Epic Simile In Paradise Lost Book 1 | Paradise Lost Book 1 Epic Simile

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    "Paradise Lost" was first published in 1667. Milton had began to composed it in 1658,he had then been totally blind forever five years and we have to imagine that the poem taking shape by a process of mental composition, the dictation of perhaps 50 lines at a time and as well as repeated checking and revision. When it was complete there was a final revision which took about two years ; and the subsequent process of getting the poem into print was a massive task.


 About Paradise Book 1

    "Paradise Lost" renews the heroic ideas of Homar and Virgil but only to condemn them. Yet in the process of convention Milton exploits to the full their poetic beauty, in the same way as he exploits the beauty of classical mythology while he never fails to tell us that it is 'fable' that is either fantasy or a garbled form of truth. A new kind of heroism is put forward, superior to the old, the spiritual in the state of the symbols of human ideal. If that intention is hampered by the absence of an action which a 'spiritual' hero can show his truth capacity. Milton has made up for it in his presentation of the old ideal through Satan whether in hell or heaven.

Epic Simile In Paradise Lost
Epic Simile In Paradise Lost


Lines in Paradise Lost -  Ten thousand five thousand sixty lines of blank verse divided into twelve books, each headed by a prose 'argument' or summery on the content. 

Narrator of the Paradise Lost -  John Milton 

Point of view  of the Paradise Lost - Third Person. 

Tone of the epic Paradise Lost - Lofty formal tragic tone. 

Tense used in the epic Paradise Lost -  present 

Setting of the epic Paradise Lost Book 1-  Pandemonia/ Hell. 

Time - Before the beginning  of the time. 

Place -  Hell, chaos of night, earth (Paradise the garden of eden). 

Sources of the epic Paradise Lost -  Milton used The Bible, Homer's Iliad  and odessy, Virgil's Aeneid and the stories in Greeko - Roman mythology as sources of the information and as writing model. 

Theme of the Book 1 in Paradise Lost -  In Book 1 the Paradise Lost  Milton reveals the central theme of the work : "to justify the ways of God to man". here justify means to 'explain  and defend' and ultimately to 'vindicate' , God's courts of action in dealing with Adam and Eve after they succumb to the temptation and it forbidden fruit. 

Major conflict in Book 1 - Satan already damned to hell undertakes to corrupt God 's new beloved creation human kind. 


Epic simile in Paradise Lost Book 1

    An epic simile refers to a comparison between two similar objects. Both this objects are larger then life. The comparison is also extended and takes into account mythology,  religion or social events. 

    Epic simile is found in both oral and written epics. Milton in Paradise Lost uses a number of similes drawn from multiple sources. 

The similes in Paradise Lost can be divided into three major types. 

There are some whose source is the Bible. 

There are other which are drawn from pegan sources. 

The third type are drawn from other social sources.  Interesting Fact in Hindi

The first simile found in Paradise Lost comes between lines 195 - 200 .

    The huge bulk of Satan is compared to Titanian who are born on the earth (G.e.) and heavens  (urania) . The  Titanian rebled against Urania and were banished and thrown down Hell. The comparison is based not only on sized but also in their failure to disposes. The divinity both revolted against. 

   "Lay floating many a rood  , in bulk as huge          As whom the fables name of monstrous size,        Titanian, or Earth - born, that warred on Jove,       Briareos or Typhon, whom the den                          By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea - beast                Leviathan, which God of all his works                      Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream :"

    Another simile follows soon after. Satan huge size is compared to Leviathan- a huge whale. For this parallel Milton scans "Olaus Magnus's History of the Northan Nation".This may also be a biblical allusion seens Leviathan in Hebrew means a great snake or great crocodile or as "Book of Jove" Suggests a great whale. 

    There is a fable about Leviathan. When at night the great whale was resting above water a sailor anchored on it's back and he spent the night there. Unfortunately the Satan offers shelter to none. His only believes blind loyalty programned in the mind of his followers. 

We would to like to site the simile between Satan Shields and the moon seen through the telescope  as our central example. 

Milton writes :- 

    "...... his ponderous shield                                            Ethereal temper, massy, large and round               Behind him cast ; the broad circumference          Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views            At evening from the top of Fesole,                              Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands ".

     This is a wonderful example of epic - simile. The comparison is detailed and the image created is sharp and well - defined. The Shields is compare to the moon  . The round  surface of the Shields is huge and resembles the magnified image of the moon  as viewed through the telescope. 

In this context Milton reminds the reader, how Galileo  the 'tuscun artist'  observed the moon through his telescope at night either from the hill too or from the valley Aonian, see wheather the dark patches seen on the moon's surface were in reality lunar maintains and reverse. 


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