“We’ve totally mucked this up, and our kids are gonna justifiably hate us because we got kicked out of Paradise, and maybe we should just quit while we’re behind.”īut really, the whole thing is worth it. Would thunder in my ears." (Adam, X.774 - 780) To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet "Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out IX is the actual temptation and fall (especially fun if you’re a misogynist), and X is an astonishing sequence where Adam and Eve contemplate suicide: It slows down a bit in books III - VII, so if you’re not totally sold in the first two books (I was), you can either quit altogether with a fair idea of what Milton sounds like, or skip to books IX and X. It starts with a bang, and it’s pretty amazing for a while. Here’s my advice to people considering reading Paradise Lost: read the first two books. But since there's no sin or evil at the time of his speech, why give the warning? Isn't that like saying "Don't touch these cookies while I'm gone" to a kid who didn't realize there were cookies until you pointed them out? He gives a stern warning that anyone who disobeys him or his son will be cast out of Heaven. For example: it's hinted a little that God sets Satan up to fall. There’s slightly more to it than that, yeah. Again, Milton's just being true to his characters, and writing a great story while he's at it. He's not exactly all flowers and hugs there either. Similarly, God's a dick because God's a dick. That's the point of Satan! If Milton didn't make him as appealing as possible, he'd be doing Satan a disservice. Satan is tempting for us because Satan is tempting for us. Did Milton screw up? Is he being cynical, or a double-secret atheist? And why is God such a dick?īut no one asks whether, say, Shakespeare screwed up in making Iago so much fun they just give him credit for writing an awesome villain. There's all this debate over why Satan is so appealing in Paradise Lost. thank god i realized later that the best way to get attention is through cigarettes and promiscuity not literature. i think i blocked a lot out but i do remember a female demon who is repeatedly raped by her sons immediately after giving birth to them. all of the descriptions are completely graphic and grotesque. the book is about a war waged in hell after satan's fall into the underworld. most likely people realized that i was desperate for attention and for some strange reason was using john milton to get it, but on the off chance they did believe i was 'into' paradise lost, i must have seemed like a total psycho. i did this with a few other books too (catcher in the rye, on the road, ect.) i carried it to school so that teachers would see it in my possession and prominently displayed it on my bedside table to let friends and family know.Īfter actually reading the book for a brit-lit class i realized how wrong my thirteen-year-old self was with the image i assumed i was portraying. i didn't ever want to read it but i wanted to give off the impression that i was the type of person who would read it. In middle school i had seen this book lying around the house and for some reason it struck me as very impressive. Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which.with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind," though he (a Tory and recipient of royal patronage) described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican".īecause of his republicanism, Milton has been the subject of centuries of British partisanship. William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author," and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language," though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death (often on account of his republicanism). Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644)-written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship-is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press. Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse. John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell.
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