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![Paradise Lost: With bonus material from The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper by [John Milton]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Pi5LrFfQL._SY346_.jpg)
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Paradise Lost: With bonus material from The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper Kindle Edition
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· Extended excerpt of The Demonologist (in development with Robert Zemeckis and Universal Pictures)
· “Paradise Re-Read: An Essay”
· Q&A with Andrew Pyper
· “Demons of the World: A Selection”
A chilling and spellbinding literary horror story, The Demonologist follows Columbia professor David Ullman’s modern-day descent into hell. When his daughter, Tess, disappears, Professor Ullman—a lifelong skeptic—finds that he must suspend his disbelief and use his knowledge of demonic mythology, and Milton’s Paradise Lost, to rescue her from the Underworld.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster
- Publication dateDecember 18, 2012
- File size4019 KB
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Review
–Gordon Campbell, University of Leicester
"Teachers and scholars will welcome Barbara Lewalski’s Blackwell edition of Paradise Lost, one not only informed by the erudition of a prominent and highly respected Miltonist but advantaged by her sound decision to reproduce the original language, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italics of the 1674 text."
–Edward Jones, Editor, Milton Quarterly
"For the student or general reader, looking for an old-spelling edition that is faithful to the original punctuation, this edition has much to recommend it. Its annotation is crisp, purposeful and well-judged."
–Thomas N. Corns, University of Wales, Bangor
"A superb teaching text. Lewalski’s edition respects Milton’s original poem and offers supremely clear introductions, bibliography and special material to guide the student reader and educated lay person alike to new discoveries in a work that, quite simply, has it all: good, evil, God, Satan, humans, angels, love, despair, war, politics, sex, duty, and sublime poetry—set in a cosmic landscape that inspires wonder and seduces new readers in every generation."
–Sharon Achinstein, Oxford University
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Courteous Reader, there was no argument at first intended to the book, but for the satisfaction of many that have desired it, I have procured it, and withal a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the poem rhymes not. S. Simmons
The Verse
The measure is English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Vergil in Latin; rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.
1. The defense of blank verse and the prose arguments summarizing each book “procured” by Milton’s printer, Samuel Simmons, were inserted in bound copies of the first edition beginning in 1668, with this brief note.
This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming.
Book I The Argument
This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, man’s disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the center (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan with his angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him. They confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; they rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandaemonium the palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the deep. The infernal peers there sit in council.
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert eternal providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Say first, for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what cause
Moved our grand parents in that happy state,
Favored of Heav’n so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equaled the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
1. The first line’s introduction of an exemplary man recalls the epics of Homer and Vergil. Milton’s theme, however, is neither martial nor imperial but spiritual: humanity’s disastrous failure to obey God counterpoised by the promise of redemption. Of man’s: The proper name Adam is also the Hebrew word for generic man or humankind. He is both an individual male and, with Eve, the entire species: “so God created man . . . ; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1.27). Of man translates the Hebrew for “woman” (Gen. 2.23). fruit: Its dual meanings (outcome, food) are put in play by enjambment, a primary formal device by which Milton draws out sense “from one verse into another” (The Verse).
4. one greater man: Jesus, second Adam (1 Cor. 15.21–22; Rom. 5.19). Cp. PR 1.1–4.
5. blissful seat: translates Vergil’s epithet for Elysium, Aen. 6.639.
6. Sing Heav’nly Muse: the verb and subject of the magnificently inverted sixteen-line opening sentence. By invoking a Muse, Milton follows a convention that dates from Homer. Yet Milton’s Muse is not the muse of classical epic (Calliope) but the inspiration of Moses, David, and the prophets (cp. 17–18n). secret: set apart, not common. When the Lord descends to give Moses the law, thick clouds and smoke obscure the mountaintop, and the people are forbidden on pain of death to cross boundaries around the mountain (Exod. 19.16, 23).
8. shepherd: The vocation of shepherd is a key vehicle for Milton’s integration of classical and scriptural traditions. Moses encounters God while tending sheep on Mount Horeb (Oreb) and later receives the law on Sinai, a spur of Horeb (Exod. 3; 19). (Or the doubling of names may simply acknowledge the inconsistency of Exod. 19.20 and Deut. 4.10.)
