God,
6. His fight and defeat against the cherubins of the Son of God as well
7. Creation.
8. Adam tells of his conversation with God, his commission and the creation of Eve.
9. Satan in serpent form flattered Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Adam also takes from the fruit out of love for Eve, they love each other and lose their innocence.
10. God judges Satan and the human couple.
11. Cherub Michael lets Adam look into the future and shows him the downfall of his sinful descendants in the flood and the new beginning.
12. Michael continues to report about the people of Israel and the world judgment. Adam and Eve set off hand in hand into the world before them.

1. Singing

Satan's palace

After invoking the heavenly muse Urania, the defeat of Satan and his followers is reported, who after their fall from heaven lie motionless and shattered in the dark abyss of hell for nine days and nights. Then Satan rises to rebuild his army. In the style of ancient heroic epics, e.g. B. Virgil's Aeneid , the demonic leaders (Satan, Beelzebub, Moloch, Chemos, Mammon) and their influence on the pagan cults in the Orient and in Greece are presented. After the military defeat, they do not want to be slaves of heaven, but instead fight as masters of the lightless and flame-filled underworld from their magnificent capital, Pandemonium, with cunning and deception: “It is better to be master of hell than to be master of heaven Slave". They want to undermine and reverse the plan of the Almighty, not to destroy the apostates once and for all, but to let good good arise with their help from evil.

2. Singing

Satan calls his princes to the council meeting in the underworld, which is modeled after the ancient Hades - so we speak of Styx, Acheron, Eisland etc. Very different characters meet at the infernal prince's court: power-conscious, violent, cultivated, delicately inclined towards the fine arts, philosophizing about ethical issues, argumentatively astute and rhetorically trained demons. In the strategy discussion, Moloch advocates an open fight for revenge for exile. Their situation of eternal hell punishments would no longer worsen if they were defeated again, but they could challenge the Almighty to condemn them to total annihilation in nothing and thus save them from eternal despair. The crafty, eloquent Belial contradicts this. God cannot or does not want to extinguish the apostate people of heaven, but even harsher punishments are conceivable. They should submit to their fate after the imprudent rebellion and not make the situation worse. Mammon also speaks out against the renewed fight. However, he does not want to show submission, but advises to rely on your own abilities and to found a proud counter-realm. Beelzebub, the second most powerful, advocates the tactic previously discussed with Satan of thwarting God's plan to create people on earth in his own image. These mortals are superior in strength and can easily be seduced into turning away from their Creator. After the discouragement and weakening of man, it may be possible to escape from the dungeons of hell and take power in heaven. Satan, the ruler accepted by all, takes responsibility for the dangerous action to fulfill his preeminent role. He sets off to the gates of hell and finds sin and death there as a guard. The sin that bears the womb of a serpent once sprang from the head of Satan, so it is his daughter, and begat death with him. After the rebellion, they were thrown into the abyss of hell, the mating of mother and son gives rise to ever-increasing hellhounds. Satan promises sin and death the entry into paradise, persuades them to open the gate and sets off with his wings on the dangerous journey through the immeasurable space filled with darkness, steam, swamp and the battle of the elements to the limits of the kingdom of light . Satan also promises rewards to the ruler of this sphere, Chaos, after his final victory over heaven. To thank him, chaos shows him the way to the newly created earth.

Satan's flight through the universe

3. Singing

Milton compares himself to the singers and seers Thamyris , Maeonides, Teiresias and Phineus , who, like himself, never saw the light of day after their blindness. A sarcasm, since the poet also equates God the Father with light. Surrounded by his Son and the angels, the ruler of heaven praises his creation, the people who find his grace. The Son of God is skeptical and asks what people expect if Satan successfully seduces them. God replies that he has given humanity a free will to test their obedience. They have to take personal responsibility and are judged and punished for their offenses. He omnisciently foresees the fall of Adam and Eve through the cunning of Satan, but will not intervene on principle. His Son, the mediator, has compassion for the divine favorite creatures and is the only one in heavenly counsel to propose to the Father to die in place of sinful people, even if only in a temporary earthly life, since he is immortal. God agrees happily (“Heaven's love eliminates hate”) and raises the son to judge the world. Then the angels praise the two with hymns of praise.

