Epic Characteristics of Milton's Masterwork, Paradise Lost By: Dani pic Characteristics of Milton's Masterwork Paradise Lost is one of the finest examples of the epic tradition in all of literature. In composing this extraordinary work, John Milton was, for the most part, following in the manner of epic poets of past centuries: Barbara Lewalski notes that Paradise Lost is an "epic whose closest structural affinities are to Virgil's Aeneid . . . "; she continues, however, to state that …showed first 75 words of 3202 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3202 total…U of Chicago P, 1976. ---. Milton's Epic Characters: Image and Idol. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1968. Stein, Arnold. The Art of Presence: The Poet and Paradise Lost. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. Thrall, William Flint, and Addison Hibbard. A Handbook to Literature. Rev. by C. Hugh Holman. New York: Odyssey, 1960. Tillyard, E. M. W. Studies in Milton. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1951. Whaler, James. "Animal Simile in Paradise Lost." PMLA 47 (1931): 534-53. Word Count: 3108