How Paradise Lost drew on Metamorphoses
A documented line of influence: John Milton demonstrably engaged Ovid’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
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On Paradise Lost’s page
- Milton's Eden is built partly from Ovid — the simile for paradise traces to Proserpine gathering flowers, and Eve at the pool is Ovid's Narcissus rewritten
- The Sin-and-Death allegory of Book II runs Ovidian metamorphosis into the realm of the demonic
- Reading the Metamorphoses first lets you see Milton's allusive layer — the pagan transformations he stitched into a Christian creation
On Metamorphoses’s page
- Ovid's Metamorphoses is woven into Milton's Eden — the simile that paints paradise itself reaches back to Proserpine gathering flowers before her abduction
- Eve's first moment, gazing at her own reflection in the water, is modeled on Ovid's Narcissus
- Even the dark machinery follows: the Sin-and-Death allegory of Book II expands Ovid's logic of transformation into something monstrous