6 ms·
Paradise Lost (1667)
- justinhj 3y agoEnjoyable Milton course lectures… https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-220 https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-220
- user3939382 3y agoI’m not a big lit guy but I read this. The first 10% was hard to get through due to how different Milton’s english is from my own. However I’m glad I did. It got progressively easy to read until it was as natural as anything else. What a payoff. Never before or since have I read something where I was consistently floored by the beautiful, sometimes breathtaking, use of my native language. Some passages stay with me probably forever, like Adam’s description of Eve. Highly recommended.
- gwern 3y ago> I’m not a big lit guy but I read this. The first 10% was hard to get through due to how different Milton’s english is from my own. I agree. Milton's English is beautiful but easily on the level of an unmodernized Shakespeare in terms of deterring a reader, who spends as much time cracking the puzzle as they do on any kind of esthetic appreciation. As an experiment, I was trying rewriting _Paradise Lost_ in contemporary blank verse with GPT-4/Claude-2. It was OK, but what I discovered was that what really works is an alliterative verse translation! (I was then informed that it is believed that Milton may have been drawing on an Old English poem about the Fall, "Genesis A", and so this may not be an accident.) Two example renditions of the prologue: 1. Man's first folly, the fateful fruit's taste, From forbidden tree's tempting twig it came, Death and doom dealt, despair in our world, Eden erased, exalted man to mend, Restoring realms of radiant bliss, sing, Sacred muse, who soared on secret summits, Oreb, Sinai, sharing whispered wisdom, With shepherds, teaching truths to chosen kin, Heavens and earth hewn from harrowing haze, Sion's slopes, Siloa's silver stream, Flowing fast by God's grand guiding hand, Grant thy aid to my aspiring anthem, Aiming high above Aonian heights, Pursuing paths untried in prose or rhyme. 2. Man's fatal first taste, the forbidden fruit Whose bitter bloom brought bale and sorrow bleak With paradise perished, till One more mighty restores what was lost Reclaims the radiant seats—O sacred Muse, Who on Sinai's summit secret And Horeb's height inspired Chosen seers to teach the tribes since time first woke, How heavens and earth arose from Chaos hoar, Or if thou rather tread Sion's summit steep, And Siloa's silvern stream that rushed thereby Where dwelt the oracle and rock of God, That poured forth fates—now lend thy light, that I May soar on song's ambitious wings Above Parnassus' peaks, pursuing lofty themes... Great matters meet for grandest strains of lore. Thee chiefly, thee, heart's truth, soul's purest shine, O Spirit blest, who scorneth shrine and show Inspire my strain; for thou, who knowest all, Hast known since earth's first sunrise. Mighty wings Did brood with wings outspread upon the formless void Kindling Chaos into teeming, shaping flame; To attain the epic theme, this lofty matter, In hymns that hallow Heaven's eternal ways.
- DrStormyDaniels 3y agoIt takes less time than you might think to get aquatinted with older English spellings, especially if you start at the deep end with Chaucer; it’s plain sailing after. Personally I got to enjoy and prefer the absolute disregard for standard spellings, capitalisation, and punctuation, so much that I find it harder to read, e.g. Shakespeare in a modernised text. More interestingly, there’s the problem of translating or updating poetry. If the poem was written with full self-consciousness of word choice, then the meaning really is lost by “updating” it, and where the poetry is best written, the meaning will be most lost.
- Animats 3y agoIf you read the Canterbury Tales, read one half way through and ask yourself how it will end. You'll be right. Plot twists hadn't been invented yet. Those now-cliche plots were new back then.
- DrStormyDaniels 3y agoPerhaps, but I think that is beside the point. I read the tales for the voices of the characters, and for the poetry. It’s like Shakespeare, where the plot or story is usually a bit boring, more of a pretext to the poetry, and not really the purpose.
- Animats 3y agoNot Shakespeare. Shakespeare's plays are successful commercial theater. They were performed in his day, profitably. They have been widely performed for centuries since, in various adaptations, usually profitably. And usually, minus the poetry.
- DrStormyDaniels 3y agoYou are right of course. The plays are plays. And ”commercial” minus the poetry ;) and yet, the poetry is there, for the non-commercial reader. (I hear they exist)
- Yodel0914 3y agoSame. It took me a few attempts to get all the way through it, but it was certainly worth it. Never has Satan been so... relatable.
- billfruit 3y agoSamuel Johnson wasn't a fan. He wrote of Paradise Lost: "Its perusal is a duty than a pleasure". "The confusion of spirit and matter which provides the whole narration of the war of heaven fills it with incongruity. And the book in which it is related is I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased."
- kijin 3y agoThat would be totally expected of Johnson. He was diametrically opposed to Milton in almost every subject that mattered: literary style, politics, and theology.
