Part one of term paper
is one of the finest examples of the epic tradition in all of literature. In composing this extraordinary work, John Milton was, for the most part, following in the manner of epic poets of past centuries: Barbara Lewalski notes that is an "epic whose closest structural affinities are to Virgil's Aeneid . . . "; she continues, however, to st ...

Part two of term paper
... as an Odyssean hero of wiles and craft; the description of Satan's perilous Odyssey to find a new homeland; and the battle scenes in heaven. . . . The poem also incorporates a Hesiodic gigantomachy; numerous Ovidian metamorphoses; an Ariostan Paradise of Fools; [and] Spenserian allegorical figures (Sin and Death) . . . . (3) There were changes, however, as John M. Steadman makes clear: The regularity with which Milton frequently conforms to principles of epic structure make his occasional (but neve ...