Paradise Lost

The Paradise Lost read begins on Saturday. I will be "sampling" from the text, but can't, unfortunately, commit to reading it from first page to last, at this time. I trust that those of you who will be reading it through and through, will provide your always insightful commentary of the epic poem just fine, in le dictateur's absence.

Who's in so far? And would anyone like to set the stage: introduce Milton, his text, etc. (provide links, and so forth)? Extra credit if you do!

Since it is a re-read for me, I want to do some background research.

On my list are:

Mario Praz: The Romantic Agony, Chapter II: "The Metamorphoses of Satan"

Grotius: Adamus Exul (one of the proposed sources or inspirations of PL)
English translation available at http://www.archive.org/details/adamusexulgroti00grotgoog

Voltaire Henriade: Appendix on epic poetry, chapter on Milton. Available (in French) at http://www.poesies.net/voltaireessaisurlapoesieepique.txt

Edit: better Voltaire link

I'm in! This is a re-re-re-read for me. This time around I plan to read as much of it aloud as I can, focusing on language and meter.

I'm in. I have the Pullman edition.

Well, I finished les Mis last night and feel free, and I would like to read this sometime...but I don't think I'm ready for it yet. I'll try "sampling" and following the threads.

I will be reading this thread with interest, though I cannot join in this month. Should anyone still be reading Paradise Lost in Feb, I'll be there with ya, I think. I have a Modern Library edition.

I'm in and have a Norton critical edition -- though knowing my progress these days on longer projects I am sure I will still be going in February Medellia. this was listed as a shorter project I think - that was a mistake wasn't it?

Would people mind if we did postpone this until Feb? I am still plowing through Les Miz (I am still in the Marius part) and this will be hard for me to do, but I really do want to participate in both.

I really want to participate in this but am very confused. I "wikied" Paradise Lost and they say it is 10 or 13 books. So could someone help me out with what I actually need to order and which copy would be best for a novice please?
Thank you in advance.
belva

>9 rainpebble: It's 12 books, but think 'booklet'... in my el cheapo edition they cover 282 pages.

So they are all in one then. Okay. Thanx!~!
belva

>9 rainpebble: As for which edition, Milton's text should basically be identical in all editions, so I would recommend one with some good historical, biographical and critical background - and good notes. (There are lots of allusions in PL, which are interesting, but if you're worried that is seems "too much", I think you'll still get the gist of it - and enjoy the beautiful language - while ignoring the potentially copious foot/endnotes).

8> Are you suggesting that we alter the set schedule?

Fine by me, but then we'd have some people reading My Name is Red and some people reading Paradise Lost and some might even be reading both. I'll probably be reading neither as there will be another "real life, underappreciated author" thread beginning Feb. 1.

Why don't we leave the schedule as is, but extend the Paradise Lost read through Feb. Three weeks was probably too fast to cover the book anway. Seven weeks sounds much better.

And let's keep in mind as we begin PL, what first initiated our interest in it: tomcatMurr having the audacity - like William Blake before him - to claim Satan as PLs hero. Is tomcat right, or is tomcat wrong? That will probably need to be a thread all its own once several have gotten through the text.

I'm in, maybe, but a February start would work better for me, too.

ETA: Oops, posted before reading fearless leader's instruction. What he says is fine. I will be in. I think.

13: OK, I agree! Gotta work harder on Les M. that is for sure.

Omg! If people are reading Pamuk and Milton and a real life underappreciated author at the same time, the universe implodes!!1!

Thanks for being flexible, 'Rique. And tomcat is always right, just like you. (Also if you disagree with each other the universe implodes.)

Ok. I am in for Paradise lost. I have a mentor edition, and no real idea what it means. I will start it Saturday or Sunday. I want to finish Les Mis and my extracurricular reading of The moonstone.

Wait, do the "real-life underappreciated author" threads indicate Salon reads? In that case, how do I get my mitts on copyedit's book? I am determined to be the one guy who gets through every Salon (and affiliate) read, while attending grad school, and not the guy who dies trying.

