But as late as the 1640s, this was not at all the epic subject that Milton was intending to use.

After all, this is an extremely pious Puritan. The story of Adam and Eve and of the fall of Satan may strike us – having read or about to read Paradise Lost – may strike us as a natural subject for Milton to have chosen for his epic poem. Areopagitica, you’ll remember, was written in 1644. He was long in choosing the subject of his heroic song and, as we know from all of – and we’ve encountered a number of them – all of those protestations of delay Milton began his epic late. We know very well Milton decided to write an epic poem at a very early age, but his decision to write an epic poem, some epic, long predated his sense of what exactly that epic was going to be about. He explains that the subject for his heroic song – and of course, we’ll be getting to Book Nine later, but it’s relevant for our discussion today – Milton explains that the subject for his heroic song, the subject of the Fall of man, “pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late…” – pleased me long choosing and beginning late. Professor John Rogers: In the invocation to Book Nine of Paradise Lost, Milton describes – and it’s wonderful to see this representation of this process that, I think, we’ve been wondering about – he describes the process by which the heavenly muse inspires, and he says inspires nightly, the composition of his epic. Milton ENGL 220 - Lecture 9 - Paradise Lost, Book IĬhapter 1.

Paradise lost poem