9. In the beginning: opening phrase of Genesis and the Gospel of John.
10. Chaos: classical term for the primeval state of being out of which God creates, also referred to as “the deep” (as in Gen. 1.2) and “the abyss” (as in l. 21). Sion hill: Mount Zion, site of Solomon’s Temple, “the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 6.1, 13). Adding to the persistent doubleness of the invocation, Milton requests inspiration from two scriptural sites associated with God’s presence and prophetic inspiration. Both sites receive dual designations: Mount Horeb/Sinai and Mount Zion/Siloa’s brook.
11–12. Siloa’s brook . . . God: spring whose waters flowed through an underground aqueduct, supplied a pool near (Fast by) Solomon’s Temple, and irrigated the king’s lush garden (cp. 4.225–30). Jerome says it ran directly beneath Mount Zion (A. Gilbert 1919, 269). Scripturally, it symbolizes David’s monarchical line (Isa. 7–8, esp. 8.6). In opening the eyes of the man born blind, Jesus sends him to wash his eyes with its waters (John 9). Cp. 3.30–31. oracle of God: the holiest place in the Temple, the tabernacle of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Kings 6.19). The classical Muses haunt a spring (Aganippe) on Helicon (cp. 15n), “the sacred well, / That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring” (Lyc 15–16). In identifying the spring near the “Holy of Holies” as similarly a site of inspiration, Milton again links scriptural and classical prophetic and poetic traditions.
14. no middle flight: Milton will go beyond middle air, whose upper boundary is as high as the peaks of tall mountains, and soar to the highest Empyrean, the abode of God. His soaring ambition recalls the myth of Icarus, whose failure to follow a middle flight caused him to tumble into the sea (cp. 7.12–20).
15. Aonian mount: Helicon, Greek mountain favored by the Muses (cp. 11–12n). Hesiod says that while he tended sheep on Helicon (like Moses on Horeb), the Muses called him to sing of the gods (Theog. 22).
16. Translates the opening of Orlando Furioso (1.2) and is reminiscent of Masque 43–45; cp. similar claims by Lucretius (De Rerum Nat. 1.925–30) and Horace (Odes 3.1.2–4).
17–18. 1 Cor. 3.16–17, 6.19. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit (l. 21). In Milton’s theology, the diverse functions of the Holy Spirit derive from “the virtue and power of God the Father,” in this case “the force or voice of God, in whatever way it was breathed into the prophets” (CD 1.6, p. 1194). The site of revelation progresses from Horeb/Sinai to Sion hill/Siloa’s brook to, finally, the individual human heart.
21. brooding: Milton thus renders the Hebrew word translated as “moved” in the AV (Gen. 1.2) but as incubabat (brooded) in St. Basil and other Latin patristic authors (see also 7.235). Cp. Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici: “This is that gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and in six days hatched the world” (73).
24. argument: subject matter; cp. 9.28.
25. assert: take the part of, champion.
26. justify: vindicate; cp. Pope, Essay on Man: “Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,/But vindicate the ways of God to man” (1.15–16). Milton’s word order permits dual readings: either “justify (the ways of God to men)” or “justify (the ways of God) to men.” Cp. SA: “Just are the ways of God,/And justifiable to men” (293–94).
27–28. Milton introduces the narrative with a query, an epic convention; cp. “Tell me, O Muse, the cause” (Vergil, Aen. 1.8). Homer also depicts the Muses as all-knowing: “Tell me now, ye Muses that have dwellings on Olympus—for ye are goddesses and are at hand and know all things” (Il. 2.484–85).
29. grand: great, original, all-inclusive; cp. line 122.
30. fall off: deviate, revolt (as in l. 33).
33. Cp. Il. 1.8.
36. what time: when; cp. Masque 291, Lyc 28.
44–49. Him . . . arms: “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness” (2 Pet. 2.4; cp. Jude 6).
45. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10.18); cp. Homer’s Hephaestus “hurled . . . from the heavenly threshold . . . headlong” (Il. 1.591–92).
46. ruin: a fall from a great height, from the Latin ruina; cp 6.867–68.
48. adamantine: unbreakable (Gk.); cp. Aeschylus’s Prometheus, clamped “in shackles of binding adamant that can- not be broken” (Prom. 6). The myth of adamant persists today; the indestructible claws of the Marvel Comics hero Wol- verine are made of “adamantium.”
49. durst: dared.
50–52. The rebel angels regain consciousness after nine days falling from Heaven (6.871) and nine days rolling in the fiery gulf. Hesiod’s Titans fall nine days from heaven to earth and another nine from earth to Tartarus (Theog. 720–25). Milton, like many Christian mythographers, deemed the Titans’ rebellion a pagan analogue for Satan’s fall. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Review
[A]n exemplary job both of presenting the major topics of Paradise Lost and of entering the selva oscura of Milton criticism. . . . Students and scholars alike will appreciate the balanced approach to the complexities, difficulties, and conundrums of Milton's poem and the criticism on it. Kastan's prose is not just lively but chiseled, and it is destined to affect students. --Patrick Cheney, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
Kastan is an exemplary editor, attuned to emerging critical currents, yet steeped in the scholarship of an earlier tradition, aware of the text's provenance and reception, alert to its topicality. His introduction, a model of theoretically informed, politically committed, historically grounded criticism, makes this edition of Paradise Lost all you would expect from one of the most erudite and perceptive figures in the field. --Willy Maley, Modern Language Review
This is a superb edition, a model of careful editing and judicious annotation. --Leslie Brisman, Department of English, Yale University
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.From the Publisher
Book Description
From AudioFile
From the Back Cover
Beginning with a brief historical and critical introduction, Lewalski also provides judicious explanatory annotations that clarify names and places, identify biblical and literary allusions, and gloss unfamiliar words. She includes as well a textual apparatus of variant readings, a select bibliography, and several illustrations from the 1688 Folio edition.
Lewalski’s Paradise Lost is the first of three paperback volumes presenting authoritative texts of the complete poetry and major prose of John Milton in original language, thereby making these texts readily available to students and scholars.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.From the Inside Flap
Beginning with a brief historical and critical introduction, Lewalski also provides judicious explanatory annotations that clarify names and places, identify biblical and literary allusions, and gloss unfamiliar words. She includes as well a textual apparatus of variant readings, a select bibliography, and several illustrations from the 1688 Folio edition.
Lewalski’s Paradise Lost is the first of three paperback volumes presenting authoritative texts of the complete poetry and major prose of John Milton in original language, thereby making these texts readily available to students and scholars.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.Product details
- ASIN : B009G3T4Y0
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster (December 18, 2012)
- Publication date : December 18, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 4019 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
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- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
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- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 98 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,151 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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About the authors
David Hawkes was born in Cardiff, Wales and educated at Stanwell Comprehensive School. He has a B.A. from Oxford University and a MA, M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The New Criterion, Quillette and many other popular and scholarly journals. He is a Professor of English Literature at Arizona State University, and has held visiting appointments in Turkey, Japan, India and China, as well as a long-term fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Phoenix and Istanbul.
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The version with an introduction and comments by Pullman has text that is large and readable, line numbers and some nice illustrations, taken from the first illustrated edition, published in 1688. It is a nice copy for those who want just the text of the poem. The text is based on Stephen Orgel's 2008 Paradise Lost (Oxford World's Classics) which has been modernized presumably with respect to capitalization, spelling and punctuation. The comments by Pullman are worthwhile, but, while he may be a very good writer, he is not a scholar of Milton. Unlike Orgel, there are no annotations or notes to explain Milton's often arcane language and allusions.
For readers seeking annotated versions, I suggest the following.