As for Milton, I think it's more or less incontrovertible that Satan is the hero, and also more or less controvertible that that wasn't Milton's intention. But that's just my opinion, so controvert away pls!

I will be following having read Paradise Lost a few times. I will not be rereading right now, partly because I don't know where the edition I would want to read is. That edition is the second edition of the Norton Critical Edition of the poem. I have read the first, edited by Scott Elledge my Milton course professor, but he had us read it from our Milton anthology.

Those books of the poem seem to me to go down best one book at a time for a reading in twelve sittings. That's a long enough chunk that you can get into the swing of the language, but not so long that the difficulty of it wears you out. I haven't read it aloud, but I have read it word for word, and it is a lot of work, but to me it is rewarding work.

If one reads a book at a time, that should leave time to read something else. My Name is Red is mysterious but not difficult. That overlap should not be bad.

It is easy to see that the devil is a mighty figure in Paradise Lost. I think I passed a couple of courses just because I saw that well. That does not make him a hero. He is full of corruption, vanity, and suffering who either accomplishes no good or accomplishes good against his own will.

Some natural tears they dropped but wiped them soon.
The world was all before them where to choose
Their place of rest and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.

Or some such.

Robert

18> no, those are more Q&A / open forum, with the author (though I do recommend you read Peter Weissman's I Think, Therefore Who Am I?, which was December's feature, and that you also read February's featured author, Alex Austin. I've read The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed and am anxious to read more. I know Peter's book is available through the usual channels, Amazon, etc., though I will post more specifically re. the availability of Alex Austin's work once I get that info right in front of me; which I've just done, and it too is available through Amazon or....

In book III...

Titles of other books encountered so far:

The Rebel Angels I
Darkness Visible I
His Dark Materials II

I'm only halfway through book 1. An idea I have is how by filling out the adversary he might actually be giving me ideas about how he saw his God. Like not drawing the figure but the ground. ETA and giving me ideas about God anyway, which I did not expect.

ETA ETA (I'm assuming that means edit edit) - This idea of painting the ground not the figure also struck me as very different from the Last Temptation of Christ sort of approach which paints the figure - and which say in the film version anyway the screenwriter I have heard admit on dvd commentary is therefore blasphemous for daring to empathise with that figure.

People who know more may know if I am just going off on some crazy tangent here. Just some thoughts.

My son and I are re-reading Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy while I am going to start reading this. I will probably have posts full of parallels. I recommend it for all those who do this read, if you have not already read it. I have not started Paradise Lost but plan to start in on it tomorrow a.m. REALLY looking forward to it. Thanks to EF and all the rest of you for making this a group read.

(PS Still bogged down in the Marius book in Les Mis. Trying... Trying... to get through it. Re-reading YA stuff is just so much more fun.)

What a good idea. I think I have too much to read to reread His Dark Materials but I'll try to keep it in mind as I read. It is hard for me to think of it as YA stuff, though, especially the darker ones at the end.

Tracing the Milton-Galilei connection I found this article:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/06/02/080602crat_atlarge_rose...

It's mind-boggling for me how M., having talked to G. and having looked through his telescope, could still describe heavens and earth in a completely geocentric way.

OK, I have read Pullman's introduction and book 1. I am blown away. It really works to get through this if you read to yourself out loud. He's right, you might not understand but you get chills anyhow. Pullman had another very good observation that he says came from Hitchcock. This is that if you start a story from the point of view of a "bad guy" such as a thief in a dark room, for example, the audience/reader cannot help but empathize with them and hope they get away or win or whatever. So even though Milton keeps on calling Satan horrible names, you still empathize with him and sort of root for him.

It's quiet here. It took me three sittings (and numerous re-readings) to get through the opening 100 lines, and I still don't quite get them. But it got easier afterward and I've almost finished book one.

#27 dchaikin: Some time back when my husband started reading Paradise Lost, I had a similar experience. I tried to get through the opening lines and had to put myself down as hopeless and give up. But later I found while flipping randomly through the book that not all of it seemed as difficult to me.

