PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

The First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject: man's disobedience and the loss of Paradise, wherein he was placed, consequent upon it; then touches upon the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent—or rather, Satan in the Serpent—who, revolting from God and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. This action having passed, the poem hastens into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now falling into Hell, which is described here not in the center, for Heaven and Earth may be supposed as not yet made—certainly not yet accursed—but in a place of utter darkness, most fitly called Chaos. Here Satan, with his angels, lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as if from confusion, and calls up him who, next in order and dignity, lay by him; they confer regarding their miserable fall; Satan awakens all his legions, who lay until then in the same manner confounded. They rise; their numbers; their array of battle; their chief leaders are named according to the idols known afterward in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these, Satan directs his speech, comforts them with the hope of yet regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and a new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for it was the opinion of many ancient fathers that angels existed long before this visible creation. To find out the truth of this prophecy and what to determine regarding it, he refers to a full council. What his associates attempt from thence. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep; the infernal peers sit there in council.

could very well be said of Frankenstein?

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,