The ultimate edition of Milton is Alastair Fowler's Milton: Paradise Lost : it has been called the Bible of Milton scholars; one review I saw called it suitable for graduate students majoring in Milton. It is one of the few available based on the first edition of "Paradise Lost", published in 1667, but Fowler states that it also includes the additions made in the second edition of 1674 --- the version that most of today's editors use. Know that Fowler has produced a very, very scholarly version with many, many notes, sometimes to the point that they leave only two or three lines of the poem on the page, so I strongly urge using the "Look Inside" feature before deciding to buy it. I recommend Fowler's 1998 Milton: Paradise Lost (2nd Edition) edition in used paperback ---- reissued in 2006 with a new cover and much higher price.
The blurb from the publisher on the Pullman webpage misleads the reader by mentioning "This is the first fully-annotated, old-spelling edition ..." It ain't (as the small print says). I can't find the actual book this blurb refers to, there are several that might be the one mentioned. One such version, with very favorable recommendations, is Barbara K. Lewalski's 2007 Paradise Lost that reproduces the original language, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italics of the 1674 text. Its annotations are on the same page. Again, I would again urge potential buyers to "Look Inside." (Incidentally, I was able to find a .pdf copy of it online).
Another annotated edition, again with those on the same page, that sticks close to the original 1674 text (but with some minor modernization) is Merritt Y. Hughes' Paradise Lost (Hackett Classics) , first published in 1935, and revised in 1962. It is advertised as one popular with college professors for their classes, whatever that may mean. From what I gather, Fowler has replaced Hughes as the scholarly version to use.
The edition by Hughes was taken in 2003 by David Scott Kastan ( Paradise Lost (Hackett Classics) ) and edited more extensively, again with the annotations on the same page. Incidentally, Kastan's comments on how he edited, along with comments on any editor's choices when dealing with Milton, are well worth reading, and can be found under "Textual Introduction" using the "Look Inside" feature. I urge reading them to understand how and why there are so many different editions of Milton.
Yet another annotated edition that comes close to the original is by John Leonard's Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) . The ad for this version states that the text has been modernized to the degree of reducing some capitals and italics, and correcting the spelling and some punctuation. It is annotated, but not to the degree of Fowler --- but the notes are at the back of the book rather than the bottom of the page as seems customary and which I personally find difficult to use because of constantly having to flip between pages. Again, I would urge potential buyers to "Look Inside."
There are many other scholarly editions available in addition to the ones I have mentioned here, including one online at the John Milton Reading Room at Dartmouth College.
For those who might like a less challenging version of "Paradise Lost", I suggest BookCaps "translation" (Amazon's words, not mine) Paradise Lost In Plain and Simple English or at an even less difficult level, Joseph Lanzara's John Milton's Paradise Lost In Plain English: A Simple, Line By Line Paraphrase Of The Complicated Masterpiece . Should those prove too difficult, there might be somewhere a copy by Classics Illustrated comics, although a search by Google turns up nothing --- perhaps they never published one.
Since each edition of "Paradise Lost" has its strengths and weaknesses, how does the buyer go about selecting an edition for purchase? To me, it's rather like buying a car --- ultimately based upon personal preference, but in this case, rather than engine and body style, determined by the way the editor has modified Milton's language and added annotations, and their degree of adherence to his original language --- some editors produce as little modernization as possible to retain Milton's original meter and rhythm for reading aloud, while others try for a more modern sound. I would suggest using the "Look Inside" feature, to see what the editor has done, to help making a decision.
Whichever edition you buy ---- and I recommend the one by Lewalski ---- may you find great enjoyment in reading what I consider the greatest epic poem in the English language --- although you might agree more with what Donald Sutherland's character, Jennings, had to say about it in the movie "Animal House": "Now what can we say about Milton's "Paradise Lost"? It's a very long poem. It was written a long time ago, and I'm sure a lot of you have difficulty understanding exactly what Milton was trying to say. ..... Don't write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring too. He's a little bit long-winded, he doesn't translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible."
Milton's "Paradise Lost" explores the fall of man in a semi-epic fashion chronicling the fall of the archangels, creation, Lucifer's deception of man, the original sin and man's expulsion from the Garden.