Your post was helpful--if I still find that opening difficult, I'll persevere.

Okay you guys have really perked my curiosity, so I've pulled out my copy and read the first ten pages. And it's compelling even though it's poetry! I'm a big fan of paradoxes, and there's several here in the beginning I thought worth pointing out:

"ever-burning sulphur unconsumed"

"tyranny of heaven" - also a Stephen Baxter book

"Yet from those flames/No light, but rather darkness visible" - and note where William Styron got the title to his memoir from.

or, moving away from the paradoxes, look where Robertson Davies grabbed one of his book's titles:

"with all his host/Of the rebel Angels" I inserted the word "the" to make the touchstone work.

or how about Steinbeck:

"His utmost power with adverse power opposed/In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven." - a book by Thomas Bloom (whoever he is!)

How many authors have taken their books titles out of the dense pages of Paradise Lost?

I didn't know "the plains of Heaven" book, just thought, hmmm, sounds like a good title, and voila, there it was.

Not sure if this helps any in reading Paradise Lost, but it sure adds some to the fun.

I'm going to start a new thread on this idea here.

I noticed a lot of phrases that I'd seen referenced by later writers, not all as book titles though. So many writers used Milton's imagery! And this is only book 1.

I've finished book one and didn't find it TOO hard, though my eyes did glaze a bit during some of the more densely allusive passages. I'm reading the Signet edition edited and with notes by Christopher Ricks. His introduction was pretty good and gave me a good feel for the basic camps of Milton's critics.

So far, it seems that Milton admires the grandeur and sheer audacity of Satan's revolt, not his reasons for rebelling. I think the meaning we pull out of the poem is very much influenced by our own beliefs; we decide if it's God or Satan who is justified. Ricks says that no one can be neutral about Milton; either you love him or you hate him.

On Project Gutenberg I've found

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/28434

The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' by Thomas Nathaniel Orchard (1896)

Looks fascinating.

I read book 2 over the weekend. I really am loving the language. The part describing Sin and Death was really horrifying - such awful imagery!

From Orchard:



Nevermore get lost in the universe!

Now does that mean the universe is in chaos or tha thats outside -- cos there wasme thinking we had it aplenty.
Still have to start book2 -- I'm glad we're all going along slowly. The second half of book 1 did not follow so much the comments I made initially. I'm not sure that i hate or love Satan really, I do feel fairly neutral about him/her/it(??) I feel he is mistaken -- and I got the impression that Milton's God somehow can tolerate that, whereas Satan is deamanding that their view is right. Stop me if I am being obvious.

35: After book 2 I am starting to think OK, either God is really, really stupid, (which obviously doesn't make sense) or this outcome is exactly what God planned for in the first place. (Spoiler alert, if there is such a thing for this story)

Putting the one person in charge of the keys to hell who you must know would be the happiest to let Satan out? I mean, come on!

Omniscience != Omnismarts, maybe?

Paradise Lost deserves much more attention than its been getting. Yes, the language is luscious; the imagery hellish; the narrative poem is simply divine, no? And yet, I don't think too many of us are actually reading it unfortunately. I made a mistake in assigning us Paradise Lost. I admit it. When I brought up Paradise Lost, what I really meant to bring, uh, up, was... Paradise Lust. I meant Kit McCann rather than John Milton. I'm such a dummie!!!

I do hope you'll accept my profoundest apologies for assigning everyone the wrong title (and author) to read.

But I thought we were supposed to be reading Issue 133 of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, which as we all know, is entitled Pair O' Dice Lost.

Be thou patient, 'Rique. Some of us are working hard this month. Some of us shouldn't even be on LibraryThing. Some of us should be working instead.

*slinks away*

Oh good! You're feeling guilty are'n'chu? Shouldn't even be on LT? Blasphemy! You put your "real life" ahead of LibraryThing?! Oh the misplaced priorities amongst so many of you.

Sad.

