Paradise Regained
Overview
 
Paradise Regained is a poem by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 poet John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

, with which it shares similar theological
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 themes. It deals with the subject of the Temptation of Christ
Temptation of Christ
The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

.

The poem was composed in Milton's cottage in Chalfont St Giles
Chalfont St Giles
Chalfont St Giles is a village and civil parish within Chiltern district in south east Buckinghamshire, England, on the edge of the Chilterns, 25 miles from London, and near Seer Green, Jordans, Chalfont St Peter, Little Chalfont and Amersham....

 in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, and was based on the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

's version of the Temptation of Christ
Temptation of Christ
The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...

. Paradise Regained is four books in length, in contrast with Paradise Losts twelve.

One of the major concepts emphasized throughout Paradise Regained is the play on reversals.
Quotations

Envy they say excites me, thus to gain Companions of my misery and wo.

Lines 397-398

That fellowship in pain divides not smart, Nor lightens aught each mans peculiar load.

Lines 401-402

Most men admireVirtue who follow not her lore.

Lines 482-483

And the great Thisbite who on fiery wheelsRode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.

Lines 16-17

My heart hath been a store-house long of thingsAnd sayings laid up, portending strange events.

Lines 103-104

Skilled to retire, and in retiring drawHearts after them tangled in amorous nets.

Lines 161-162

Beauty stands In the admiration only of weak mindsLed captive.

Lines 220-221

Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.

Line 228.

For therein stands the office of a King,His Honour, Vertue, Merit and chief Praise,That for the Publick all this weight he bears.Yet he who reigns within himself, and rulesPassions, Desires, and Fears, is more a King;

Lines 463-467

For what is glory but the blaze of fame,

Line 47

 
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