In the meantime Satan has penetrated from the dark, empty space into the light-flooded, brightly shining firmament of the stars. When he sees the angel Uriel, he disguises himself as a youthful cherub with lush curls and pretends to be curious admiration for the new creatures that are supposed to replace the fallen angels. Uriel lets himself be deceived at first and shows him the way to paradise on planet earth, but quickly becomes suspicious when he looks after Satan who is flying away.

4. Singing

Satan looks to paradise

Tormented by considerable self-doubt, Satan talks to himself and asks himself whether he should repent of his deeds in order to turn his fate around. He looks at the newly created paradise from the highest point, the top of the tree of knowledge . The view from there is described in detail. It is a park landscape described as an idyll with animals living peacefully together. Adam and Eve, the gardeners and future parents of the human race, live here in a shaded arbor with patriarchal roles. The poet praises the harmonious married life in which sexuality, innocence and sinlessness are compatible with one another: the "wonderful [-] gift of sleep". Satan jealously watches the loving couple in their tenderness and is impressed by the richness of nature as an image of the heavenly glory on earth. He temporarily wavers in his rebellious attitude, but quickly realizes that he is too proud and haughty to beg God for mercy. He would rather be king of darkness than servant in the realm of light. In addition, he hopes to influence the new creatures and asks himself why they are forbidden to eat the fruits of the tree of knowledge and whether the price for their happiness and immortality is ignorance. Here he sees the possibility of using human curiosity for himself and plans to tempt them to eat the forbidden fruits from the tree of knowledge with the lure of freeing themselves from their childlike dependence on the Creator. He turns into a toad and whispers restless fantasies and vain hopes in her dreams to the sleeping Eva. He is disturbed by two cherub guards who use their spearheads to transform him back to his true form and lead him to Archangel Gabriel. This had been warned by Uriel and had then ordered a search of the garden. In a bitter argument, Satan defiantly admits that he broke out of hell in order to find a better place to stay for his court in space or on earth. Gabriel accuses him of deceiving the Almighty, whom he has flattered in order to overthrow him. Before there is a fight between the two, God intervenes by showing Satan with a scales that he cannot survive a violent confrontation and that he has to flee. Gabriel reminds the lords of Hell that they were both only given their abilities.

Eva's dream sleep

5th and 6th chants

Morning is breaking in paradise. In pearl shine, rose fragrance and accompanied by birdsong, Eva Adam tells of her dream, in which an angel figure wanted to tempt her to taste a sweet, forbidden fruit and promised that she would become a goddess. Then she was able to soar high into the air. Adam explains to her that the strange dream comes from the evil that dwells in the soul and simulates fantasies. Together they say their morning prayers with praise for the Creator and His work. He knows about the machinations of Satan and sends the archangel Raphael to paradise so that Adam is prepared for the seduction, because he should not be able to talk himself out of having been taken by surprise afterwards. After a flight through the ether, the seraph is received with honor by the human couple in accordance with their position and hospitably entertained with the delicacies of the garden. Adam is initially unsure whether the food will please a spiritual being like Raphael, but he replies that everything that God created is pure and that beings like him are dependent on his food. Sitting around a table made of lawn and on chairs made of moss , Raphael and Adam begin a long dialogue about the essence of creation and the destiny of man. Raphael refers to the need to always be obedient to God the Father and the opportunities for development that arise for people.

Although it seems difficult and depressing for Raphael to make the conflict between Satan and God understandable to the human mind, he begins to tell the prehistory of the fall of hell. The almighty ruler of the heavens made his son co-regent at a glittering festival. Satan, one of the most powerful princes, is therefore jealous and asks numerous angels and their entourage under a pretext to gather in his palace in the north. There he moves the princes to a coup. God is not their creator, but they are all equal and can trust their own strength. All sons of the ether were born out of chaos and therefore, as free, are not bound by the laws of God. Only one seraph, Abdiel, contradicts him and returns to God, all others follow him into battle.

