<b>Paradise Lost by John Milton</b>&nbsp;is an&nbsp;epic poem&nbsp;in&nbsp;blank verse&nbsp;by the 17th-century English poet&nbsp;John Milton&nbsp;(1608&ndash;1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of&nbsp;verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of&nbsp;Virgil&#39;s&nbsp;<i>Aeneid</i>) with minor revisions throughout.<br /><br />It is considered to be Milton&#39;s&nbsp;masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. The poem concerns the&nbsp;biblical&nbsp;story of the&nbsp;Fall of Man: the temptation of&nbsp;Adam and Eve&nbsp;by the&nbsp;fallen angel&nbsp;Satan&nbsp;and their expulsion from the&nbsp;Garden of Eden.<br /><br />The poem follows the epic tradition of starting&nbsp;<i>in medias res</i>&nbsp;(<i>in the midst of things</i>), the background story being recounted later.<br />Milton&#39;s story has two narrative arcs, one about&nbsp;Satan&nbsp;(Lucifer) and the other,&nbsp;Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other&nbsp;fallen angels&nbsp;have been defeated and banished to&nbsp;Hell, or, as it is also called in the poem,&nbsp;Tartarus. In&nbsp;Pand&aelig;monium, the capital city of Hell, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organise his followers; he is aided by&nbsp;Mammon&nbsp;and&nbsp;Beelzebub.<br /><br />Belial&nbsp;and&nbsp;Moloch&nbsp;are also present. At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers to corrupt the newly created&nbsp;Earth&nbsp;and God&#39;s new and most favoured creation, Mankind. He braves the dangers of the&nbsp;Abyss&nbsp;alone, in a manner reminiscent of&nbsp;Odysseus&nbsp;or&nbsp;Aeneas. After an arduous traversal of the Chaos outside Hell, he enters God&#39;s new material World, and later the Garden of Eden.