文档介绍：II OBJECTIVES:
A) Introduction to John Milton and his works
B) About Paradise Lost
C) Study of the text
1. The main idea from Line 84 to Line 124
2. Key points
D) Discuss the image of Satan.
E) Comment on John Milton’s literary achievements,
Paradise Lost and Satan.
F) Assignment
I TOPIC: John Milton and Paradise Lost
(Excerpt)
John Milton
Topic 1—Introduction to John Milton
● Milton is one of the very few truly great English writers who is also a prominent figure in politics, and who is both a great poet and an important prose writer. The two most essential things to be remembered about him are his Puritanism and his republicanism.
● Milton wrote many different types of poetry. He is especially a great master of blank verse. He learned much from Shakespeare and first used blank verse in non-dramatic works.
● Milton is a great stylist. He is famous for his grand style noted for its dignity and polish, which is the result of his life-long classical and biblical study.
● Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression.
● In his life, Milton shows himself a real revolutionary, a master poet and a great prose writer. He fought for freedom in all aspects as a Christian humanist, while his achievements in literature make him tower over all the other English writers of his time and exert a great influence over later ones.
● Belinsky wrote: “The poetry of Milton is obviously the product of his age: he himself, without suspecting the fact, depicted in the person of his proud and somber Satan an apotheosis of rebellion against authority, though his intention had been quite different.”
● John Milton’s literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the early poetical works, the middle prose pamphlets and the last great poems.
Milton’s viewpoints
1. Milton is allied to the humanists in his passionate belief in free will, his zeal for knowledge, and his respect for truth. He was greatly influenced by classica