The Return of Eden: Five Essays on Milton's Epics - Paperback

by Northrop Frye (Author)

"I am talking about Milton because I enjoy talking about Milton," This statement made by Northrop Frye at the beginning of The Return of Eden sets the tone for the entire book. Presented informally, it is filled with the vast learning and demonstrates the imaginative magnitude we have come to expect of this distinguished critic: the brilliant argument and the pleasantly witty presentation will inform and delight.

The first four essays in the volume deal with Paradise Lost. Frye discusses the form and tradition of the epic, the rôle of the Son of God, a construction of the cosmology of the poem as a framework for its imagery, the reasons for Milton's presentation of the behaviour of Adam and Eve (and by analogy of human society) before and after the fall. He also deals with Milton as a revolutionary who, disillusioned with the failure of the English people a free commonwealth, was finally compelled to find the true revolution within the individual. These four chapters are based on the Centennial Lecture Series which marked the one-hundredth anniversary of Huron College, University of Western Ontario.

The fifth essay in the book, "Revolt in the Desert," discusses the structure and content of Paradise Regained.

Author Biography

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was one of the twentieth century's most influential English scholars and literary critics. Northrop Frye was a professor in the Department of English at Victoria University in the University of Toronto from 1939 until his death. His works include Words with Power and Anatomy of Criticism.