When Milton came to describe Eve’s tasting of the forbidden fruit, he knew he couldn’t rely on suspense to grip the reader. Instead, he used multiple genres and perspectives to interrogate the moral and emotional significance of ‘man’s first disobedience’, self-consciously drawing on the resources of Renaissance tragedy, pastoral and love poetry to achieve his great innovation, the Christian epic. In this episode, Seamus and Mark look at the ways in which Milton’s study of temptation and free will became an unparalleled expression of poetic brilliance, from its thrillingly ambiguous and seductive depiction of Satan to its vivid dramatisation of the reproachful lovers confronting the consequences of their misdeeds, and ultimately its claim to being the finest love poem in English.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:

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Read more in the LRB:

Colin Burrow: Loving Milton https://lrb.me/npmilton01

Tom Paulin: Milton and the Regicides: https://lrb.me/mpmilton02

Tobias Gregory: Milton’s Theology: https://lrb.me/npmilton03

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