NOTESOther poems by Milton ...The poet's life and works ...Composition Date:ca. 1642-65Form: unrhymed iambic pentameterSummary:BOOK II presents the "great consult": Moloch urges open war against Heaven,while Belial counsels complete passivity lest worse befall them, and Mammonproposes exploiting the riches of Hell; Beelzebub offers what purports to be a compromise, but is really the plan predetermined by Satan, namely, an attack, by guile,not force, against God through his latest creation, man. Satan now intervenes toannounce that he will undertake the perilous journey to earth to spy out the land. Inhis absence his followers explore their new domain, which enables the poet to completehis description of Hell. Meanwhile Satan reaches the gate of Hell and finds it guardedby his daughter, Sin, and his son by her, Death; and the book concludes with hisjourney through the realms of the anarch Chaos to the outer sphere of the earthlyuniverse.BOOK III commences with the famous invocation to light, and, leavingSatan, introduces us to Heaven, where, in the presence of the Angels, the Fatherexplains that, of his own free will, and subject to no compulsion, man will succumbto Satan's wiles, and the Son offers, in this event, to suffer the inevitable punishmentin man's stead. (The first is essential to the declaring of God's justice; the second tothe assertion of eternal Providence.) The remainder of the book narrates Satan'sdescent through the spheres, past Uriel, the guardian of the sun, whom he deceives,down to earth.

John Milton

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