_Book III_
PARADISE REGAINED.
"A cold and noble epic."--TAINE.
Paradise regained was written by Milton, judging from a passage in the
Autobiography of Thomas Ellwood, in the winter of 1665-6, but was not
published until 1671. It was printed at Milton's expense in a small volume
together with Samson Agonistes.
Paradise Regained tells the story of Christ's temptation in the
Wilderness, and the material was taken from the accounts of Matthew and
Luke, which the poet, with great skill, expanded without essentially
deviating from them.
The title has been criticised on the ground that the poem should have
extended over the whole of Christ's life on earth. But Paradise Regained
was written as a sequel to Paradise Lost, and, as in the first poem the
poet showed that Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam and Eve to
Satan, so in the second, he wished to show that Paradise was regained by
the resistance of Christ to temptation, Satan's defeat signifying the
regaining of Paradise for men by giving them the hope of Christ's second
coming. Therefore the poem naturally ends with Satan's rebuff and his
final abandonment of the attempt on the pinnacle of the Temple.
The poem has been criticised for its shortness, some scholars even
affecting to believe it unfinished; its lack of variety, in that it has
but two characters, its lack of action, and the absence of figurative
language.
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