The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost

Long before astronauts and telescopes, John Milton wrote the universe into English verse. This Victorian-era study traces the astronomical knowledge woven through Paradise Lost, revealing how the poet absorbed the revolutionary cosmological debates of the seventeenth century. Orchard examines how Milton encountered the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe, then transformed their competing theories of the heavens into the architecture of his epic battle between heaven and hell. The book maps what Milton knew of the stars, the planets, and the nature of the cosmos, and how that knowledge shaped his depiction of angelic warfare, the fall of man, and the vast machinery of divine creation. For readers curious about how early modern science entered the bloodstream of English literature, this remains a fascinating excavation of the poetry hidden beneath the astronomy, and the astronomy hidden beneath the poetry.