- dhosek 3y agoIn an alternate universe, I’m a Milton scholar. One of the things¹ that actually led to my not getting there was when I transferred schools and became a full English major instead of an English-Math double major. While I was the latter, I had registration priority at Pomona College as an English major even though I was enrolled up the street at Harvey Mudd. When I moved to Pitzer, I lost that priority and was bumped from the senior Milton seminar that I had hoped to be in. ⸻ 1. The other factor is my tendency to be a crappy student. Being more concerned about learning than grades (or even doing the expected work) is not a recipe for being able to get into a good humanities PhD program.
- zajio1am 3y agohttps://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost
- dotsam 3y agoI highly recommend the audiobook of Paradise Lost read by Anton Lesser.
- DrDroop 3y agoIt only becomes better when you know the backstory of the author and the context in which it was written. John Milton was a talented diplomat who spoke multiple languages and was very well respected by his peers who admired him for his intelligence and good character. He supported a popular uprising against the incompetent king of England out of a sense idealism. The revolution was initially a success but the democratic government that should have replaced the king turned into an even more unpopular dictatorship. The monarchy was restored, most revolutionaries where executed and Milton was banished to the country side where he lived out his final years in poverty going blind due to cataracts growing in his eyes. He dictated the story of Paradise Lost to a scribe to explain how hard it is to change the word for the better, "To serve in heaven or to rule in hell" as he would put it. This was his final act of rebellion, to cast satan as a personable anti hero.
- KaiserPro 3y agoI hadn't clocked that he live through the wars of the three kingdoms.
- slibhb 3y agoWhether Satan is the hero (anti or otherwise) of Paraside Lost is hotly debated. I don't think Milton viewed it that way but plenty of English Romantics did.
- eszed 3y agoYes. Blake's line is oft-quoted: "[Milton] was of the devil's party unawares". Stanley Fish's reading is that Milton expected that his readers' enjoyment of and/or sympathy for and/or identification with Satan would bring them to recognize that their (our) point of view is tarnished by their (our) sinful nature.
- HKH2 3y agoWhy would satan not be cast as a personable antihero? Would it be easy to put aside a great lawyer that finds all the loopholes for you?
- xbar 3y agoPhew. I was afraid that this was going to be some attempt to be not about Milton. My best friend gave me this book a few decades ago. I hadn't read it during my literature course years. I read it and we discussed it for months. A worthwhile effort.
- sb057 3y ago(1667) :o)
- dang 3y agoAdded. Thanks!
- fipar 3y agoAmong the many works influenced by this, I love this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Right_Hand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Right_Hand It’s also mentioned in Cave’s Song of Joy.
- AlbertCory 3y agoI very recently picked up Dante, and got on an online course to help with it. I had some bravado about lit and thought, "hey, Milton is next!" Now, I'm all through Inferno and Purgatorio, and I gotta say, Paradiso is not turning out to be all that compelling for me. Milton? Not so sure anymore.
- minkzilla 3y agoWhat online course are you doing and would you recommend it? I am reading more "classics" recently and was thinking I need more context and discussion. Reading them alone something feels like it is missing.
- AlbertCory 3y agohttps://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/dantes-divine-comedy https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/dantes-divine-comedy it's OK. You might find a better one.
- eszed 3y agoYou'll have a similar experience with Milton - though he's very much worth it. An orthodox believer (including, probably, Milton and Dante) would say that it's because humans have no experience with absolute Good, so it's impossible to imaginatively "get". That's as may be, but I still encourage you to give "Paradise Lost* a try: Milton's use of the English language is unmatched by anyone, ever.
- AlbertCory 3y agohttps://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/liberal-arts-and-sciences/milton-s-paradise-lost-a-poem-about-life/20232_LIT-47-B https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/liberal-arts-... starting next week!
- joshuahedlund 3y agoI read this for the first time last year and it far exceeded my expectations. Some tips for reading - use something with footnotes to explain the copious literary references to earlier works - but also don’t get hung up on the references, they’re not crucial to the story - do try to get into the rhythm of the iambic pentameter, it really makes some of the poetic phrases shine Even if you’re familiar with the traditional Genesis story, there will be tons of surprises, both amusing (ex. the angels inventing artillery in their war on heaven) and poignant (ex. Adam and Eve’s briefly contemplating suicide rather than bear children into a cursed world)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dusted 3y ago"Abashed the Devil stood, and saw how awful goodness is" I heard that from the movie "The Crow" and as a huge fan of the movie I looked up _everything_ that the movie referenced. I eventually bought the book and read it through, over the course of a few days, twice. English is not my first language, and it took me great effort, I felt dumb and ignorant throughout the whole thing, both times I read it through, but I still gleamed something from it, it's the best version of the story of the creation of hell and lucifers fall that I've read, and I loved how it didn't seem to take sides, it makes god look like kind of a malevolent dictator.
- dtgriscom 3y agoFor another take on Satan, see Glen Duncan's novel "I, Lucifer." It's a whole lot of fun.
