Paradise Staged: Milton'S Epic As Dramatic Text

Paradise Lost is an epic poem, yet elements of Milton’s work are undeniably theatrical and are indebted more to the dramatic genre than the epic. Milton, in fact, first conceived the poem as a drama—tentatively titled Adam Unparadised—and at least one section of Satan’s Book IV soliloquy was evidently written with the stage in mind. These original theatrical designs are crucial to the process of (re-)contextualizing Paradise Lost, prompting us to look backward to the influence of Milton’s inherited dramatic tradition as well as forward to modern theatrical adaptation. Milton draws from Shakespearean drama in particular, oscillating generically from tragedy to history to romance and channeling some of Shakespeare’s most compelling villains in his famous portrayal of Satan. Last year, the Stratford Festival staged a new adaptation of Paradise Lost by Erin Shields to much acclaim; the play puts Milton in conversation with present-day political and social issues as well as simply demonstrating the dramatic potential of Milton’s source material. The implications of a dramatic consideration of Paradise Lost touch both stage and classroom. Milton deserves a place in Shakespearean and early modern theater companies’ repertoires. Correspondingly, performance and play should be employed as pedagogical tools, expanding the successful strategy of teaching Shakespeare’s plays through performance to less explicitly dramatic works. Paradise Lost gains much in the transition from page to stage, and the conceits of the dramatic form complement and reinforce the conflicts and ideas at the heart of Milton’s epic.