Paradise Lost (Hackett Classics)

This edition of Paradise Lost provides a newly edited text of the 1674 edition of the poem, with carefully modernized spelling and punctuation, making it fully alive to modern readers.

The marginal glosses define unfamiliar words, and extensive annotations at the foot of the page clarify Milton's syntax and poetics, and explore the range of literary, biblical, and political allusions that point to his major concerns.

David Kastan's lively introduction considers the central interpretative issues raised by the poem, demonstrating how thoroughly it engaged the most vital--and contested--issues of Milton's time, and which reveal themselves as no less vital, and perhaps no less contested, today.

This edition also includes an essay on the text, a chronology of major events in Milton's life, and a selected bibliography, as well as the first known biography of Milton, written by Edward Phillips in 1694.

With an exemplary job both of presenting the major topics of Paradise Lost and of entering the selva oscura of Milton criticism, this edition is perfect for students and scholars alike.