From the Publisher These controversial epic poems demonstrate Milton's genius for fusing sense and sound, classicism and innovation, narrative and drama in profound explorations of the moral problems of God's justice-and what it truly means to be human. Features - Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained Table of Contents Read an Excerpt Table of Contents List of Illustrations References and Abbreviations A Chronology of Milton's Life Minutes of the Life of Mr. John Milton John Aubrey Aubrey, John Paradise Lost Acknowledgments Works Cited Index Read an Excerpt PARADISE LOST the printer to the readerCourteous Reader, there was no argument at first intended to the book, but for the satisfaction of many that have desired it, I have procured it, and withal a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the poem rhymes not. S. SimmonsThe VerseThe measure is English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Vergil in Latin; rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. 1. The defense of blank verse and the prose arguments summarizing each book “procured”