Defeat Satan

Raphael describes the following war as a battle picture in the style of an ancient heroic epic: deployment of armies and description of weapons, encouraging speeches by the leaders to their troops, invitation to fight with confidence in victory, battle with varying successes, deeds of individual heroes, council of war. This scenery is exaggerated by the dimension of the ether, the aerial battles, the enormous number of soldiers, the use of natural forces such as thunder , lightning and storms as well as mountains as projectiles. The angels feel pain , but since they are immortal, their wounds heal again and the damaged nature is also renewed. The fight lasts three days. On the first, Michael's army pushes back the enemies, on the second, Satan can assert himself with diabolical machines. Now God intervenes and gives his son the opportunity to overcome Satan's army, to cleanse the heavens of the rebels, but not to destroy them. In the decisive battle on the third day, the rioters only have to flee into the abyss, where they are locked up in hell.

7th and 8th song

Adam understands the story of Satan's rebellion and punishment, as intended by Raphael, as a warning and promises to obey God's commandments in obedience. Now he would like to know something about the creation of the world. Raphael tells him about it and praises creation as a successful work. The author essentially follows the Genesis in Genesis, Kp. 1,1-2,17. He describes the process mentioned there of the separation of the disordered elements from the chaos into light-dark, gaseous-liquid-solid, inanimate-animate, vegetative-animal-human with many examples in richly illustrated and colorfully decorated descriptions. The Old Testament source supplement, God receives son, as in defeating Lucifer / Satan, the father of the acclaimed of all the angels order that a new race to hell exiles instead of creating: In the car of the father he travels through the desert infinite Space and order it, as a prerequisite for a fruitful life on earth.

In the 8th chapter Adam asks his guest about the meaning and purpose of the infinite starry sky for the small earth, which according to Raphael is at the center of creation. The angel warns him not to search for things that are incomprehensible to his limited mind and that violate the divine commandment of obedience. Adam gives himself insight: Man should be modest and not bother with “haze and empty, inconsistent attitudes”. Adam now reports to the cherub about the visit of God the Father in Paradise. The author orients himself to Genesis, chapter 2: God's commission to Adam, as ruler of the earth, to look after the garden and to create an equal companion for founding the human race. Raphael teaches Adam about the special character of conjugal love: not the physical passion, but the connection of inner, spiritual values ​​and the addition of the characteristics of man and woman is essential and this connects people with the immortal angels.

9. Singing

The poet invokes his muse and compares the heroic events of this book with the Trojan War . Satan is on his guard against Uriel and sneaks around paradise at night, into which he finally invades, disguised as fog. He slips into the mouth of a sleeping snake. Sensing his triumph, he indulges in self-praise that culminates in the conviction that he will manage to destroy a work for which God needed six days in a single one: “Only the glory of the powers of hell will be mine in one day to have destroyed everything \ that the Almighty, as he is called, laboriously created in six ".

The tree of knowledge

The next morning the opportunity arises for Satan to destroy Adam and Eve. She suggests that in future they should go about their activities separately and with division of labor in the garden in order to make better use of the days; he warns them that together they could better withstand the threatening seduction announced by the angel. She takes this as a sign of mistrust and replies that she can recognize an impending danger herself. Adam explains to her that the danger can only come from within, because against the will of the Creator no harm can affect people. However, the enemy of humanity is able to simulate dream structures and outsmart the mind. On the other hand, she argues that such a trap is a test for her that she feels up to. Adam gives in: “Your lingering, when it is not free, \ only removes you further; walk away \ In innocence, and rely \ on Your virtue; offer everything that you do as God did his ”. Eve goes to her gardening, and here Satan sees the angelic figure. For a moment, "the charm of innocence [...] Satan's treachery soon was in fear [...] was moments long, numb from the good", but "the more he sees the bliss that has withdrawn from him [...] he quickly gathers the wild hatred" .

