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    Paradise Lost - Milton

    Students will be able to test themselves on their knowledge of Milton's Paradise Lost and gain a better understanding of key points that their instructor may ask them about.

    1

    Falling action takes place in the story when The Son inflicts punishment; Adam and Eve repent; and Adam learns about the future of man.

    2

    Milton does not denigrate women through his depiction of Eve. Rather, he explores the role of women in his society and the positive and important role he felt they could offer in marriage.

    3

    Rising action can be found in any one of the following scenarios: when the angels battle in Heaven; Satan and the rebel angels fall into Hell; God creates the universe; Satan plots to corrupt God’s human creation; God creates Eve to be Adam’s companion; Raphael answers Adam’s questions and warns him of Satan.

    4

    Adam refers to his own sin as a felix culpa or “happy fault,” suggesting that he fall of humankind, while originally seeming an unmitigated catastrophe, does in face bring good with it.

    5

    Paradise Lost is about hierarchy as much as it is about obedience. One example is the layout of the universe as hierarchy, and another is the social hierarchy of angels, humans, animals and devils.

    6

    Satan is considered hero or protagonist in Paradise Lost because he struggles to overcome his own doubts and weaknesses and accomplishes his goal of corrupting mankind.

    7

    Paradise Lost consists of 13 books, is written in first person, and past tense.

    8

    Satan’s gradual degradation is dramatized by the sequence of different shapes he assumes: a comet or meteor, a cherub, a cormorant, a toad, and finally into a snake.

    9

    Foreshadowing takes place in two instances; when Eve’s vanity is manifested after she sees her reflection in the lake; and when Satan transforms into a toad and received his final punishment.

    10

    The various settings in the story are Hell, Chaos and Night, Heaven, Earth (Paradise, the Garden of Eden) and Before the Beginning of Time.