- eszed 3y agoIf you want a short taste of Milton's verse, read sonnet 23. It'll help you to know that a) the literary reference isn't important to completely "get", b) he'd gone blind, c) his (first) wife had died from complications of childbirth, and d) this is a dream sequence. [I tried pasting it in, but can't persuade it to format itself in a way that will be readable. Here's the link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44746/sonnet-23-methought-i-saw-my-late-espoused-saint https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44746/sonnet-23-metho... Seriously, read it. The last line is unbearably beautiful and sad.] Milton also wrote poetry (well-regarded by those able to judge) in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. (Out of all of them - plus English - Hebrew was his favorite, for what that's worth.) He's is my nominee for the most formidably well-educated person in history.
- eszed 3y agoThere are parts of Paradise Lost that read like science fiction, like Satan's ascent through Hell (as yet uninhabited, because no one yet has sinned!), and through a Ptolmaic (which, yes, was an intentional anachronism) cosmos to sneak his way into Earth. Other bits read like a super-hero story. The fight between Satan and the archangel Michael is fabulous: they tear whole trees out of the ground to use as spears! Gustov Dore's engraved illustrations are moody and epic and magnificent. I'd love to see what Frank Miller could do with some of those scenes.
- abecedarius 3y ago> an intentional anachronism Worth adding that Milton was a fan of Galileo who visited him in his house arrest. I remember finding this bit of the poem interesting though I've forgotten pretty much everything about it.
- eszed 3y agoJust to clarify your statement, Milton visited Galileo whilst Galileo was under house arrest. When he was a young man Milton made a "Grand Tour" (though it probably wasn't called that for another century or so) through Italy, and (naturally) impressed everyone important with his erudition. Milton's encounter with Galileo left an impression, as his case is given as an important example of the importance of free (even "heretical") speech in Aeropagetica.
- eszed 3y agoMilton is also critical to the intellectual history of certain Western ideas which we take for granted. His Aeropagetica articulates the first (at least in English) full-throated defense of free speech, and his proposal and defense of (effectively) no-fault divorce acknowledge perforce the essential equality of men and women. (Don't be distracted by Milton's own inability to demonstrate fidelity to either ideal - especially not the second. The logical consequences of his assertions are radically modern, whether or not he fully appreciated them.)
- ChocMontePy 3y agoI had the strange experience of reading all of Paradise Lost and finding it very understandable, but having the opposite experience with Aeropagetica, where I had to give up because I couldn't understand what he was saying. Prose should normally be more comprehensible than poetry, but something about the organization of Milton's prose sentences made it very difficult for me to follow.
- eszed 3y agoI agree. The difficulty (in my opinion) is largely because he's writing in direct response to particular critics, and without necessarily giving a precis of their arguments. (The occasional vituperative barb - and he could be mean - is only slight relief.) He also feels compelled to drive into the ground every. single. last. objection. that anyone might have. A good critical edition can help with the former problem (and with his penchant for including long, long untranslated quotations in the many, many languages he knew), but nothing can help with the latter. Contemporaries found him hard to read, too.
- commandlinefan 3y agoA lot of people are surprised to learn that the whole narrative of Satan as a fallen angel comes from this book and not the bible.
- bazoom42 3y agoIt doesn’t. The narrative of Satan as a fallen angel is much older than Milton. In the gospel of Luke Jesus says “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”.
- commandlinefan 3y agoActually that’s the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12) but it doesn’t say Satan, it says Lucifer. That’s the only reference to Lucifer in the Bible (old or New Testament), and that’s been interpreted as Lucifer = Satan = fallen angel who led a rebellion in heaven, but there’s not much else to this, at least not in the Bible.
- bazoom42 3y agoI’m referring to Luke 10:18 which does say Satan.
- curiousParty 3y agoAlthough that interpretation makes little sense in the context of the Isaiah 14. The name Lucifer, is a from the Latin Vulgate translation of the Hebrew word 'heh lel', meaning 'shining one'. In the context its being applied to the dynastic line of Babylon, at Isa 14:15,16 indicating this 'shining one' is a man, saying 'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?'(Kj)
- bazoom42 3y agoI’m not sure “making sense” is a relevant criteria when discussing mythology. The fact remains that Jesus (or at least the author of Luke) interpreted it as Satan.
- RockofStrength 3y agoAfter reading the complete Shakespeare, it is a natural continuation to go on to read the complete Milton. Outside the core of Paradise Lost/Regained, Samson Agonistes is another gem, and Lycidas is of course a classic poem. The way Milton uses English the language exalts it into the profundity of Latin. One feels Milton's words are of sanctified origins; it feels as though they are coming from a higher power. One random connection: In the same way Milton dictated his writing, Debussy dictated his music. To some extent this method may free the mind's work from the tedium of transcribing thought, and allow for more free-flowing expression in creation.