Paradise Lost (1667)
milton.host.dartmouth.edu
milton.host.dartmouth.edu
He had many aides, including his daughters, Anne, Mary, and Deborah. If you visit the NY Public Library there’s a large painting depicting Milton dictating to one of the daughters while the other two listen in: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/66760d80-c7f1-0135.... This is a popular topic and have been painted a number of times.
In reality his relationship with his daughters was very strained, it is reported that he forced them to read to him works in languages they didn’t understand and their education was not a priority for him. From https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/books/unjust-were-the-way...:
He did not even bother to tell them of his forthcoming marriage to his third wife. When they heard the news from a servant, Mary replied, according to A. N. Wilson's 1983 biography, "that was no news to hear of his wedding but if she could hear of his death that was something.”
The household was volatile at best, unbearable when the girls were in full fury against their father and his new wife. Milton's daughters complained that their stepmother was a termagant. One early biographer noted that Milton suffered "the Affront and Scorn of a Wife he Lov'd."
Anne and Mary never forgave their father for whatever sins they believed he committed against them. But Deborah, the youngest, and the daughter who most resembled Milton, seems to have made peace with his memory. After his death, she even came to serve as a source for early scholars seeking information about the famous man of letters.
Fully agree, but I do think it’s reductionist to think that he
> cast satan as a personable anti hero
C S Lewis has a pretty scathing rebuttal of this particular theory in his “A Preface to Paradise Lost”. In particular he notes how Satan continually descends throughout the story, not only in power but literally in size.
That said, Satan’s speech to the sun that opens book 4 is incredible
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.
Quite a number fled to the American colonies, at that time starting to gain a reputation for nurturing free-thinking radicals.
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.
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.Tolkien essentially said this in "On Translating Beowulf". That it is essentially impossible to capture the artistry and effect of poetry by translating it, not only because of the flow and meter but also the specific choice of vocabulary.
"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."
⸻
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.
- 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)
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.
(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.)
[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-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.
It’s also mentioned in Cave’s Song of Joy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
starting next week!
it's OK. You might find a better one.
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.
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)