Paradise Lost: Parallel Prose Edition

John Milton

Feb 2012 · Broadview Press

About this ebook

John Milton’s epic story of cosmic rebellion and the beginning of human history has long been considered one of the greatest and most gripping narratives ever written in English. Yet its intensely poetic language, now-antiquated syntax and vocabulary, and dense allusions to mythical and Biblical figures make it inaccessible to many modern readers. This is, as the critic Harold Bloom wrote in 2000, “a great sorrow, and a true cultural loss.”

Dennis Danielson aims to open up Milton’s epic for a twenty-first-century readership by providing a fluid, accessible rendition in contemporary prose alongside the original. The edition allows readers to experience the power of the original poem without barriers to understanding.

Ratings and reviews

I greatly enjoyed reading this book. Although having been written in a style simpler that what I did expect, it facilitated 'reading Paradise Lost': an undertaking that would have proven much more difficult without access to a prose version. Nevertheless, this book lacks necessary explanations for symbols and allusions that the reader requires to be able to appreciate Milton's poem. Them, you have to seek elsewhere.

About the author

Dennis Danielson is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Milton and author of Milton’s Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy, among other titles.