PARADISE LOST BOOK 2: Total Pandemonium

Guiding Questions for Readers

1. Each of the demonic plans suggested at the Council of Pandemonium has at its root a subtly different view of happiness or the Good. How does each speaker frame his version of what is good, how does he attempt to sell it to his comrades, and what are we as readers to make of this discussion in general?

2. Given that the demonic council contains several well polished masterpieces of classical rhetoric, what are we to think of rhetoric and its relation to sin and the world of fallen creatures? How is Milton’s own project, which also defines itself by a ‘rhetorical’ purpose, supposed to differ? Does it succeed?

3. in the encounter with Sin and Death, is there an implied theology of evil? How does this fit into Milton’s overall projcct of justifying God’s ways to men (theodicy)?

4. At the end of Book II the various fallen angels set about pursuing some rather human pasttimes: athletics, music and art, exploration, philosophy. What is Milton the Puritan saying about human secular pursuits?

Highlights in the text

(380-385)”… For whence/ But from the author of all ill, could spring/ So deep a malice to confound the race/ Of mankind in one root, and earth with hell/ To mingle and involve, done all to spite/ The great Creator?”

(843-4) Satan to Death: “…there ye shall be fed, and fill’d/ Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey.”

(1051 – 1055) “And fast by, hanging in a golden chain/ the pendant world, in bigness as a star/ Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon./ Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge/ Accursed and in a cursed hour, he hies.”