Paradise Lost

John Milton’s poetic retelling of the Fall of Man is unrivalled in its visionary scope, encompassing as it does the cosmic drama of a war in Heaven, an exquisitely rendered depiction of the biblical Creation, and, finally, a panoramic vision of the entirety of human history. At its heart, however, is the extraordinary pathos of the story of Adam and Eve, as well as Milton’s notoriously ambiguous portrayal of his dazzling anti-hero—Satan himself. A transformative contribution the European epic tradition, Paradise Lost is for many readers the single greatest work in the English literary canon.