Satan hopes for easier access to Eve than to Adam and hides his hatred for her behind hypocritical affection. He draws her attention with sleek, elegant movements, praises her beauty, calls her the "Queen of the whole universe, of all creatures". Eva, astonished by the flattery, explains that the snake has gained voice and understanding for knowledge by enjoying an apple, so that it differs from animals. Eva becomes curious and lets herself be guided to the fruits, which she recognizes as the forbidden food. Satan asserts that he himself did not die after enjoying it, as you can see for yourself, but that on the contrary, he expanded his abilities. Why is there such a tree in Paradise at all, maybe the Creator not only wants to test their obedience, but also their courage to be independent? Only those who know the difference between good and bad can arm themselves against evil. The command is only supposed to keep her dependent, but she can free herself from it. Through the knowledge she overlooks the whole of creation, she would become wise and godlike, her earthly death would then be replaced by the immortality of the angels. Eve makes sense of these thoughts, especially since it would put her on an equal footing with Adam, and she lets herself be tempted to eat an apple. It makes her feel intoxicated, but at the same time she is afraid of discovery and punishment that would separate her from Adam, who would presumably have another wife from God. Adam is shocked by what has happened, but out of love for Eve he eats the forbidden fruit in order to suffer the same fate with her, but with full awareness that he is violating the divine commandment. Both characters change, they are now aware of their sexual desires and love each other passionately. At the same time they lose their childlike, innocent nature, which previously protected them from evil. Her naive cheerfulness turns into melancholy reflection on her life. Associated with the passions are "anger, suspicion and hatred". They argue about the incident and blame each other: Adam accuses Evas of her separation from him in the morning, a lack of caution despite his warnings and headstrong self-overestimation. Eva replies that as a guardian he should have forbidden her to go it alone and that he, too, would have fallen for the seduction in her situation.

Dragons and snakes in hell

10. Singing

The tenth song tells of the consequences of the Fall. The cherubins react to the news with horror and sadness, while the Creator has foreseen everything and has already appointed his son as mediator for punishment and pardon. He is now sending this to earth to interrogate Adam and Eve. In the following event, the author orientates himself on the 3rd chapter of Genesis: Adam and Eve describe the seduction and are punished with the eternal enmity of the snake, pain in childbirth and hard work.

Adam and Eve in anticipation of the angel

Satan has returned to Hell, where he proclaims victory over God to his subjects and the conquest of the earth, which is now accessible to all. His daughter, sin, and his son, death, set off at once. During his speech to the meeting, all those present are met by the divine punishment: The underworld princes are transformed into dragons and giant snakes for a certain time each year. The once lovely paradise landscape is changing drastically: summer and winter bring heat, cold, storms with storms. The struggle for existence begins, the animals eat each other. Adam is bitter about the change. Basically, he recognizes that he and Eva violated the divine commandment and gambled away their paradisiacal luck, but he also asks critical questions: Why weren't they made strong enough against seduction and why wasn't their inexperience considered? Why not just punish them with the loss of the garden? Wouldn't death be more bearable than eternal torment? Why do their children and grandchildren have to bear the consequences of their sin too? Adam desperately wishes that he was never created and that he will die quickly. Finally, he accuses Eve of treason out of vanity and irrationality. Without her he would be lonely, but still innocent. He indulges in bitter reflections on the nature of women. Eva is just as desperate as he is, takes sole responsibility and asks him to stay with her and decide whether they want to do without offspring. In the event that this cannot be achieved because of their natural instincts, they could go to death together. Adam came to his senses through her misery. For his part, he takes the blame on himself, ends the argument and suggests accepting the punishment and facing the new life: she would forget the birth pangs through the joy of the children and hard work over the different seasons to improve her life he would rather receive it than the previous idleness. Both want to implore the divine judgment for mercy.

