John Milton’s Drama of Paradise Lost

This script of Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, restores its original dramatic form, as first intended by Milton, by excerpting the key speeches from the great theatrical scenes that are its core. The characters are essentially dramatic and their dialogues provide a linear plot clarifying the chronology and causality of events seen less sequentially in the epic version. While making the essence of the text more readily accessible and intelligible to new readers, this script invites dramatic readings by both students and professional actors. It has been used successfully for the first fully staged production of the epic. This presentation gives new force to the text and fresh insight into Milton’s vivid rhetoric and psychology. It provides readers with an ideal brief introduction to the text before they confront the more complex structure of Milton’s final epic version.