Lost Paradise Regained: The Twin Halves of Milton's Epic Vision

Abstract

Over time, with increasing frequency, Paradise Lost was aligned with Paradise Regained, the two poems eventually so completely intertwined that by the nineteenth century they were teamed in publication. Importantly, this particular phase of publication history tells us not just about affiliations among poems in Milton's canon but about the implications of those affiliations. Publication history, as it involves Milton's epics, is both another window on interpretation and a platform for reinterpretation, predicating the view that by whatever terms the status of the two poems is defined – sequel, appendix, companion, correction, fragment – they are marked by their interdependency and interconnectedness. Moreover, to recognize Paradise Regained as the poem hidden within the counterpoem of Paradise Lost is also to establish the brief epic as the foundation stone on which a new criticism of Milton may be mounted.