John Milton, Paradise Regained: The Biblically Annotated Edition

John Milton’s stunning second epic focuses upon Christ’s triumph over Satan found in the New Testament synoptic gospel accounts of the temptation of Jesus in the Judean wilderness. Stallard’s edition of PARADISE REGAINED brings new energy to the poem by isolating Milton’s deft mining of the scriptures beyond the Gospels as he draws broadly and deeply upon the 1534 Tyndale Bible, the 1539 Coverdale Bible, the 1540 Great Bible, the 1560 Geneva Bible, the 1568 Bishops Bible, the 1610 Douay-Rheims Bible, and the revised 1612 Authorized Version of the Bible. In an illuminating and scholarly introduction to the poem, Stallard contends that the key question that ties together PARADISE REGAINED and PARADISE LOST is ＂who has the right to be called a Son of God?＂ By presenting the poem alongside hundreds of Renaissance Biblical notes, Stallard conveys the full breadth of the poem’s powerful significance in its historical Puritan context with this generously annotated edition for all readers.

Matthew Stallard is associate professor of English Instruction at Ohio University. When he is not busy tracking down Biblical references in English Renaissance literature, he is playing old-time Appalachian fiddle and is a recording artist for Appalshop’s June Appal Recordings music label. He is the former assistant editor of Milton Quarterly.