The Original Antihero A Paradise Lost Study Guide

Paradise Lost is an epic poem by John Milton originally published in 1667, later revised in 1674. At the time of its publication it was, in fact, quite daring in its politics and its handling of the character of Satan, who remains one of the most complex and subtly-rendered characters in literary history. That Milton, who was a pious man of real faith, would consciously or unconsciously sympathize with the Devil is still a starling revelation to first-time readers. Milton was a fierce proponent of divorce and individual freedom, as well as a critic of the monarchy—but also a critic of the government and society that emerged after the deposition and execution of King Charles I, which Milton felt had failed to create a better society. These ideas informed his composition of Paradise Lost,  his greatest and most famous work. Milton had intended to write a truly epic work for some time, and originally intended to tell the story of King Arthur and the Holy Grail before changing his focus to the twin narratives of damnation and salvation taken from the most foundational stories in the Bible: The fall of man and Satan’s rebellion in heaven. The Plot of Paradise Lost After a brief introduction in which Milton offers an overview of Milton’s intentions, Satan and his fellow rebellious angels are shown in Hell, plotting their next move. The entire heavenly civil war has already happened, and Satan rallies his allies with a stirring speech. The demons briefly consider mounting another assault on heaven, but then a better idea is proposed: In the wake of the war in heaven, God has created the Earth and his new favorites, man, in the form of Adam and Eve. Satan volunteers to undertake the perilous journey to this new, material world and cause the downfall of mankind. The journey through the chaos outside of hell is perilous. Satan enters the universe and encounters the Angel Uriel guarding it, but Satan disguises himself and claims to have come to sing praise, and is allowed to pass. Satan comes to the Garden of Eden and is jealous of Adam and Eve’s perfect happiness; they live without sin, commanded only to never eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Satan comes to them while they sleep and whispers in Eve’s ear. Uriel becomes suspicious and tells the Angel Gabriel of the visitor; Gabriel sends angels to investigate and they capture and exile Satan from the Garden. The next day Eve tells Adam she had a terrible dream, and he comforts her. The Angel Raphael is sent to warn them about Satan’s plans, and he relates to them the story of Satan’s rebellion, stemming from Satan’s jealousy of the Son of God. Once known as Lucifer, Satan inspired his followers to rise against God. Satan’s forces are initially defeated by the loyal angels of heaven, but during the night create terrible weapons. The angels hurl mountains at Satan’s forces, but it is not until the Son of God, Messiah, arrives that Satan is wholly defeated, his entire army swept out of heaven. God then commands his Son to fill the space left by the fallen angels with a new world and new creatures, which are created in six days. Adam returns the favor of the Angel’s story with his own tale of being created, discovering the wonders of the world, and his happy marriage to Eve. Raphael departs. Satan returns and assumes the form of a snake in order to escape detection. He finds Eve alone and flatters her again, tricking her into eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. When Adam finds out what she has done he is horrified, but then also eats of the fruit because he believe he is bonded to Eve and must share her fate. They experience lust for the first time, followed by fear and guilt, and quarrel over who is to blame. The Son of God is dispatched to judge Adam and Eve, but delays sentencing them, clothing them and giving them time to regain God’s favor. Satan returns in triumph to Hell, where the demons are in the process of building a great bridge to Earth to make future journeys easier. He boasts of his success, but finds that all the fallen angels—including himself—have been transformed into snakes. Adam and Eve are miserable; Adam is given a vision of the future up until the Flood and is horrified at what he and Eve have doomed mankind to experience. However, they are also assured that their offspring will have revenge on Satan, and so they do not kill themselves and dedicate themselves to regaining God’s trust. They are expelled from paradise with the knowledge that a descendant of Eve’s will be the savior of mankind. Major Characters Satan. Once one of the most powerful Archangels, Satan led the rebellion against God and then schemed to ruin God’s newest creations: Mankind and paradise. The most beautiful and powerful of the angels, Satan is charismatic, funny, and persuasive; he is easily the most popular character of the story despite his evil nature, making him something of an antihero. His great sin is in denying his subservience to God; Satan believes the angels are self-made. God the Father. This is the Christian God, an all-powerful creator who made everything in the universe from himself. God demands praise and worship, and spends a lot of time in the poem explaining himself, as Milton saw the purpose of the poem to justify the mysteries of God to humanity. God the Son. Both the same as God and a separate personality, this is the part of God that will eventually become Jesus, but in the poem is depicted as a sort of general or co-ruler. Adam and Eve. The first