Paradise Lost: A Sourcebook (Routledge Guides to Literature)

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) is a literary landmark for writers, critics and students around the world. His reworking of Biblical tales of the loss of Eden constitutes not only a gripping literary work, but a significant musing on fundamental human concerns ranging from freedom and fate to conscience and consciousness.
Designed for students new to Milton's complex, lengthy work, this Sourcebook:
*Outlines the often unfamiliar contexts of seventeenth-century England which are so crucial to Paradise Lost
*Completes the contextual study with a chronology and reprinted documents from the period
*Examines and reprints a broad range of responses to the poem, from early reactions to recent criticism
*Reprints the most frequently studied passages of the poem, along with extensive commentary and annotation of unfamiliar or significant terms used in Milton's work
*Provides cross-references between the textual, contextual and critical sections of the sourcebook, to show how all the materials can be called upon in an individual reader's encounter with the text
Suggests further reading for those facing the huge array of critical work on the poem.
With an emphasis on enjoying as well as understanding what can be a somewhat daunting work, this sourcebook will be a welcome resource for anyone new to Paradise Lost.