![]() Of course other parts of the Bible are detailed as we hear about Creation and are given summaries as well of the flood, the Tower of Babel, and an introduction to Christ and the idea of redemption. ![]() It’s on the one hand breathtaking in its scope, yet is, in its essence, about one chapter of the Bible, namely Genesis 3. One wonders at Milton’s true motivation with this work. This work is over 11,000 lines! It's truly a marvel. Now, that would be amazing enough in, say, a one-hundred line poem. Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,īone of my bone, thou art, and from thy state To live again in these wild woods forlorn? Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined, Okay, I just flipped through the pages and stuck my finger in the middle and pointed randomly (my eyes looking away, over at my filing cabinet as a matter of fact) and then took the next several lines from wherever my finger happened to be pointing when I looked back again. You could take out of it any 10 or 12 lines completely at random and you’d have yourself a wonderful poem. I just finished reading this for the first time and, in a word, I found it amazing. ![]() Posted By MorpheusSandman at Sat, 1:30 AM in Paradise Lost || 4 Replies But with such a work as PL I'm wondering if I can enjoy it without fully understanding what all I'm reading. Normally I prefer to experience art first and THEN go back and talk/learn all about it. Obviously the pros and cons of not reading them is the reverse a greater artistic experience in terms of how it was meant to be read, but a loss of the understanding. The great con is that reading the notes will interrupt the flow of the poem. If I choose to read them I will undoubtedly get a greater understanding of the poem, especially in all its complexities and subtleties that both first-time readers and poetry neophytes (like myself) will miss. I basically have two choices: Read the poem with or without the notes. I have the beautiful (but really heavy!) Modern Library Edition and it seems that each page of Paradise Lost is filled with maybe 50 words of the poem and 300 words of notes on the poem. To read it with or without all of extensive notations. Posted By MarkBastable at Tue, 5:05 PM in Paradise Lost || 1 Reply Thee off to sleep as might a hand-cupped draught Were style and content not enough to zonk To whom Milton is Hist’ry (not High Art!)Īs ‘twere a mammoth cold-preserv’d in ice. Thou mayst have wondered what the bloody hellĬould be the gain, of knowledge, or of joy,ĭespite whate’er grades thou wouldst achieve Which – and here we’re harking back to ‘poem’ –Īs perhaps the greatest blank-verse epic workĪnd ploughing through it, line by turgid line, Thrown careless ’pon the darkling firmament Though forc’d full as a feather’d Christmas gooseĪnd colons scatter’d: broadcast, as might beįrom out the hand of God like silver’d stars Or e’en set forth though not well understood,Īnd somewhat sparsely stocked with full-stops, too, Mayhap in youth thou wast obliged to read, Thirst for revenge led him to cause man's downfall by turning into a serpent and tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.-Submitted by Anonymous Originally he was called Lucifer, an angel in heaven who led his followers in a war against God, and was ultimately sent with them to hell. It also includes the story of the origin of Satan. It's the same story you find in the first pages of Genesis, expanded by Milton into a very long, detailed, narrative poem. Paradise Lost is about Adam and Eve-how they came to be created and how they came to lose their place in the Garden of Eden, also called Paradise. Milton's Paradise Regained (1671) dramatizes the temptation of Christ. Many other works of art have been inspired by Paradise Lost, notably Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation (1798) and John Keats's long poem "Endymion" (1818). The Romantic poets William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw Satan as the real hero of the poem and applauded his rebellion against the tyranny of Heaven. Much has been written about Milton's powerful and sympathetic characterization of Satan. The main characters in the poem are God, Lucifer (Satan), Adam, and Eve. Paradise Lost tells the biblical story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve (and, by extension, all humanity) in language that is a supreme achievement of rhythm and sound. An epic poem in blank verse, considered by many scholars to be one of the greatest poems of the English language.
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