humans; Adam was created first and Eve created from him. Milton depicts Eve not as evil or corrupt by nature but as inferior to Adam in all things except sin—Adam’s sin is greater because he understood fully the consequences of his actions, while Eve was tricked. Raphael. An angel instrumental in explaining Satan’s backstory and goals. Literary Style The poem is written in blank verse, meaning it follows a set meter (iambic pentameter) but does not have rhymes. Milton uses a variety of tricks to make the repetitive rhythms and patterns of this sort of rhyme seem anything but; what initially seem like strained pronunciations or oddly broken words are quite intentional, as Milton bends and stretches the rules of blank verse to make his lines flow. For example, Miltons meter often broke words in ways that deliberately went against assumption, as in the line Still glorious before whom awake I stood; reading this line as if it was prose renders it unremarkable, but applying the rhythm of iambi pentameter forces you to break the word glorious as glo / rious, altering the rhythm of the line and turning it into some delightful to speak. Milton worked in a deliberately grand style, without resorting to slang or common phrasings as  Shakespeare did. He did this both in service to his subject matter and to lend his themes weight and gravitas. At the same time, his work is not particularly dense with allusion and wordplay; even today it is remarkably easy for people to read, understand, and appreciate. Themes Milton argues throughout the poem that there is a natural order to the universe; Satan’s great sin is believing he is greater than God as opposed to accepting his subordinate role. Yet Milton also writes Satan’s sequences with a fierce energy that sets them apart. Milton sympathizes with rebellion and believed strongly in individuality, themes that also emerge throughout the poem. This is most notable in the fate of humanity—Adam and Eve rebel in their own way and are punished, but instead of their punishment being a total disaster, some good does come of it, as humanity learns that God the Father has boundless love and forgiveness for them. Historical Context Milton worked on the poem during the Commonwealth Period of England, after a civil war that ended with King Charles I deposed and executed in 1649. This period ended in 1660 when his son, Charles II, was restored to the throne. Milton supported the deposition of Charles but deplored the Commonwealth, which was essentially a dictatorship, and his attitude is in many ways reflected in the poem’s storyline. There are many obvious parallels between the angels rebelling against God and the rebellion against Charles I, who chafed against the restrictions forced upon him by the strong English parliament and fought two wars to impose his supreme will, claiming divine right of kings. Charles I was widely blamed for the unnecessary bloodshed of the second civil war and was executed as a result. Milton supported the republican side against the monarchy and argued in his political writings that Charles attempts to claim divine right were an attempt to make himself a god. Satan can be viewed as a stand-in for Charles in a sense, a powerful being with a rightful place in the hierarchy who attempts to pervert the natural order and accomplishes little more than chaos and destruction. Paradise Lost Fast Facts Title: Paradise LostAuthor: John MiltonDate Published: 1667, 1674Publisher: Samuel SimmonsLiterary Genre: Epic PoemLanguage: EnglishThemes: Hierarchal structure of the universe, obedience to God.Characters: Satan, God, the Son of God, Adam, Even, assorted angels and demons.Influences: Satan as antihero has influenced works ranging from Frankenstein to Breaking Bad. Modern writers such as Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) and Neil Gaiman have based works explicitly on the poem (Gaiman even makes this obvious by having the character of Lucifer in his Sandman comics quote the poem freely). Additionally, many films and novels depicting Satan and rebellious angels, like the film The Prophecy, explicitly ground their angels and demons on the versions found in Miltons story. Quotes â€Å"The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.† — Satanâ€Å"Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven.† — Satanâ€Å"Sing Heav’nly Muse/What in me is dark/Illumine, what is low raise and support;/That to the heighth of this great argument/I may assert Eternal Providence,/And justify the ways of God to men.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"God hath pronounced it death to taste that Tree,/The only sign of our obedience left/Among so many signs of power and rule/Conferred upon us, and dominion giv’n/Over all other creatures that possess/Earth, air, and sea.† — Adam Sources â€Å"Paradise Lost.† Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 May 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost.â€Å"PARADISE LOST.† Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/20/20-h/20-h.htm.Simon, Edward. â€Å"Whats So American About John Miltons Lucifer?† The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Mar. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/whats-so-american-about-john-miltons-lucifer/519624/.Rosen, Jonathan. â€Å"Return To Paradise.† The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/02/return-to-paradise.Upinvermont. â€Å"Milton Blank Verse (Iambic Pentameter).† PoemShape, 5 Oct. 2013, poemshape.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/milton-blank-verse-iambic-pentameter/.

