For example, Satan questions why the Son, who's just been created, is elevated above him almost without any explanation. He questions why the fallen angels are killed in their numbers. He questions why God can test people in these almost nonsensical ways," he said. Illustrations by noted French artist, Gustave Doré (1832-1883), are found in many 19 th-century volumes that are part of the University Libraries’ Rare & Special Books collection. Titles include Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven (1884), Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1876), and Milton's Paradise Lost (1885), among others. Van Nuis, H (May 2000), "Animated Eve Confronting Her Animus: A Jungian Approach to the Division of Labor Debate in Paradise Lost", Milton Quarterly, 34 (2): 48–56, doi: 10.1111/j.1094-348X.2000.tb00619.x Lyle, J (January 2000), "Architecture and Idolatry in Paradise Lost", SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, 40 (1): 139–155, doi: 10.2307/1556158, JSTOR 1556158

Leonard, John (2000), "Introduction", in Milton, John (ed.), Paradise Lost, New York: Penguin, ISBN 9780140424393 Eve is the second human created by God. God takes one of Adam's ribs and shapes it into Eve. Whether Eve is actually inferior to Adam is a vexed point. She is often unwilling to be submissive. Eve may be the more intelligent of the two. When she first met Adam she turned away, more interested in herself. She had been looking at her reflection in a lake before being led invisibly to Adam. Recounting this to Adam she confesses that she found him less enticing than her reflection (4.477–480). Issa describes Paradise Lost as a poem about "questioning unshakable authority and unshakable hierarchy, questioning the unquestionable."In his introduction to the Penguin published edition of Paradise Lost, the Milton scholar John Leonard notes: "John Milton was nearly sixty when he published Paradise Lost in 1667. The biographer John Aubrey (1626–1697) tells us that the poem was begun in about 1658 and finished in about 1663. However, parts were almost certainly written earlier, and its roots lie in Milton's earliest youth." [4] Leonard speculates that the English Civil War interrupted Milton's earliest attempts to start his "epic [poem] that would encompass all space and time". [4] Michael is an archangel who is preeminent in military prowess. He leads in battle and uses a sword which was "giv'n him temperd so, that neither keen / Nor solid might resist that edge" (6.322–323). Doré was a prolific artist; thus the following list of works is not complete and it does not include his paintings, sculptures, and many of his journal illustrations:

Carey, John (22 July 1999), Danielson, Dennis (ed.), "Milton's Satan", The Cambridge Companion to Milton (2ed.), Cambridge University Press, p.161, doi: 10.1017/ccol052165226x.011, ISBN 978-0-521-65226-1 , retrieved 2 May 2022 Malan, Dan (1995). Gustave Doré, Adrift on Dreams of Splendor. St. Louis: MCE Publishing Co. (500 illustrations) Stephen C. Behrendt, The Moment of Explosion: Blake and the Illustration of Milton (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). Histoire pittoresque dramatique et caricaturale de la Sainte Russie, d'après les chroniqueurs et historiens Nestor Nikan Sylvestre Karamsin Ségur etc.

Pointon's book is still the place to go to explore Milton's poetry as a source for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English art. Even a brief skim through the illustrations gives a vivid sense of what Paradise Lost meant to these different periods. Illustrations of Paradise Lost's Death, who confronts his father Satan at the end of Book II, are an interesting case. Milton's description makes clear that his Death is an insubstantial, shadowy thing: