Christianity and Greek Epic Tradition as Devices for...

Christianity and Greek Epic Tradition as Devices for Miltons Object in Paradise Lost The widely known story of the Genesis account in the Bible of the creation and fall of humankind does not make for a very interesting story. Almost anyone familiar with Western tradition can provide at least this basic outline: God makes angels, the best angel wants to be God, the angel gets kicked out of Heaven into Hell, goes to the garden of Eden, persuades Eve to eat an apple, and down plunges humanity. So why, then, did Milton choose to use this particular piece of Biblical narrative, first, above his original intention of an Arthurian tale, and second, above any other account in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments? Milton answers†¦show more content†¦In combining traditional Greek epic poetic form with known Christian history and Protestant beliefs, Milton artfully accomplished his object in the justification of characteristically infinite Divine ways to the finite reasoning of mortal man. Foremost, Paradise Lost is an epic poem after the traditional Greek epic form. Taking that further, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica claims that Paradise Lost is generally regarded as the greatest epic poem in the English language (Milton). Here, I will examine just a sampling of characteristics that an epic comprises, and the way in which Milton fulfills this quality. To begin with, while Milton was greatly influenced by (and probably knew by heart) Homers works, he used Virgils The Aeneid as his primary epic model for Paradise Lost. Milton devotes the first two books to Satan and his languishing legions as we come to know them individually as heathen gods. Similarly, Virgil recounts the Italian chiefs who oppose Aeneas. Moreover, the angel Raphaels account of spiritual histories to Adam mirrors Odysseus and Aeneas retellings of their own past events (Milton). Upon this foundation of similarity, however, Milton continues to build the epic as we know it, and yet makes it tauntingly new; th e epic becomes the anti-epicShow MoreRelatedAnglo-Saxon Heroic Poetry5673 Words   |  23 Pagestwo types: the Heroic, the sources of which are pre-Christian Germanic myth, history and custom; and the Christian. Heroic, or Epic Poetry belongs to one of these two types and refers to long narrative poems celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes, in a grand, ceremonious style. In its strict use by literary critics, the terms Heroic Poetry or Epic are applied to a work that meets the following criteria: such a poem must be related in an elevated style, and centered upon a