Personal Health and Wellness - 1583 Words

Personal Health and Wellness In order to develop a wellness program there are several things that should be taken into consideration. First, you must develop your own personal perception of what you feel wellness is and how to stay well. Secondly, you must know what the pros and cons are for being fit. Then finally you must set immediate goals to obtain your level of wellness. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that developing a healthy life style early in life is a key factor in preventing diseases and improving one quality of life. I would like to take a look at the elements that need to be considered in keeping well. First, I would like to talk about America’s number one threat. It’s called obesity. Some call it†¦show more content†¦Within the next year being May 31, 2010, I hope to have achieved my goal of maintaining a weight ideal to my height and body structure. The preceding interpretation is one of what my success story might sound like. M. 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The effects on a students academic performance free essay sample

INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Nowadays, teens can easily listen to music because of the gadgets that are available everywhere. Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and the sonic qualities of the timbre and texture. The creation, performance, significance and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions, through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided to genres and sub-genres, although the dividing lines and relationship between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to personal interpretation, and occasionally controversial. This study aims to determine if the musical genre a student from Grade 7-4th Year high school listen to may or may not affect his/her academic performance. B. Statement of the Problem This study aims to determine whether music genres affect a student’s academic performance. We will write a custom essay sample on The effects on a students academic performance or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Specifically, this study aims to answer the following questions: 1.) Did a specific genre affect the student’s academic performance? 2.) What are the effects on the student? a.) Grades b.) Behaviour C. Objectives The objective of this study is to determine whether music genres affect a student’s academic performance. Specifically, the study aims the following: 1.) To test if music genres affect the academic performance of students. 2.) To know what music genre best affects the students. D. Hypothesis These specific theoretical statements were provided as basis for the procedures of the investigatory project: 1.) There is a significant difference on the effects of different music genres to the student’s academic performance. 2.) There is no significant difference on the effects of different music genres to the student’s academic performance. E. Scope and Limitation This study was conducted in First City Providential College. The study was focused on if the music genres a student listen to will affect his/her academic performance. F. Significance of the Study This study is focused on if the music genres a student listen to will affect his/her academic performance. If proven to have an effect, this could help students to improve their academic performance by listening to the right music genre. G. Related Literature G1. Music Genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. G1.a. Alternative Rock Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s. G1.b. Classical Music Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music (both liturgical and secular). It encompasses a broad period from roughly the 11th century to the present day. G1.d. Hip hop Hip hop is a broad conglomerate of artistic forms that originated within a marginalized subculture in the South Bronx amongst black and latino youth during the 1970s in New York City. G1.e. K-pop K-pop is a musical genre originating in South Korea that is characterized by a wide variety of audio visual elements. G1.f. Pop Music Pop Music is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. G1.g. Rock Music Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music. H. Related Studies It is quite easy to see exactly how strong the power of music is and will become in the future. There have been many studies proven this. For example, a study shows that students who studied music in high school made better grades than those who did not. The reasoning for this is that listening to music makes you think more efficiently and improves your memory.

