With Paradise Regained, Milton set out to write a story to both parallel and contrast with his masterwork, Paradise Lost. He chooses a good subject, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness from the beginning of the Gospel narrative. It’s a story weird enough to let Milton turn his imagination loose and it also allows him to bring back Satan from Paradise Lost. Paradise Regained is meant to echo Paradise Lost. The action in both poems revolves around Satan tempting individuals or an individual to sin by indulging the lusts of the flesh, specifically by eating forbidden food. But in Paradise Regained, Satan meets a foe more than able to stand up to the temptation and, in Milton’s worldview, Christ proves himself the redeemer of mankind by his ability to stand where Adam & Eve fell. It’s compelling, but it’s a lesser work for sure. It’s in four books as opposed to the twelve that make up Paradise Lost, but even that’s underselling the brevity of this one; it’s just a bit over 2,000 lines, while Paradise Lost is over 10,000, making Paradise Regained about a fifth the length of Paradise Lost. Satan and Christ are both less interesting here than they were in Paradise Lost, but there’s fun to be had in their back and forth, though there’s essentially no narrative drive. And I will say that the climax of Paradise Regained is absolutely magnificent; Christ reveals his true identity at last as he defeats Satan’s last temptation and the glory of that revelation sends Satan spinning away, stunned, which Milton ties to Christ’s later declaration to his disciples that he had seen “Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” This is a less interesting, less brilliant work than Paradise Lost, of course, with less depth and development of its themes and characters, but it’s a good companion piece and I recommend doing what I did, which was reading it straight after finishing Paradise Lost. The happy endings are never quite as emotionally compelling as the tragic ones, I guess; still Paradise Regained has treasures to be found. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – Paradise Regained both parallels and contrasts with Paradise Lost; less impressive & not nearly as layered and compelling, but it has more than enough pleasures to justify itself. 3 ½ stars.