Paradise Lost Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
57 free Paradise Lost trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Paradise Lost trivia rewards close readers. John Milton's epic of Satan's rebellion and the fall of Adam and Eve is one of the most quoted poems in English, and its details are stranger than most people remember: a capital city of Hell built in a few hours, a fallen angel disguised as a toad, a spear that forces liars back into their true shape, and a poet who composed more than ten thousand lines of blank verse after going completely blind. This quiz covers the plot book by book, the cast (Satan, Beelzebub, Mammon, Sin and Death, Raphael, Michael, Abdiel and the rest), the poem's publication history including the famous five-pound sale, Milton's own life from Cambridge to Cromwell's government, and the poem's afterlife in Blake, Frankenstein, His Dark Materials, opera and metal bands. Easy questions suit anyone who has read the opening book; the expert tier assumes you have argued about whether Satan is the hero. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the poem, its characters and its author, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote Paradise Lost?
John Milton
Milton lived from 1608 to 1674 and had gone completely blind more than a decade before the poem appeared.
Q 02In what year was Paradise Lost first published?
1667
Paradise Lost first appeared in 1667, seven years after the Restoration of Charles II had ended Milton's career as a republican pamphleteer.
Q 03Which poet does Milton name as 'Maeonides' with Thamyris, Tiresias and Phineus in Book 3?
Homer
Milton names 'blind Maeonides' — Homer — alongside Thamyris, Tiresias and Phineus in the Book 3 invocation to Light, ranking his own blindness with theirs.
Q 04What poetic form is Paradise Lost written in?
Blank verse
Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter; Milton defended his 'ancient liberty' from 'the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming' in a note added to the 1668 printing.
Q 05According to the opening invocation, Milton's stated aim in the poem is to do what?
Justify the ways of God to men
'Justify the ways of God to men' ends the opening invocation at Book 1, line 26, framing the whole epic as a theodicy.
Q 06What is the name of the capital city of Hell in Paradise Lost?
Pandæmonium
Pandæmonium, Milton's coinage from Greek for 'all the demons', rises in Book 1 'like an exhalation'; 'pandemonium' later became the everyday word for uproar.
Q 07Which fallen angel is Satan's second-in-command in Paradise Lost?
Beelzebub
Beelzebub, 'one next himself in power, and next in crime' (Book 1), closes the Book 2 council by proposing Satan's own plan to corrupt new-made Man.
Q 08Which fallen angel leads the building of Hell's capital, 'the least erected spirit that fell from Heav'n'?
Mammon
Mammon leads the band that rifles the hill for gold to raise Pandæmonium; even in Heaven his looks 'were always downward bent' on its golden pavement (Book 1).
Q 09Which fallen angel is named as the architect of Hell's capital?
Mulciber
In Roman religion Mulciber was another name for Vulcan, the smith god who was himself thrown from heaven.
Q 10What was Satan's name before his fall, according to the poem?
Lucifer
Milton has him rebel out of pride and envy after God proclaims the Son as anointed.
Q 11Over how many days do the battles of the War in Heaven take place?
Three
On the final day the Son single-handedly drives the rebel legions out of Heaven.
Q 12Who defeats the entire rebel army at the final battle of the War in Heaven?
The Son
Michael leads the loyal host on the earlier days, but the decisive victory belongs to the Son alone.
Q 13Which archangel narrates the War in Heaven to Adam and warns 'lest Passion sway thy Judgment'?
Raphael
Raphael's visit fills Books 5 to 8; he dines with Adam and Eve, explains that angels digest food, and recounts the War in Heaven and the Creation.
Q 21How does Milton describe the appearance of Death when Satan meets him at the gates of Hell?
A shapeless black shadow
Milton makes Death a shapeless black shadow — 'if shape it might be called that shape had none' — black as Night, shaking a dart, with the likeness of a crown (Book 2).
Q 22Where does Eve first see and admire her own reflection immediately after she is made?
In a lake
Eve wakes beside a lake in Book 4, gazes at her own reflection and is drawn to it until a voice leads her to Adam, whom she first finds 'less fair'.
Q 23In what disguise does Satan finally tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit?
A serpent
Q 14How many wings does Milton give the archangel who visits Adam and Eve in Eden?
Six
The visiting archangel wears six wings in Book 5: a pair mantling his shoulders 'with regal ornament', a pair girt at his waist, and a third shadowing his heels 'with feathered mail'.
Q 15Which archangel shows Adam a vision of the future of mankind before the expulsion from Eden?
Michael
Michael, sent to expel them, shows Adam history as far as the Flood from a hilltop in Book 11, then narrates the rest, down to Christ, in Book 12.
Q 16Which lone angel in Satan's audience refuses to join the rebellion and reports it to God?
Abdiel
Abdiel alone defies Satan in Book 5, 'among the faithless, faithful only he', and in Book 6 he strikes the first blow of the war.
Q 17Two angels find Satan in Eden crouched by the sleeping Eve's ear in the form of what creature?
A toad
Satan sits 'squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve', working on her dreams, when the two guardian angels find him in Book 4.
Q 18What object does the angel Ithuriel use to force Satan back into his true form?
A spear
Ithuriel touches the crouching Satan lightly with his spear — 'no falsehood can endure touch of celestial temper' — and he starts up in his own shape (Book 4).
Q 19Who is Ithuriel's partner in the search for Satan in the Garden of Eden?
Zephon
Zephon, sent with Ithuriel by Gabriel, who commands the guard on Paradise, rebukes the unmasked intruder: 'Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same' (Book 4).
Q 20Which allegorical character in Paradise Lost is Satan's daughter, born from his head, and keeper of Hell's gates?
Sin
Sin springs from Satan's head in Heaven, like Athena from Zeus, and bears him Death; she holds the key to Hell's gate (Book 2).
Satan enters a sleeping serpent and, speaking through it, flatters Eve as 'a goddess among gods' before leading her to the Tree.
Q 24What happens to Satan and his followers when he returns to Hell to boast of his triumph?
They are all turned into snakes
Milton has them share the serpent's punishment because they shared the serpent's guilt.
Q 25A passage describing the tempter of Eve forms an acrostic spelling out what word?
SATAN
The first letters of five consecutive lines of the temptation scene, as the tempter sidles toward Eve, spell SATAN; the pattern was first pointed out in print in 1977.
Q 26What is the final word of Paradise Lost?
way
The poem ends: 'They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, / Through Eden took their solitary way' — its last word is 'way'.
Q 27According to the poem's cosmology, Earth hangs from Heaven by what?
A golden chain
Satan sees the created universe 'hanging in a golden chain' from Heaven at the close of Book 2, 'in bigness as a star of smallest magnitude'.
Q 28Whom does Milton invoke for inspiration at the opening of Paradise Lost, in place of the classical muses?
The Christian God
Milton calls on the 'Heavenly Muse' that inspired Moses on Sinai and 'chiefly thou, O Spirit' — the Christian God's own Spirit — rather than any classical muse (Book 1).
Q 29In what year did Milton become totally blind?
1652
Milton was totally blind by 1652, aged 43; he composed Paradise Lost in his head and dictated it, a scene later painted by Fuseli and Delacroix.
Q 30What down payment did Milton receive for the copyright of Paradise Lost?
£5
Milton got £5 on signing the contract with his printer, with £5 more due as each edition of up to 1,500 copies sold out; he collected only one such payment.