Paradise Lost: Book I (Chaos, Defiance, the First Steps Into Milton’s Universe)

For this first meeting, we’ll begin our slow, reflective journey through Paradise Lost with Book I — Milton’s thunderous opening, the fall of Satan, and the emergence of the poem’s central tension: what it means to choose, to rebel, and to seek meaning in the aftermath of loss.

We will read the text closely and use it as a way to explore the questions it raises about ambition, freedom, identity, and the darker corners of the human psyche. Discussion will follow the spirit of the Shared Inquiry method: open-ended, text-centered, and grounded in genuine curiosity rather than expertise or formal analysis.

There is no need to prepare anything beyond reading Book I. Bring your thoughts, your questions, and your sense of wonder. This is the beginning of a long conversation — with Milton, with one another, and with ourselves.