Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem, was originally
published in 1667 in ten books, then revised by its author into the
twelve-book form in which we read it today shortly before his death in
1674. Containing the major creation myth of modern Europe, its impact on
Frankenstein is major and discernible from beginning to end. In
the immediate context of the Creature's discovery rather than of Mary
Shelley's intertextual conception of her novel, however, what is most
significant is how he reads the epic as a key to his self-understanding,
even perhaps his self-fashioning.
