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# Milton's 'Paradise Lost' Rebooted as an 8-Bit Music Video
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/miltons-paradise-lost-rebooted-as-an-8-bit-music-video/
- Published: 2016-07-08T22:12:29.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:29:08.000Z
- Description: Since John Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667, many artists have attempted to visualize the biblical epic.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: Art, Music Videos, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![LyYStu2 - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/07/lyystu2-imgur.gif)

Clip from Delta Heavy, “White Flag” (GIFs by the author for Hyperallergic)

Since John Milton’s *Paradise Lost* was first published in 1667, many artists have attempted to visualize the biblical epic. [William Blake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%5FBlake%27s%5Fillustrations%5Fof%5FParadise%5FLost?ref=hyperallergic.com) created three sets of artworks for Milton’s poem, hallucinatory illustrations of Satan (at the gates of Hell; arousing the Rebel Angels) and Adam and Eve (being tempted, falling from grace). Gustave Doré’s Romantic woodcuts pictured what Milton called “[Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire](http://www.danshort.com/pl/page1.php?p=1&ref=hyperallergic.com).” [Salvador Dalí](http://www.lockportstreetgallery.com/ParadiseLost.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com)’s 10 color intaglio etchings, from 1974, offered a surrealist spin on Milton’s blockbuster poem.

The latest visualization of *Paradise Lost* may also be the funniest: a Nintendo-inspired music video featuring Satan, god, Beelzebub, Jesus, and friends as Super Mario-style video game characters. Directed by [Najeeb Tarazi](http://www.najeebtarazi.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) for London-based electronic music duo [Delta Heavy](https://soundcloud.com/deltaheavy?ref=hyperallergic.com)’s track “White Flag” — off their new EP titled, appropriately, *Paradise Lost* — it depicts the fallen angel Satan flying back to heaven to apologize to God, represented here as a dark, feminine thunderhead. Role playing game-inspired dialogue and commands (“Return to Heaven?”) pop up along the way.

“‘White Flag’ is about letting your guard down in love,” [explained](https://killscreen.com/articles/paradise-lost-reimagined-snes-game/?ref=hyperallergic.com) Tarazi, whose technical director credits include *Toy Story 3* (2010) and *Monsters University* (2013). “I wanted to try turning the myth of *Paradise Lost* on its head and tell a story where Satan apologizes after his defeat and seeks a path of love. In reply to Satan’s apology, God brutally punishes Satan again.”

The three-minute video is not a faithful or exhaustive visualization of the entire 80,000-word epic poem (or even of its SparkNotes summary), but perhaps it will help carry out Milton’s stated mission to “[justify the ways of God to men](http://literarydevices.net/to-justify-the-ways-of-god-to-men/?ref=hyperallergic.com)” — or at least to the men of the gaming generation.

![A0U2yjJ - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/07/a0u2yjj-imgur.gif)

Clip from Delta Heavy, “White Flag”

![mx5V60g - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/07/mx5v60g-imgur.gif)

Clip from Delta Heavy, “White Flag”