Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost (1667) is the supreme epic poem in the English language. John Milton, blind and politically ruined after the Restoration of Charles II, dictated it to his daughters in twelve books of unrhymed blank verse — and produced what most readers, for three and a half centuries, have considered the single greatest sustained achievement of English non-dramatic poetry.

The story is the Fall of Man, told with cosmic scope. The epic opens in Hell, with Satan rallying the fallen angels; follows him through Chaos to the newly-created Eden; and portrays the unfallen Adam and Eve, the temptation, the eating of the fruit, and the expulsion from paradise. Milton's stated ambition — to "justify the ways of God to men" — has been debated for three centuries; the artistic achievement is unquestioned.