The Objective:
It has been said that Milton wrote this semi-epic poem in the desire to explain the ways of God to man. This poem does Jehovah and his drones more injustice than it justifies. Actually, by my perception, Milton displays the naiveté and gullibility of man's mind. As I read this book I could not help but to lament, with a hint of comedic relief, for society knowing that in 2010 people still ardently believe all of this actually occurred, or at least as the Bible foretells it. Which to be honest with you, Milton's version has no more factual quality than the Bible itself, as pertaining to mythological and paranormal activity, not in relation to the historically relevant parts. Nonetheless, Milton decided to venture into an abyss with naiveté himself if he thought he would be able to eloquently portray a sound omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient deity while simultaneously retaining a perceptual benevolence, magnanimity and shrewdness in the same character. Here, in this regard, neither Milton nor the author's of the Bible afford success. One of the myriad of problems is that personifying one deity as having all of the above qualities is just oxymoronic. Milton himself knew this, which is why he had to utilize the Son as a metaphoric supplement of the last three qualities to keep the other elevated on its stilts. It is difficult to fuse together the perspectives of two distinct cultural and temporal perspectives of God-in references to the Old Testament and the New Testament- these cannot be interwoven as one; there is just not continuity of character there. Personally, a more accurate representation of a sound omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient deity is manifested in the character Dr. Manhattan from the modern Alan Moore epic "Watchmen." I wonder if this character is the epitome of what man will become as a result of our consumption the forbidden fruit?!
Just as his counterparts of past and present, Milton attempts to demonize Paganism and has an overt chauvinistic sexism. The interesting quality that I have always found about Christianity, the organized religion not the Christ himself, is that it adopted Pagan customs to convert Pagans, obviously for a larger control over the European population, and ironically demonized it afterwards. Not to mention, Paganism has a very strong emphasis of goddess worship in most of its constituent cultures, but in Judeo-Christian literature the woman is subordinate and inferior, along with these qualities women are further subjected to ridicule and subjugation for committing the "original sin."
Milton makes it obvious that man can only continue to worship God in ignorance. Once man has bitten of the fruit of Knowledge his perspective changes and an indefinite INDIVIDUAL pursuit of that Essence begins. Actually, this whole "interdicted knowledge" was more than likely contrived by the powers-that-be rather than the power-that-is. Ignorance was a sure tool for suppressing a population into obedience, submission and guilt, and who were the mediators of those illiterate times? Priests, subordinate to the kings, and in later culture, kings and lords. The whole system was oriented to serfdom, vassalage, submission and control. Why do you think the Protestants presented so much of a stir in the seventeenth century? Milton says it best, "[Interdicted] with design / To keep them low, whom knowledge [will] exalt / Equal with [priests and kings]" (IV 525-527), slightly out of context but it fits the accusation.
As a work of literature Milton did an excellent job conveying vivid imagery in a poetic style, but he corroded it by bloating the book at times with Botoxic irrelevant allusions and descriptions.
Before anyone reads this particular print, which is the only one I recommend, particularly due to Gustave Dore's prolific drawings, they should make sure they have an extensive vocabulary as well as some historic reference for the time periods relating to Milton and the Bible. To me this availed my understanding and enjoyment of the book without the inhibitions of footnotes and translations, these only detract from the quality of the story.
The Subjective:
I have to commend Milton for his efforts, especially considering his condition at the time he wrote this. This work is very admirable regardless of your particular intellectual or spiritual bias. It is a work of art and I feel that we are indeed better off in the arts for having such fictional literature influenced by our most prominent mythology. While I would not compare this to Dante's "Inferno," Milton gave us his best effort and for anyone who renders art and literature from their consciousness for all of us to share should be honored and revered, as opposed to solely giving the world physical labor and dying with no other contribution.
Lastly, I cannot help but to wonder if the mythological Tree of Knowledge was a psychoactive plant of some sort which we have a symbiotic relationship with. Could this be the catalyst that removed us from the animal kingdom into eventual progression into advanced civilization? Is this story an allegory of that? Milton's rendition seems to point to this from his affinity with the collective unconscious:
"O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving plant, / Mother of [thought]! Now I feel thy power / Within me clear; not only to discern / Things in their causes, but to trace the ways / Of highest agents, deemed however wise /...[You give us] life / To knowledge [, chaos, creativity and Novelty] (IX 279-287). Not death, but life / Augmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys, / Taste so divine, that what of sweet before / Hath touched my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh (IX 984-987). [A]nd shook sore / [Our] inward state of mind, calm region once, / And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent [, but oh how divine] (IX 1125-1126)."
