The Arguments in Paradise Lost are prose summaries added to Milton’s text to outline their book’s events, thus making them more easily comprehensible to the reader. The addendums were added after their initial appearance, when the printer requested summaries as a prefix to each book. Paradise Lost requires these Arguments due to its density, numerous allusions, and sheer complexity, under which the narrative can be lost to the reader without guidance. As such, they are integral to understanding Books One and Two, during which Satan confers with his legion of fallen angels and plots their continued defiance against God. Milton painstakingly details each event and movement Satan and his devils make, and “proposes” the given book’s major thematic
