Including a detailed biographical annotation on John Milton and the original illustrations by William Blake *** As early as 1642 Milton had chosen for his epic poem "Paradise Lost" the fall of Adam. During the succeeding 16 years of strenuous conflict this theme was revolving in his mind and taking shape, until it developed into the vast drama of creation, with the entire universe as a stage, presented in this book. His preparation for his task was at last complete. In his own life he personifies the disappointed hopes of Puritanism. Mingled with his disappointment, however, there is the deep conviction that the spirit of Puritanism will finally triumph. This situation, while it robs Milton's style of the airy grace and charm of his early poetry, has developed the lofty grandeur and sublimity of style best fitted for the subject matter of his great epic. The effect is enhanced by his choice of blank verse, the most severe of English measures; and by his long and involved sentences which hold the meaning in suspense until " it falls upon the mind like the combing mass of a breaker on the shore." For daring imagination, vastness of conception, wealth of illustration, sustained grandeur of thought and sublimity of expression, "Paradise Lost" is probably without an equal in any language. Milton's work was finished in 1665 and published in 1667. His writings, and especially "Paradise Lost", his great masterpiece, have won for him a foremost place in English literature, second only to that of Shakespeare; while the moral beauty of his character and the patriotic and tragic devotion of his life command universal admiration and respect for him as a man. *** Echoes of the Eternal is a monumental series that brings together the defining texts of the world's spiritual, religious, and mythic heritage. From the sacred scriptures of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and other global faiths, to the mystical writings of saints and sages, the myths of ancient civiliz