With a few insertions to sway the context, which has minimal influence to its overall meaning, anyone who has ever had a psychedelic experience sees how ostensible this concoction of words describes the nature of that psychological event. - D.R.Thomas
After much delay, I finally took the plunge and read Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost". Honestly, poetry isn't something I read often, but, since this is one of the most influential works of the English language, I decided it was worth stepping outside my comfort zone for. Now that I have completed it, I am grateful that I did.
Paradise Lost is a retelling of the Fall recorded in the Bible. So, it covers the rebellion of Satan and his cohort, his tempting of Eve, and the Fall of mankind into sin.
What I enjoyed the most about Paradise Lost was the writing. Milton is a master of the English language. His crafting of words is positively gorgeous. As for the narrative, the rebellion of Satan was the most intriguing section. Also, Milton's insight into the "rational" of evil and temptation is insightful.
However, there are parts which I did not enjoy. Especially in Milton's explanation of the Fall of Man. He firmly places the majority of the blame on Eve and appears to have a dim view of women in general. From my reading of the Biblical text, I do not believe it is justifiable to place more blame on Eve than on Adam for the Fall. Also, it is not in harmony with the Bible to have a dimmer view of of women since both men and women are made in God's Image.
Despite that, I would say that the good outweighs the bad in "Paradise Lost". If you are a fan of epic poetry, or want to understand more of your literary heritage, then I recommend that you give this book a try.
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I read it through lightly, as I am not versed in the classics, but was looking for inspiration from the poem for my own project. I got that in bucketloads and have since started my poem, having written over 1050 lines so far. It will take time but I will get there. Paradise Lost is a real journey, difficult at times, but so worth it. Essential reading.

I need not have had any concerns at all! I am a collector of vintage and antique books but can't afford any Dore original copies, but I couldn't be more delighted with this one. Full illustration plates throughout, lovely paper, lovely embossed lettering on the front board.
I never thought I was going to be this delighted. Love it!

A biblical epic so this takes in the Fall of Man, and of Satan and his cohorts as we are led into temptation and banished from the Garden of Eden. We have then two plots in parallel here, with the war in Heaven and the temptation Adam and Eve face, both of them beautifully crafted. It has to be remembered that to read this you do have to take in the context of the period that Milton was writing, after all this took years in the crafting, and of course we had the English Civil War, where in effect the monarch tried to set himself above all men.
Thus taking in a number of elements and themes this has proved highly influential on our culture, and of course as most will know was a major influence on Philip Pullman and his His Dark Materials trilogy. Due to the way this is written this has created an interest amongst people like myself, who although atheist can appreciate its structure and complexity, along with the genius who wrote it, and at the same time discern the elements here that are relevant to us all. For instance, rather ironically you can see parts of this with much relevance to the current situation in this country, adding an extra depth to this. The latter is probably a major reason that this has remained so popular with so many people, because if you take away the obvious Christian themes you are still left with a powerful piece of literature that can relate to so many different things.

Pages are made from paper so thin it’s possible to see the print on the page overleaf coming through.
This volume came with a sticky label (why?) which removed some of the pattern when it came off - see photo. I’m keeping this for myself but if it was a gift I would not have been happy.
No idea why this volume had a sticky label when another bokok in the clothbound series I ordered came with a cardboard label.....(see other pic)


Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 2, 2020
Pages are made from paper so thin it’s possible to see the print on the page overleaf coming through.
This volume came with a sticky label (why?) which removed some of the pattern when it came off - see photo. I’m keeping this for myself but if it was a gift I would not have been happy.
No idea why this volume had a sticky label when another bokok in the clothbound series I ordered came with a cardboard label.....(see other pic)