Don't taunt an artistic temperament, 'Rique! I will simultaneously sob and rage at you! I might giggle a little bit, too, just to freak you out!

I'm following along! Sorta. RL is getting in the way as well, and Paradise Lost has always been just plain DAUNTING to me. But I figure I need to read it sooner than later so that I'll understand allusions in other works of literature and so on. So here I am, lurking at the Salon, thumbing through my all too pristine copy, and reading all your observations in hopes of gaining more know-how!

PS: Funnily enough, I've made it through Ulysses (and in a Chinese translation for at least one of the attempts), and I've even been trying to give all of Shakey's plays the old one-two this year, but something about PL has always made me tremble. In my imagination, this work stands as somehow representative of WESTERN CANON, which is really intimidating for me because I've never really explored WESTERN CIVILIZATION outside of daily life in the US of A. As a child I went to a hippy school in California that focused on Chinese emperors and Toni Morrison instead of European history and John Milton (or w/e). So there are a lot of things that I simply don't have enough exposure to, like Christianity and England (Pope? didn't he write something about witty hogs shitting?) that make PL look particularly scary to me. I know it ain't so but I just can't help the flutter in my heart!!

amaranthic has hit on something... Too often I can't, for any number of reasons, keep up with a group read while it's in progress, but I always look forward to returning and reading the threads, which are always informative (and which is probably what I shall have to do this time, as I'm currently a bit overextended).

I'm not in for a re-reading (maybe the 5th) of PL ( I have waaay too many other things I need to read and reread), but c'mon guys, it's not that daunting or that long -- once you get past the section in Heaven. I have lots of quarrels with Milton, but he's a fabulous poet and watch out for the color imagery throughout the poem -- it's a real giveaway. Pretend it's a graphic novel -- Milton paints gorgeous pictures throughout -- and he was blind when he dictated it to his daughters. Besides, Satan is such fun.

Yeah, I guess my fear of PL is very personal. I hear what you're saying, and intellectually I agree, but there's just an irrational part of me that quails at the thought of Milton because of all that he represents in my mind...

I'm reading, but I'm not won over by it yet, aside from a few passages. I keep wanting to rewrite it in prose and fewer words.

I think that's a great idea solla! Paradise Lost: The Novel, by Solla Carrock. Do it!

I love imagining the speeches being read by an over-the-top Shakespearean actor (esp. Brian Blessed in The Black Adder). So for me it's Paradise Lost: The Movie. But I'll settle for an edition with illustrations by Robert Crumb.

There's no way I'll ever get through all the books on the list in one year, so will aim to get through half. Getting through In Search of Lost Time will be an achievement in itself.

Paradise Lost is one that I hope to get through. Have read part one so far. It's amazing, I last read it 25 years ago (and then in a hurry for Uni) but so much of it has stuck in the memory.

I am sure that I will appreciate it far more this time around.

#48 - Maybe we could each do a book (of Paradise Lost books).

There is a script for a dramatic reading of it somewhere. It played in a local sorta amateur theater in the past year or two. If I stumble across a more specific reference I'll post it.

Robert

I am reading slowly, here and there. I am astounded by the pictures this blind man hundreds of years ago is painting in my brain. This enormous Satan, seemingly vanquished in a lake of fire, rising up, breaking the adamantine chains - and then the wings unfold. Boom! Spear like a tall pine (they grow them tall here so maybe I am picturing them bigger than Milton would have, still.) Also the host of other bad angels, numberless like locusts swarming.

Obviously I am not very far. I am so ignorant. I did not know that, not only is PL not a rhymer, Milton has a statement against rhyming before the poem begins. I liked that too.

Finished. Here are some quotes from The Romantic Agony that may be helpful in the discussion:

“Milton conferred upon the figure of Satan all the charm of an untamed rebel which already belonged to the Prometheus of Aeschylus and to the Capaneo of Dante...”