The Great Gatsby Eden Imagery Essay Example For Students

The Great Gatsby Eden Imagery Essay In the Great Gatsby, each character is longing for one particular paradise. Only one character actually reaches utopia, and the arrival is a mixed blessing at best. The concept of paradise in The Great Gatsby is a shifting, fleeting illusion of happiness, joy, love, and perfection, a mirage that leads each character to reach deeper, look harder, strive farther. There is Myrtle Wilsons gaudy, flashy hotel paradise in which she can pretend that she is glamorous, elite, wanted and loved. She clings fiercely enough to this ragged dream to brave the righteous anger of Tom Buchanan by voicing her jealous terror that he will return to his wife. We will write a custom essay on The Great Gatsby Eden Imagery specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now There is a desperation to her full, spirited style of living, she wants so much to escape the grey, dead land of the Valley of Ashes that she colours her life with any brightness she can find, be it broken glass or diamonds. Nick describes land she finds herself in as a wasteland, a desert, saying this is the Valley of Ashes a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air (page 29). It is from this that Myrtle is trying to escape, this life-in-death valley that characterises the underbelly of New Yorks glitter and lights and finery, and this that she is dragged back to by the dawning jealous rage of a normally unassuming husband. To run away from the grey and the death, the colourful, brimming woman runs out, arms outstretched, to the car she thinks belongs to the man who promised to take her away from the Valley. But she began in shadows and in shadows she dies, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust (page 144). There is an ashes to ashes dust to dust element to every action in the novel, and Myrtle is no exception. We as readers focus more on Daisy and Tom, Gatsby and Nick; Myrtles fall is telling the same story as Gatsbys, as Daisys. In the end, her life is worth no more and no less than the great millionaire in his mansion on West Egg. Daisy and Tom are bereft of these dreams. Daisy at one point in the novel suddenly rebelled, realising that she did not love the man she was going to marry despite his rich gifts, and Jordan describes her struggle Tell em all Daisys change her mine. Say Daisys change her mine! She began to cry she cried and cried . . . She wouldnt let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball and only let me leave it in the soap dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow (page 83). Society in the form of Jordan Baker was there to spread on more lies to cover the rough spots, to make the surface elegant and hope no one had depth enough to look beneath it. When Daisy marries Tom without so much as a shiver she becomes an empty person, who lives, but takes no joy in it. It could be said that she just exists. When Gatsby returns with all her old dreams in his hat and his glittery mansion across the bay, like some handsome prince come to rescue her, Daisy tries but cannot return to the time that Gatsby has been living in for the past five years. She has become the shell that Jordan fixed up and sent off to a wedding, one of the careless people that Nick describes her as. .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .postImageUrl , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:hover , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:visited , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:active { border:0!important; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:active , .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628 .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u2bdbdb21627599bcb0c7663c82169628:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: How does art change your perception of a metaphysi Essay Tom and Jordan are careless and destructive because they never have anything to care about. For them, life has been money and bright lights, cities and high paying jobs, parties with American aristocracy in expansive pleasure houses. This all glitters, but none of it is true gold. When Nick speaks of his home town, a Midwest of open plains, family and friendship, he is speaking of an emotional home that none of these people ever possessed. What passes for love in their world is the act of clinging to empty dreams of paradise, blue gardens where men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars (page 45). Gatsbys tragedy is not his death. It is the death of his dream of utopia. He discovers that Daisys gold is money, not her soul. Nick describes the new world that the storyteller faces the night he lays his dreams to rest material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . (page 168). Gatsby must have looked out upon a world he thought loved him, that he thought valued things like dreams and happiness, and the shock at what he found there, at what he found both in the emptiness of Daisy and the indifferent machine of the city were what killed all that he had ever hoped for. Nicks paradise was his return to a place, not a time. His is the only paradise realised in the novel. Gatsby doesnt understand time, he wants to skew it as he skews his life and the lives of those around him. Gatsby believes, until the very end, that it eluded us then, but no matter tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning . .. (page 188). Gatsby reached an emotional level, upon which he expected to find utopia. But the flimsy, showy yet shadowy structure he built to reach that point wont support him in his crisis of self, and he is forced to realise that all of his ambitions have been in vain. Without the dream, there is no Gatsby. In the wreckage of so many falls from grace, Nick alone resurfaces, burdened by his understanding of the entirety of the tragedy.