Paradise Lost Response To Literature

1. Paradise Lost was written by John Milton and first published in 1667, and has influenced poetry and literature in many ways since then. In fact many of the authors and works that we have read in this class were influenced by Paradise Lost. I think the biggest influence that I have seen was the use of opposition. I’m sure that this was not something the Milton started but he was a master at using the imagery of light and dark to compare good and evil, God and Satan, as well as Heaven and Hell. The one that stands out to me the most is how he describes the angels who were physically described in light, while the demons were described as shadowy figures. We saw the use of comparison again when we read The Songs of Innocence and Experience

He says that the villager’s graves are very modest but that “some mute inglorious Milton may here rest” (Gray). Gray also goes on to say that the wealthy have monuments built to themselves after death so that even though death makes them equal in the end with the villagers, the wealthy try to make sure that they are remembered as a higher class. The second example of equality, is Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In this Wollstonecraft writes a call for equality between the sexes in many areas but mostly in the area of education. Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in response to a report to the French National Assembly, which stated that women should only receive a domestic education (Johnson Lewis). She believed that women needed to be educated in order to find their way to equality with men. Wollstonecraft writes in the introduction: “The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve