The Narrative Structure Of John Milton’s Paradise Lost

Abstract

Paradise Lost was written sometime in the 17th Century by John Milton as a Christian epic with a Christian-redefined meaning of heroism. Using the epic structure, Milton successfully outlines the genealogy of man, even the state of the world before man was brought into it by God. Milton does this by tracing the linear stories of man from Genesis, through the Messianic and redemption stories, and the introduction of the eschaton by Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In Paradise Lost, Milton talks about three objectives. They are: the fall of man, an epic aiming to surpass all other epics, and justifying God’s ways to men. My thesis is a structural discussion of the three objectives by way of narratology. In order to prove Milton’s three objectives, my research discusses the structure of the narrative using Gerard Genette’s Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (1980). At the second level, my research focuses on the “Intertextual” elements of Paradise Lost using Gerard Genette’s Palimpsest: Literature in the Second Degree (1982). At the end of my discussion, it is obvious Milton’s epic is not a Miltonic Version Bible, but a work of art, borrowing its topic from the Bible and the epic form from icons Homer and Virgil. Indeed Milton has outgrown his occasion and withstood the test of time since Paradise Lost encapsulates the genealogy of man.