This opening sentence of the poem is sixteen lines long, and it is obviously an immensely complicated sentence. Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste……… Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Then take a very quick look at a passage from book IX. Look for a central opposition in the poem The manner, in which Milton fulfils these ambitious goals, if he does indeed fulfil them, should start to become clear as we look at the opening of the poem. It, therefore, has to be immense in its range, so the port’s ambition is huge for he attempts to present a coherent view of life in which he seeks to explain the order, in this case, a divine order, in the whole of experience. The poem is an epic, which is a poem that sets out to confront and make sense of the whole of experience. If the intention of the poem is as clear as this, however, you might wonder why Milton has written such an immensely long poem The answer is that the poem gas a clear-cut purpose, but it is also a complex purpose, for Milton desires to do justice to the immense complexity of experience. To express this in even briefer terms: Paradise Lost is a poem about God’s love in a world where sin and death exist. The poem sets out to illustrate how there is a divine order in life. What is the purpose and point of such a story? The purpose is simple: we live in a fallen world where sin and death exist. All is not lost, however, for Christ can deliver people from their fallen state. Paradise Lost tells the story of Satan being thrown out of heaven, his descent into hell, his tempting of Eve, and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Paradise lost book 9 summary