On The Humanistic Connotations And Artistic Values Of Paradise Lost

John Milton is regarded both as a great poet in his own time,the 17th century England, and an outstanding writer in the English literary history. His representative work, Paradise Lost, has been read, together with Beowulf, the folk epic circulated in the Middle Ages, as the great epic ever produced in English. This thesis, based on a perusal of the original poem, a reference to several Chinese versions and an understanding of criticisms made in China and Britain, makes a comprehensive and delicate analysis and study of the humanistic connotations and artistic values underlying in Paradise Lost. Analysis of the humanistic connotations focuses on religious and political situations in his time, revolutionary attitude and idea of liberty, sex, gender and marriage, which are revealed through the choice of plot, including two Falls and the loss of Paradise, the experience of Satan, whose image dwindles as his ambition or pride expands, and the Archangels' teaching and talk, as well as remarks and behaviors of Adam and Eve. Such deep and rich connotations result from the poet's thought about human being and society through his experience in social upheavals and hardships of life, his Christian humanism and sparkling wit. Analysis of the artistic values is made mostly in the perspective of the poet's inheritance and innovation of the epic tradition, his unique Grand Style, evolved by drawing inspiration from previous great writings, and his deliberate use of blank verse, developed further by Milton, all of which show up through the plot, imagery, layout or structure, diction, syntax, rhetoric and the creation of a special sound effect. Such assorted and subtle values derive from the poet's converging of the three main streams of thought, i.e. the Hellenic, Hebrew and Renaissance culture, which reflects his inheritance and development of the European literary legacy. Analysis of this kind helps not merely deepen and broaden the reading and decoding the great involved epic but bring about a clearer picture of Milton's importance in English, and European literature.