In the eighteenth century, the epic conventions made a gradual shift to mock-heroic poetry – a literary form that pseudo-eulogizes events of stately stature, in a bid to satirize them.īut Milton, an egotist throughout his life, picks up topics of profound significance in the context of Christianity, and writes in an epic style that is perfectly complemented by content and theme. John Milton’s Paradise Lost belongs to a rare breed of epic poetry in that it conforms to all the structural aspects of an epic, much in contrast with the decline of epic in the eighteenth century (Griffin 143-154). Johnson has put it, “By the general consent of critics, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions…Įpic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore, relates some great event in the most affecting manner” (xix). The epic poem has been regarded ion all ages and countries as the highest form of poetry and there are great epics in almost in all the literatures in the world.
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