It’s three hundred and fifty years since Paradise Lost was published and this month Manchester’s Iconic Portico Gallery is celebrating the event.
Paradise Lost is undoubtedly one of the seminal works of English literature, and its themes have inspired generations of artists, writers and thinkers. The first version amounted to ten thousand lines of verse and covered ten separate books.Its author John Milton took nearly ten years to write it and by the time it was completed, he had gone blind dictating the entire work to his secretaries.
The poem follows the exploits of a hero encompassing warfare and the supernatural, flashbacks and was seen as. Wing the English equivalent of the Aeneid, the Iliad, and the Odyssey.
A portrait of its author, John Milton, sits opposite that of William Shakespeare in The Portico Library’s main space and the collection holds a first illustrated copy of the original text. So to mark 350 years since its initial publication in 1667, the Library has invited responses from a group of contemporary female artists, addressing the historical gendered imbalance of depictions of its central stories of Adam & Eve and the Fall from Grace, including Chloë Manasseh, Helen Mather and Ilona Kiss.
Their works will be shown alongside historic illustrations and associated books from the collection and partner libraries.
‘Be Strong, Live Happy & Love’. 350 Years of Paradise Lost. 6th January – 11th February 2016. Free preview evening: Thursday 5th January, 6pm-9pm.