“Is the reversal of values which some critics have tried to discover really to be found in Milton? Is the justification of the ways of God to men only the seeming aim of the poem, the poet himself in reality being ‘of the Devil’s party without knowing it’, as Blake declared? Is Paradise Lost, as a modern psychologist (E.H. Visiak, Milton Agonistes, a Metaphysical Study, London, 1923) maintains, a product of ‘inverted power’, the projection into a work of imagination (that is, into a dream) of Milton’s thwarted purposes, at a time when all the hopes he placed in the Commonwealth were dashed to the ground? And is Satan’s cry of revolt the cry of the poet himself, whose genius, inverted, has given a positive value to what objectively stands for the negative - evil - in his poem?”

I remember a staging of Vondel’s Adam in ballingschap (Adam Exiled) where paradise was shown as a post-apocalyptic landscape. Adam and Eve believed they were living in the biblical paradise, they were constantly talking about the beautiful things they were seeing, but everybody else - God, Satan, the angels and the spectators - knew that it was an illusion. After they eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, the illusion vanishes.

I also remember reading at the age of 10 my first grown-up book - about the way the earth was being poisoned by pesticides. I felt like I had eaten from the forbidden fruit, and subsequently was driven from paradise.

Who'd have thunk that my off-the-cuff remark about Satan would generate such a torrent of brilliant insights and commentary on this thread. I wish I'd had the time to read PL again.

Last night I was reading Pushkin's review of Chateaubriand's translation into French of Paradise Lost. He (Pushkin) has this to say about Milton's language:

at once refined and naive, sombre, obscure, epxressive, independent and audacious to the point of absurdity.

Pushkin's English was not that brilliant - unlike his French, which was-, so one wonders how much his view of Milton was tempered by Chateaubriand's translation. In any case, I find his remarks about Milton perceptive and provoking.

#56 - Murr, so far I agree with Pushkin.

I seem to be in for real, I restarted and have read the introduction in my copy and am now half way through book 2. My goal is to finish this month, before Infinite Jest starts.

Regarding the heroic Satan - the introduction in my book (by Merritt Yerkes Hughes, copyright 1962) strongly argues against Satan as hero. Looking for a excerpt...

'But pride is self-deception, and Milton's Satan deceives himself so well that he deceived Shelley into thinking him a Promethean apostle of human regeneration, and Byron into thinking him an inspiring symbol of revolt against political tyranny. For Milton Satan was the archetypal tyrant.'

Hughes doesn't go into a Cromwell/Satan comparison (Milton supported Cromwell, iirc), actually he says the comparison isn't helpful. And, he doesn't go into how Milton's politics might effect the poem. I have some trouble with that. In books 1 & 2 Satan and others in hell seem to be using the language of rebels, as they define a "tyranny of Heaven." It's possible that Milton has Satan make arguments that appeal to us, so that later he can reveal the deception within those arguments - thereby showing the misleading appeal of Satan. I can't say yet. But, I think Milton's political experiences must be shaping the language used here.

Anyway, for me Satan's heroism is still an open question.

I am really trying to get into Paradise Lost, though I cannot find any time to read these days.

I'll see how I feel about Satan when I get into it, but I'm usually too much of a moralist to really sympathize with the Byronic hero type (Satanic hero, I know, but tomato, to-mah-to).

I'm already intrigued by Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, which I picked up after seeing it at my local independent. (Sorry, Book Culture, I didn't shell out the $35 you were asking, but got the earlier edition for $5 at Amazon. :( )

Fish argues (and I'm paraphrasing here from the intro to my edition of PL) that Satan's appeal was not unconsciously drawn by Milton. Rather, he consciously made him a character who would appeal to us to demonstrate to us that we are fallen creatures. Over and over, he wrote passages where the reader will entertain false notions of Satan's virtue or heroism--but then, Milton writes a sort of correction and reminds us that Satan is not to be admired. Some critics have argued against Fish (particularly in that Fish's model sort of assumes an "infinitely gullible reader," who will fall for Milton's schtick over & over), but the book has been very influential in Milton studies.

