How The Complete Poems drew on Paradise Lost
A documented line of influence: William Blake demonstrably engaged John Milton’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Paradise Lost
John Milton · 1667
RenaissanceThe influenced
The Complete Poems
William Blake · 1827
PoetsRelevance
9/10
On The Complete Poems’s page
- Blake didn't just admire Paradise Lost — he argued with it, decided Milton was secretly "of the Devil's party without knowing it"
- That reading runs through Blake's prophetic work, and his own epic Milton sends the dead poet back to earth to correct his mistakes
- Read Milton first and Blake's quarrel makes sense: he's rewriting the most ambitious poem in English from the inside
On Paradise Lost’s page
- No later poet wrestled with Milton harder than Blake — he read Paradise Lost as a poem at war with itself
- Blake's famous verdict: Milton was "a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it" — Satan is too alive, God too cold, and Blake noticed
- His illuminated epic Milton is a sustained re-vision of Paradise Lost, and he engraved twelve illustrations to it besides