Paradise Lost temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men". In his introduction to the Penguin 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 (1626–97) 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." Leonard speculates that the
John Brown's Body (poem) John Brown's Body (poem) John Brown's Body (1928) is an epic American poem written by Stephen Vincent Benét. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided Harpers Ferry in Virginia in the fall of 1859. He was captured and hanged later that year. Benét's poem covers the history of the American Civil War. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929. The poem was performed on Broadway in 1953 in a staged dramatic reading starring Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, and Raymond Massey, and directed by Charles Laughton. In 2015 it was announced that the recording of the performance will