I'll see how I feel about Satan when I get into it, but I'm usually too much of a moralist to really sympathize with the Byronic hero type (Satanic hero, I know, but tomato, to-mah-to).

Me too. I never really understood why people made such a big deal over Milton's Satan. It's a brilliant portrayal, yes, and there is some of the "appeal of evil in disguise" there, yes, but why people idolize him is beyond me. But then I've probably had it drilled into my head too many times in Sunday school that the devil may appear as a shining figure of light, but is till to be resisted....

Fish's book sounds intriguing.

As C.S. Lewis pointed out, the trick to divining Milton's depiction of Satan is to trace his devolution in PL from archangel to tragic hero to general to politician to...... and lest I give up spoilers, I'll let you readers continue on.

possibly the most perceptive thing C.S. Lewis ever wrote.....

I don't even know what I am doing here. Until I got my book, I think I thought that Paradise Lost was actually The Lost Weekend. It doesn't get much more weird than that!~!
belva

Think of it as The Lost Eternity!

Amazon's description of The Lost Weekend:
Don Birnam is a sensitive, charming and well-read man who spends a long weekend overcome by his weakness for alcohol, evaluating his life and its meaning.

Change "Don Birnam" to "John Milton," and I am so in! ;)

I need to think and read some more but will post soon on PL. It suddenly occured to me on my third reading through the opening that I always had the idea of the Judeo-Christian creation as being creation ex nihilo, "out of nothing." But this is not the case with Milton; God uses the materials of Chaos to create the universe (so "creation ex materia"). Now, apparently, I find out that there is hot debate among Biblical scholars as to whether creation ex nihilo is compatible with scripture. I find this fascinating. More on this later maybe?

>64 Medellia:.

So, would that make YWHW a Chaos Lord, or a Lord of Law (using the Moorcock definitions of such, of course)?

*zoom!* That's the sound of your fantasy knowledge going over my head. :)

Even using the more flexible D&D template, YHWH is difficult to peg - in many ways lawful (with a multitude of restric and proscrip tions) but often chaotic (maybe its those mysterious ways - how about that practical joke on Abraham - kill your son - never mind i was just testing you!). Good or evil tough call. Overall, I go for lawful evil based on the slaughtering and directions to slaughter folk for reasons that seem a bit trivial to me (flood, Midianites after Moses returns from Sinai, Sodom & gomorrah, Babel, Egyptian firstborn, the couple in Acts that withheld tithing, the disposition of people after the judgment). So far, I'm in the "useless" camp with Belial. Lets just do the best we can with what we've got - tho I did enjoy Satan's response to Belial.

Correction: Beëlzebub's response - Advise if this be worth Attempting, or to sit in darkness here Hatching vain empires. Bk II, L 376

Milton complete here: http://www.bartleby.com/people/Milton-J.html

P.S. Is Milton responsible for Heavy Metal umlautting conventions?

I'm only in Book IV now. I was amused when Satan was tempted (yes!) to submit to HRH and burn (figuratively) his hellish host.

Regarding Medellia's discussion above. I was intrigued by the four elements that were, apparently, quite fashionable at the time: hot, cold, dry and moist.

Starting Book 7 today. I have enjoyed this quite a bit. Can you imagine what a sensation this was at the time: vivid writing that combined religion, philosophy and fantasy (and, potentially, commentary on recent controversial events.) Regarding Cromwell - I would love to hear from a scholar on this - I am sure the events Milton lived through informed his depiction of the battle over mankind in Paradise Lost, but I am skeptical that the point of PL was to provide commentary on those events and that the characters are placeholders for the people involved in those events.

It got me thinking about this as well: I may tend to side with the underdog rebel rather than the all powerful champion BUT if I was in a tight spot, I'd be pretty psyched that the champ was out there for me and I'd be singing his hosannas as loudly as anyone else.

69: I am just ready to start Book 7 as well. Very much enjoying it.

