Explore new perspectives on Paradise Lost through illustrations of the poem’s key cosmological scenes produced by the visual artist Danijel Žeželj in collaboration with the literary historian Vladimir Brljak.

Milton’s cosmology is one of the most remarkable, yet also the least explored, aspects of his work. Parts of it derive from his deep knowledge of classical literature and biblical scholarship. Others are based on his heterodox philosophical and religious views. Others still draw on his encounters with the epochal advances in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomy and cosmology, epitomised by his famous audience with Galileo Galilei.

In Paradise Lost, Milton brought insights from all these domains into the service of an extraordinarily daring poetic vision, creating a cosmology unique in literary and intellectual history. Readers who reached for Paradise Lost as simply another religious poem, exploring and affirming their Christian faith, got far more than they bargained for. The poem took them on a tour of a universe alien to received tradition, while also uncannily reminiscent of the universe as we now know it: infinite, material, consisting of multiple cosmological domains, harbouring exotic forms and interactions of matters, and potentially inhabited by extraterrestrial life.

However, although Paradise Lost has been widely illustrated since the seventeenth century, and although the scenes in question are some of the most visually arresting in the entire poem, almost none of them have ever been depicted. In this exhibition, Brljak and Žeželj team up to produce the first-ever images of these scenes: artworks in their own right yet underpinned by rigorous scholarship and detailed attention to Milton’s text. Exhibited in Milton’s Cottage, these images recapture some of the most daring reaches of Milton’s poetic vision in the very place in which this vision came into being.

Milton’s Universe is included with entry to Milton’s Cottage. It is generously supported by the Royal Society’s Places of Science grant scheme, with an accompanying workshop programme supported by MDSE.

Work on the project has been additionally supported by the British Academy.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Vladimir Brljak works at the intersection of literary history, intellectual history, and the history of science. His main current project is When Did Space Turn Dark?, a monograph exploring the shift from a bright to a dark universe in the Western cosmological tradition, to be published by Reaktion Books. He is Associate Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University and a current (2026–27) Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow. He has held the Thole Research Fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, as well as visiting fellowships at the Bodleian Library, the British Academy, the Huntington Library, the Warburg Institute, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

Danijel Žeželj is a graphic novelist, animator, illustrator, and painter. He is the author of more than twenty five graphic novels and eight short animation movies. His work has been exhibited around the world and published by such outlets as DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, Image, DSTLRY, Glénat, Dargaud, Eris Edizioni, The New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine. Since 1997, he has given a series of multimedia performances merging live painting with live music, premiering in Europe and the US. He is co-founder of the publishing house and art workshop Petikat. He lives and works in Brooklyn and Zagreb.