These three masterworks placed the great seventeenth-century
English poet Milton beside Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, and
Virgil
in the pantheon of world literature. A monumental achievement,
Parudise Lost is the epic poem about the magnificent Lucifer,
whose failed rebellion against Heaven's tyranny casts him into the
darkness of Hell and leads to man's fall from grace. Samson
Agonistes, the greatest English drama modeled on the Greek
classics, depicts blinded, once-mighty Samson regaining his
strength as God's champion and delivering his people-while
de-stroying himself and his captors. And "Lycidas" is an
immortal
elegy on lost hopes and the nature of fate. Written in a grand
style of superb power, these works display a majesty of lan-
guage, a sublime wealth of detail, and the unmistakable genius of
one of literature's greatest minds.