As early as his second year at Cambridge, John Milton had attempted to write an epic — a school exercise in Latin concerning the Gunpowder Plot. By his fourth year, he had expressed interest in composing an epic poem in English, possibly dealing with King Arthur. At this point in his life, Milton was certainly familiar with the classical Homeric epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as Virgil's Aeneid. Milton also knew Dante's Divine Comedy, which, while not technically an epic, has many epic characteristics. Finally, on his Grand Tour, Milton had met Giovanni Batista, the Marquis of Manso and biographer of Torquato Tasso, author of the epic Jerusalem Delivered.
From these sources, we can see the kind of poem that Milton had begun to envision. From Homer forward, the epic had been an extended narrative dealing with a hero or group of heroes attempting to achieve a specific goal. This goal frequently has to do with actions, events, or ideas that tend to define a culture either through history, values, or destiny, or, at times, all three. Any poem can be heroic, but the epic is separated from other heroic narratives through its magnitude and style. In simplest terms, epics are very long and written in a highly elevated style. The original Homeric epics, sometimes called primary epics, were orally recited by bards and involved ritualistic presentations.
