The goal of this essay is to discuss a singular word that carries great significance in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. By the very nature of Milton's writing, even fully understanding his entire meaning in any given phrase, sentence, or single word can be a very difficult task, which by extension makes it very difficult to acquire enough broad understanding and familiarity with his work to make an accurate response to this prompt. In spite of this, I have done my best to choose a word that I personally believe is one of, if not the, most significant words in the sections of Paradise Lost that we have read. Very early on, I narrowed my search down to Book 1, and then even further to Lucifer’s speech. From the discussions and thinking we have done with this work, I considered this section to be the most relevant and significant due to its obvious connections to Milton’s commentary on the English Civil War and the fact that it carries substantial narrative significance as well as the first substantial piece of dialogue and the primary introduction to the poem’s central character. Given the surrounding context, I chose the word “choice” as the subject of my essay as it not only fell into this very significant part of the text but also stood out to me as the perfect embodiment of the central political and narrative issues Milton focuses on heavily in his poem. Despite this, however, I have no doubt that many other words and phrases in Paradise Lost may carry equal, if not more, significance, and an observant and thoughtful reader would have little difficulty finding such words. I would strongly suggest any readers who have not already done so to read Paradise Lost for themselves to gain their own understanding of Milton’s intentions and ideas and to determine for themselves what part of his complex writing carries the most weight.
|
|