11th and 12th chants

God the Father responds mildly to admission of guilt and prayer. It is true that paradise is closed and the couple must leave the sphere of happiness so that the fruits of the tree of knowledge do not make them immortal. The two now know the difference between good and bad and, appropriate to their situation, have to prove themselves on earth as ancestral parents of humanity. On the other hand, by the grace of the Son of God, if they withstand evil, they should have hope of redemption and eternal life after their death.

Cherub Michael announces the judgment to them, encourages them to accept their fate and to prove their purification through energy. He lets Adam take a look into the future and shows him the fatal consequences of the Fall, to which Adam reacts in horror, v. a. on the repeated cycles of sin and punishment: the first phase extends to the Flood, the second to the Tower of Babel . In fratricide and other deaths, excessive behavior is demonstrated, and extravagant celebrations demonstrate externalization and the loss of moral values. A war image with a field battle and city siege illustrates the rule of brutal violence, conquests and oppression against the peace efforts of a councilor, the only righteous (according to Book of Enoch 90, 4 ff.). The vision of the divine judgment through the flood , which wipes out sinful humanity and also washed away the paradise garden, is the end point of Adam's despair. He wishes he had never looked into the future. The angel lifts him up again and shows him the new beginning with the landing of Noah's ark . But this phase ends after the tower of the conqueror and tyrant Nimrod with the punishment, the linguistic fragmentation of humanity. In the following, Adam receives an overview of the changeful development of the people of Israel, fluctuating between obedience and sin, from the progenitor Abraham to Moses , David to Jesus . Jesus' death for the redemption of mankind and the prospect of the Messiah's victory over Satan at the Last Judgment with the restoration of Paradise soothe Adam's suffering and fill him with confidence.

Michael concludes that he could not impart more knowledge to Adam given his human limitations. It is his and Eve's job to put the message into practice. Then they were given eternal life again and united with the heavenly beings. God continues to shield them, even if invisible to them. In this confidence he “reluctantly does not leave this paradise”, he carries within himself “a much more blissful one”. At the same time, the sleeping Eve is encouraged by a hopeful dream. In this frame of mind between sadness and optimism, they are led to the gate of paradise, which closes behind them. "Before them lay the big, wide world, \ Where they could choose their resting place, \ The providence of the Lord as their guide. \ They wandered with slow, hesitant steps \ And hand in hand out of Eden on their way."

Characters

The main character of the poem is Satan, the leader of the fallen angels. Originally his name was Lucifer and he was one of the highest ranking angels of God, but after a rebellion he led, he and his entourage were banished from heaven. He is the father of the personifications of sin and death and the antagonist of God. He is the most complex character in the poem and is considered the forerunner of Byron's hero .

Other characters:

style

Milton created his own style of language for Paradise Lost . The verb is - atypical for the English language - at the end of the sentence. Upper and lower case and spelling are highly stylized. The poem contains many words from other languages ​​that have been adopted and adapted, especially Latinisms that were not in use in the form used by Milton at the time. The poem is written in rhyming five-part iambi (blank verse), a meter that is interpreted as a resolute protest against the heroic couplets common in the restoration period after Charles II's accession to the throne .

Influences

The text is influenced by the Bible , Milton's own Puritan upbringing and religious outlook, Edmund Spenser , Homer, and the Roman poet Virgil .

history

Paradise Lost was written between 1658 and 1665. On April 27, 1667, Milton, who had been completely blind and impoverished by 1652, sold the copyright to Paradise Lost for ten pounds sterling . At that time the work was divided into ten chapters called books. In a revision in 1674, two of Milton's longer chapters were subdivided again and each chapter was preceded by a summary of the events.

