Influences on the composition of Paradise Lost

• Milton was highly educated in other cultures, christian religion, and in other languages. 
• There was great turmoil in England at the time as the English civil war was concluded in 1651 and initial writing of Paradise Lost would have taken place at the time. 
• Like other Renaissance works, Paradise Lost has many themes that question the authority of the Catholic Church. 
• It takes the same divisional style of writing found in Virgil's Aeneid in that it was revised to twelve books.
• Predominately, the book takes the stories of the Old Testament (especially Adam and Eve) and adds western mythology to expand some parts of his mythos regarding certain events.