One thing that I find easy, at times, to lose sight (!) of, is how steeped in a common religion people's lives, thinking, conversations etc. were then and there. There is nothing like it in the general population of the Western world anymore right now. All this wild speculation about biblical events, justifications and so on in this appealing and exciting package must have been absolutely dynamite. Also, if not really about Cromwell per se, it does have a poli sci aspect addressing the responsibilities of kings, lesser royal persons and lowly subjects that would have been highly relevant as well.

Adam as a loyal but, as they say these days, intellectually incurious fellow. Eve has a scientific mind even before eating the fruit of that tree. Satan's speech to Eve predicts Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. Moving on to Book ten.

#71 - I put it down at book 4, but plan to return.

One thing that gets me related to what you are saying here is that he does seem to clear up the story, polishing everything so it's all there in one place. But - I kept thinking while reading it - doesn't having it altogether also kind of undermine the myths. I mean by making it clear, and maybe accessible (once you work through the language) doesn't it also more readily expose the story to critical attack?

Perhaps there was a subconscious (or not so subconscious) intent to expose the myth to critical (or imaginative) attack -- William Blake certainly thought so.

I think he might be making an effort to put the best foot forward on all the competing positions. We respond better to the sciencey/critical position. I tend to think he did too, but far from sure of it.

#74/#75 I have some trouble seeing this as intent to expose, which in as sense would make it a satire. For one thing he just put so much effort in to it and my (easily fooled) intuition sees him as totally serious (on the other hand he could be serious about undermining something...). For another, the notes in my edition indicate he expressed the same views elsewhere in non-poetic writing.

The notes in my edition also indicate he took pre-existing texts as authoritative - which may imply he saw them as convincing in something like the same way we see a modern scientific study as convincing.

Putting the best foot forward makes a lot of sense to me. I have this image of him taking his lifetime of accumulated data and putting as much of it as possible into the poem in an attempt to tell the real story, or get as close as he felt was humanly possible at that time.

But, then another part of me wonders whether it was really possible he believed all this? I know many people did and some still do. It's still a point I have some trouble with.

I find PL to be a bit of a bog after the original couple has tasted the forbidden fruit. Finally out of Book X and part of the way into XI.

Is Adam craven or what? Eve made me do it. What a sap.

After the fall it mostly downhill *ha!

I always seem to be digging up old bones (and getting my muzzle dirty).

I'm currently on Book 6 of PL. I just discovered this thread, and was NOT shocked to find that it was a Salon choice, way back when.

Too many good Salon reads, so little time.

Some day, I'll join the pack, but for now I guess I'll continue to run off in the woods after squirrels, sniff trees, wag my tail and howl at the moon on a remote hill...

I just this month read Paradise Lost. I hated it. The story is very good, but I cannot stand the writing - the allusions to EVERYTHING and the yoda speak, inverted sentence structure. Many times it felt like a bad translation - oh, wait.... Just beforehand I had read The Divine Comedy (yes, all of it) and I really enjoyed that.

For those of you struggling, it does get easier after the fourth book (chapter) or so.

You would think there would be a translation. In English. Hey, Cormac McCarthy would be the perfect translator!

You know, I never did pick it up again after reading through book 4. I think I finally moved it off the beside table too. Have at it dog.

Afterward I read Moby Dick. Only took me four tries.

Can you say graduate class?

In college I read Paradise Lost in a survey course and was so taken with it that I took a Milton course. I've read it perhaps four times since then and hope to read it again a couple of times in my life. I find the tale telling to be glorious.

Robert

>84 Mr.Durick: finally some balance!

I like Paradise Lost, especially in comparison to Paradise Regained.

'No more complaints from me; I'm at the point where Urania shows up!

And, there are in fact plenty of crutches out there:

John Milton's Paradise Lost in Plain English

I'm the opposite from many here; found the story awful, particularly the rampant misogyny, but loved the writing/poetry.

Oh, I definitely preferred the telling. But, if the text gets denser with each particle of dust the cover collects.

And, I still may not need a crutch, but a good annotation would be really helpful.

For example, I just googled Cronian, and only got hits for these clowns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTkx1foHOe0