Paradise Lost and Other Poems Author:John Milton Paradise Lost revivifies Adam's fall from the Garden of Eden. Samson Agonistes follows blind Samson, whose titanic strength destroyed both himself and the Philistines to bring his people deliverance. Lycidas is a pastoral lamentation for a Cambridge student who drowned, and an immortal elegy of all lost hopes.
Most interesting to me is the character of Satan. Christ and God here are two-dimensional sketches, whereas Milton gives Satan complex motivation, much more engaging than run-of-the-mill comic-book iniquity. Enjoy!