Title page of the first edition of Paradise Regained (1671)

In 1671, Paradise Regained appeared , in which Milton tells how God gives man the opportunity to regain Paradise. This sequel never achieved a reputation comparable to that of the earlier poem.

interpretation

Under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, the rhetorically very talented Milton Secretary for Foreign Tongues (also Latin Secretary ) was responsible for foreign policy and propaganda. He was supposed to promote the Puritan Revolution in Europe. In this role he vigorously defended the right of the English people to execute King Charles I. Although Milton was critical of Cromwell's increasingly dictatorial ambitions, he remained his staunch supporter - even after the death of the Lord Protector (1658), when the defeat of the rebellion was foreseeable. The Stuart Charles II returned from exile in France and ascended the throne on May 29, 1660 - at a time when Milton had already started his epic. Only a general amnesty prevented the poet from being executed as a liberal revolutionary. It makes sense to see these historical and political circumstances reappraised in Paradise Lost . The rebellious Milton stood before the ruins of his life's work, which is why the romantics already assumed that the poet made Satan the mouthpiece of his bitterness in his work. Not only did the illustrator and poet William Blake claim that Milton was firmly on the side of the fallen angel, undoubtedly the most interesting character in the epic. According to this reading, Paradise Lost would be classified in the time of freedom of the press and freedom of expression during the revolutionary period. Milton's epic could only appear under Charles II because he was protected by patrons whom he himself had saved from persecution under Cromwell's rule.

Originally, Milton is said to have had the idea of writing a national epic about the legendary King Arthur ; but the bloody turmoil of the civil war made a more theologically oriented work seem more urgent, because the poet, based on his own experience, wanted to search for the causes of the suffering of mankind, possibly even to justify it politically and / or religiously.

The Lost Paradise is characterized by a sometimes significant aversion to women; Biographers attribute this to the poet's unhappy private life: In his first marriage, from 1642, he was married to the much younger Mary Powell, who left her revolutionary husband after a few months and remained loyal to the royalists. She returned to Milton three years later, but died in 1652. Four years later he married Katherine Woodcock, who died in childbirth in 1658 - she could have been Eve's model. In 1662, Milton married Elizabeth Minshull, who outlived him by 53 years.

Illustrations

The first illustrations are by John Baptist Medina. He later created other illustrations, the best known by William Blake , Gustave Doré , Johann Heinrich Füssli , John Martin , Richard Westall and Francis Hayman . The painter Salvador Dalí was inspired by Milton's epic to create a set of ten color casts (1974).

Source of inspiration for other works

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , William Blake commented :

"The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it."

"The reason why Milton writes in chains about angels and God, and freely about devil and hell, is that he was a true poet and on the side of the devil without knowing it."

- William Blake : The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

At the end of the 18th century Milton's poem found its way into Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation , together with the Psalms and Genesis . The material was originally made into an oratorio libretto by an otherwise unknown Lidley (or Linley) for Georg Friedrich Handel , but Handel never turned it into music. Haydn's host on his trip to England, Johann Peter Salomon , came into possession of a copy of Lidley's libretto and passed it on to Haydn, who in turn handed it to his friend and patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten , who arranged for a German translation, on his return to Vienna an English back translation adapted to Haydn's music. The oratorio was published bilingually on this basis in 1800 and is still performed in both languages ​​today.

In the late 1970s , Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki wrote an opera based on Paradise Lost . The epic was also one of the sources of ideas for Philip Pullman's novel trilogy His Dark Materials . The novel Paradise Lost by the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom also refers to Milton's work.

Glenn Danzig published an instrumental interpretation of the poem in 1992 on his album Black Aria , which rose to number 1 on the American Billboard charts in the classical music category .

Contemporary popular culture

In the Hollywood film The Devil's Advocate by Taylor Hackford the Devil Wears, played by Al Pacino , the name of the author of Paradise Lost , John Milton.

In the Fantasy - Trilogy ( Lycidas , Lilith and lumen ) of Christoph Marzi Satan plays Lucifer an important role; he appears there under different names at different times, including John Milton.

The English band The Herd had a hit in 1968 with the title Paradise Lost , which made it to number 15 on the charts.

The English band Paradise Lost named themselves after the poem.

