An attempt to TOP all epics

Paradise Lost lets on from the start that it is superior to the epics that came before it, those of Homer and Vergil. In the invocation to Paradise Lost Milton calls upon his muse, but this muse is different from those that inspired Homer and Vergil. Milton's muse is the one who inspired Moses...his is the Holy Spirit.

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd

Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread

Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss

And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark

Illumin, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great ArgumentI may assert Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men. (Paradise Lost, 1.6-26).

Milton's special muse, the Holy Spirit, is perceived to be better than the muses of the Aonian Mountain; Milton has divine intervention in the composition of his epic, thus making it superior. By invoking the muse in the first place Milton shows us that he recognizes Homer and Vergil, but he plans on taking his epic further because he is inspired by God. We are introduced to a Christian perspective, unlike the Homeric and Virgilian epics. Milton mentions God as he asks him to let the Holy Spirit inspire and "instruct" him. Milton appears to display a type of transient knowledge that those that came before him did not. When Milton speaks about, "the beginning," he clues his readers into the idea that his epic will be different from those before. He draws us into the idea that he has the whole story of the world and its creation. Those that came before him were not privileged to know the story of humankind's first act of disobedience, thus making them subservient to Milton.