Q 01/05
A) John Dryden
B) John Donne
C) John Bunyan
D) John Milton
Answer · why
Milton lived from 1608 to 1674 and had gone completely blind more than a decade before the poem appeared.
Q 02/05
A) 1667
B) 1642
C) 1660
D) 1611
Answer · why
The first edition ran to ten books; a second edition of 1674 rearranged the poem into twelve.
Q 03/05
A) Eight
B) Twenty-four
C) Ten
D) Twelve
Answer · why
The rearrangement deliberately mirrored the twelve books of Virgil's Aeneid.
Q 04/05
A) Fourteen
B) Six
C) Twelve
D) Ten
Answer · why
Later printings also inserted prose 'Arguments' summarising each book.
Q 05/05
A) Heroic couplets
B) Blank verse
C) Terza rima
D) Spenserian stanzas
Answer · why
The lines are unrhymed iambic pentameter; Milton added a note to the second edition explaining why the poem does not rhyme.
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