The general relation between the summarized arguments to the actual stories in paradise lost

Abstract EN

The paper attempts to investigate the general relation between the summarized arguments to the actual stories in Paradise Lost.

Unfortunately, the arguments of Paradise Lost have been taken for granted as offering a coherent guide to both the narrative of the epic and its overall structures.

Therefore, they have not received enough attention by Milton's scholars.

However, this study argues that the use of the arguments or headnotes in Paradise Lost exceeds the limit of summarizing the content to highlight social issues such as the need for educational reformation, to criticize the political authority, to ask for freedom of speech, and finally to describe the poem's own narrative.