27. Create Context in the Introduction

27. Create Literary / Historical Context:

it is important for literary papers to establish the date of the publication of a text and how the text exhibits the major tenets of the literary period in which it is written. This information most often occurs in the introductory paragraph and links from the opener to the paper’s thesis.

For example, notice the historical context starter in this introductory paragraph on Paradise Lost. (the literary / historical context starters are in bold)

Discovering Erudition, Solace and Redemption Through Paradise Lost

So spake th’ Omnipotent, and with his words

All seemd well pleas’d, all seem’d, but were not all.

That day, as other solem days, they spent

In song and dance about the sacred Hill,

Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere

Of Planets and of fixt in all her wheels

Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,

Eccentric, intervolv’d, yet regular

Then most, when most irregular they seem:

And in their motions harmony divine

So smooths her charming tones, that Gods own ear

Listens delighted.

(V, 616-127)

This is the omniscient narrator in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Written in 1674 Paradise Lost exemplifies the tenets of 16^th and 17^th

century English Renaissance by affirming that there is a divine order to the

seeming chaotic world and that one should have faith in this God

ordained order. In Paradise Lost, as in life, God works in mysterious

ways. People, things and situations are not always as they seem. Milton,

like God, is brilliant, secretive, and mystifying in the writing of his epic

poem Paradise Lost. His cautious and careful selection of words causes

the reader to often falsely interpret the text, and to make quick

assumptions about main characters. By having the reader misread Satan,

God, Adam and Eve, Milton shows that even though the reader may love

Satan’s powerful, moving, wild language, glaze over the bland speech of

God, and believe that both Eden and its most prominent inhabitants,

Adam and Eve, are imperfect, it is alright because these deceptions help

to justify the ways of God. The reader misinterprets many sections of

Paradise Lost. Prelapsarian, before the fall, Eve seems to be vain, God’s

speech seems boring, Satan’s language seems compelling, and

Prelapsarian Eve seems egocentric in her argument with Adam. However,

these interpretations are completely wrong. Milton plays with the

reader’s mind, and causes them to fall, just as Adam and Eve did. He

then proceeds to explain how fall was fortunate, how God is merciful, and

how man can be redeemed.

LITERARY / HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE TEXT

AND AUTHOR” STARTERS TO USE:

( X represents the text)

-Written in (insert date) X exemplifies the tenets of (choose one: 16^th and 17^th century English Renaissance / 18^th NeoClassicism / 19^th century Romanticism / 20^th century Modernism by________________________________________________.