An argument in literature is a brief summary, often in prose, of a poem or section of a poem or other work. It is often appended to the beginning of each chapter, book, or canto. They were common during the Renaissance as a way to orient a reader within a large work. Prose blah blah blahProse generally lacks the formal structure of meter or rhyme that is often found in poetry. ... A canto is a significant section of a long poem or the highest part in a piece of choral music. ... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...

John Milton included arguments for each of the twelve book of the second edition of Paradise Lost, published in 1674 (the original ten-book edition of 1667 did not include them). They present a concise but often simplified account of what happens in the book, though they seem not to be intended to have interpretive value, and they have been only sporadically referenced by critics. The first begins: See John Milton (politician) for the American politician John Milton, English poet John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, best-known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. ... Title page of the first edition Paradise Lost (1667) is an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ...

This first Book proposes, first in brief, the whole Subject, Mans disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was plac't: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many Legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the great Deep.

The argument could also be in verse, as in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso or William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Most arguments included in poems are written by the authors themselves, but in other cases they could be added subsequently by a printer or publisher to an earlier work. Ludovico Ariosto (September 8, 1474 – July 6, 1533) was an Italian poet, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516), Orlando Enraged. He was born at Reggio, in Emilia. ... Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Orlando Furioso is an epic poem written by Ludovico Ariosto in 1516. ... William Blake (1807) William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter and printmaker. ... The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is one of William Blakes prophetic books, a series of texts written in imitation of biblical books of prophesy, but expressing Blakes own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs. ...

External links

• Book 1 of Paradise Lost, from the Milton Reading Room.