Paradise Lost is also the title of the 2007 album by the symphonic progressive metal band Symphony X , which processes the concept of the work and mentions the follow-up work Paradise Regained in the title track of their album The Divine Wings of Tragedy .

The title of the Futurama episode Parasites Lost , in the German version In the Kingdom of Parasites , is very similar to Paradise Lost , and the plot in this episode also shows many parallels to the poem.

The fifth studio album by the English dark metal band Cradle of Filth , Damnation and a Day , is based on Paradise Lost .

In the Hollywood film Seven , John Milton's work is shown together with z. B. Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is quoted and named as literary background.

In the 1998 Hollywood film Great Expectations , "Paradiso Perduto" is the name of the garden of the wealthy Mrs. Nora Dinsmoor. The garden is a central location of the film and, because of the fateful events that take place there, figuratively represents a “lost paradise”.

In the song Song of Joy from the album Murder Ballads, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds quote a few verses from Paradise Lost , and the title of their song Red Right Hand from the album Let Love In is an allusion to Milton's work.

The radio play Lost & Found: Das Paradies (BR / intermedium 2009) by Andreas Ammer and FM Einheit is a modern interpretation of the poem.

In Alex Proyas ' film The Crow, with Brandon Lee in the lead role, a passage from Paradise Lost is read out by T-Bird during the robbery.

The Californian nu-metal band Hollywood Undead named their song "Paradise Lost" after the poem.

The text of the 2015er album rattle that lock the Pink Floyd guitar-player David Gilmour , written by his wife, Polly Samson , are also influenced by Paradise Lost. The "Deluxe Editions" of the album come with a hardback copy of the second book by Paradise Lost. This connection is discussed in more detail in the video material of these editions.

In the autobiographical novel I never promised you a rose garden by the author Joanne Greenberg (pseudonym: Hannah Green) the main character Deborah comes to the realization that the god "Anterrabae" of her fantasy world Yr was a memory of Milton's Satan. As a child, she had often seen its illustrations in a book.

Translations into German (selection)

Secondary literature

  • JB Broadbent: The Fall of Man in Milton's Paradise Lost. In: Willi Erzgräber (Ed.): Interpretations. Volume 7: English literature from Thomas More to Laurence Sterne . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1970 DNB 457073489 pp. 138-164
  • Anna Beer: Milton: poet, pamphleteer and patriot. Bloomsbury, London 2008 ISBN 978-0-7475-8425-4
  • Gustav Hübener: The stylistic tension in Milton's "Paradise lost". Niemeyer, Halle 1913 (Studies in English Philology, 51); Nachdr. Sänd, Walluf 1973

Online texts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katharina Maier: Foreword , in: John Milton: Das Verlorene Paradies , Wiesbaden 2008, p. 10 [1] accessed on March 5, 2019
  2. ↑ Quote, as well as the following, in the translation by Adolf Böttger
  3. ^ Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur: Volume 2: G - M , Stuttgart 2006, p. 454
  4. ↑ Katharina Maier: Foreword , in: John Milton: Das Verlorene Paradies , Wiesbaden 2008, p. 10 [2] accessed on March 5, 2019
  5. ^ Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur: Volume 2: G - M , Stuttgart 2006, p. 454
  6. ^ Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur: Volume 2: G - M , Stuttgart 2006, p. 454
  7. ^ Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur: Volume 2: G - M , Stuttgart 2006, p. 454
  8. ↑ Wikimedia Commons - Category: Paradise Lost in art
  9. ↑ Hollywood Undead - Paradise Lost Lyrics . On: Rap Genius . Retrieved March 2, 2014.
  10. ↑ Hannah Green: I never promised you a rose garden. Report of a cure . Translated from the American by Jürgen and Elisabeth Hilke and Ekkehard and Ursula Pohlmann. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-499-14155-8 , p. 233. (in the last chapter)
  11. ^ Hübener, Vita, 1889-1940, in the project Sprachforscher im Exil; Biographical Sketch: Frederick Gustav Hübener, University of New Brunswick