I suggest that we can hear echoes of that same youthful competitiveness in Milton's first major poem in these opening lines, in the beginning of the great epic of Milton's maturity.

在失乐园的开头几句,在弥尔顿成熟后所写的这首伟大史诗的开头，我们还可以看到这同样的他年轻时的雄心。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

And I can only assume that that is precisely the point, that Milton would -- later in 1667 when Paradise Lost is published, he would make his poem canonical just like The Iliad and just like The Odyssey and The Aeneid before anyone had actually read it.

我只能假设就是为了这点，当他在1667年出版《失乐园》后，弥尔顿会遵照《伊利亚特》的模式来创作诗歌,还有《奥德赛》和《埃涅阿斯纪》,在这之前人们还没有真正的读过这些书。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选