---
product_id: 150364112
title: "Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost Paperback – 15 Mar 1998"
brand: "stanley fish"
price: "£51.70"
currency: GBP
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
category: "Books"
url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/150364112-surprised-by-sin-the-reader-in-paradise-lost-paperback-15
store_origin: GB
region: United Kingdom
---

# Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost Paperback – 15 Mar 1998

**Brand:** stanley fish
**Price:** £51.70
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost Paperback – 15 Mar 1998 by stanley fish
- **How much does it cost?** £51.70 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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## Description

Review
        	
        	
        		
        			Thirty years after its original publication. Surprised by Sin remains the one indispensable book on Milton. This dazzling, high-stakes work of mind taught a generation of readers how to read anew. And, lest we thought its rigorous injunctions had been dulled or blandly assimilated by the intervening years, Fish dares us, in a formidable new preface, to think again.--Linda Gregerson, University of MichiganThirty years ago, Surprised by Sin initiated the modern age in Milton criticism. Still the one book necessarily engaged by Milton scholars, it continues to provoke, irritate, and illuminate. Reissued now, with a substantial new preface, it clarifies in fascinating ways not only the course of Milton studies but also the continuing career of its controversial author.--Marshall Grossman, University of Maryland at College ParkThe first edition of Surprised by Sin revised the critical landscape of Milton studies more significantly and more influentially than any other analysis of Paradise Lost in modern history. The second edition contains a substantial preface, not only an apologia but also a brilliant critical manifesto in its own right. Fish thereby affirms the validity, preeminence, and timeliness of his "great argument," which will continue to inform critical debates unremittingly in the future.--Albert C. Labriola, Duquesne University
				    	
					
        		
        		
        	
        
        	
        		Synopsis 
        	
        	
        		
        			This text was first published in the 1960s, in an era that no longer saw the need to choose between Milton's orthodoxy and heresy. Rather, Stanley Fish allowed us to see the epic poem as a self-revelatory experience in which the reader is "intangled" in the folds of Satan's rhetoric and is forced to re-evaluate his or her judgment of Satan by being led to experience unreliability, inadequacy, or falseness of what had once seemed to be clear or true. In a new preface, Fish revisits the thesis of "Surprised by Sin" and considers the challenges offered by post-structuralism, late-20th-century historicism, and political criticism.
				    	
					
        		
        		
        	
        
                
        
        
            
            
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rhetoric
            
*by A***R on 23 March 2014*

Mr Fish also plays upon the contemporaneous fear of demagoguery and quotes the prosecution of an Harvard divine for inciting his audience. He quotes Aristotle "on Rhetoric" and thereby underpins the careful reasoning that lies behind this epic poem.Satan is the rhetorician but his fallen language is as is Milton's similes, just attempts at portraying grand scale in time and place, except that Milton repeatedly admits his under-reaching.A wonderful primer for this grand epic
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ indeed surprised
            
*by C***S on 10 December 2008*

I loved his reader-response criticism. He argues that the reader is initially tricked by Satan by his use of persuasive and seductive language, thus when he tricks Eve to eating the fruit, we are surprised at how much we were nearly caught up by Satan and trusting him. This allows us to appreciate God's grace more, because it is as though we have committed some kind of sin, together with Adam and Eve.It is a highly sophisticated argument, very interesting, and I think it has opened a new way for me to approach Paradise Lost.
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five Stars
            
*by O***A on 3 September 2016*

Excellent scholarship and precise analysis. An invaluable resource for those studying Milton and/or Paradise Lost.
  

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*Last updated: 2026-05-31*