Did you find John Milton's "Paradise Lost" hard to read?
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Did you find John Milton's "Paradise Lost" hard to read?
Only sometimes. If you're familiar with Early Modern English via, eg, Shakespeare; and if you're able to untangle long, complex, twisty syntactical structures via, eg, Donne; then that accounts for a majority of the "difficult" aspects of PL. More than anything it just takes an ability to sink into Milton's utterly unique rhythms and language. Once you do, there's nothing else like it in English lit.
I don`t find it very difficult to read. There are some words which aren`t used today but it is a very interesting experience.
I remember picking up a book from the local library ( Paradise Lost), the attractive front cover, in pure white, like an angel in flight, do not know what tempted me to borrow that book (maybe it was the cover or the title or maybe it went way above my understanding since I was almost 11 at that time. I found it was not a good read, as far as I can recall and was more into Shakespeare and Iliad, think if i had read that book at a later stage , I might have found it interesting.
Recently I`ve been forced to read it again but I don`t regret. Thren I started reading "Paradise regained".
I love "Paradise Regained." I like it almost as much, and sometimes more, than "Paradise Lost."
I feel as if it's been somewhat neglected (at least in comparison to "Paradise Lost").
How did you like? What difference you felt when compared to the first book and your first read??Quote:
Recently I`ve been forced to read it again but I don`t regret. Then I started reading "Paradise regained".
On another forum, I saw the following advice about comprehending PL:
Quote:
If you try to understand the book word by word, you will get lost. It took me like 100 pages to realize that. But if you read the book like a poem--which it is; an epic poem--by looking beyond the mere words, you will start to understand it and see its beauty. Instead of being caught up in the words themselves, look more toward the image that is being created. The energy behind each line of text. From there, you will see more than you ever could if you went by word by word. You eyes will still pass over each word but you will no longer become inundated and fatigued, once you start focusing instead on the deeper image and meaning that Milton is effectively conveying.
Seems like solid advice.
One day I will read Paradise Regained....if I ever come across a physical copy (or a digital one that doesn't butcher line breaks). I love Milton, and Paradise Lost can be dense - but when broken down, it is not hard.
Charles Darnay,
You can listen to the audio version of "Paradise Regained" on LibriVox/YouTube.
See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xUcm7TfPb8
Recently It has seemed not to be boring. I ma older now so I look at it in a different way. I pay more attention to ways of expression and linguistic elements. What`s more i think that it sounds much better in english than in translation. At studies, I had to read it in polish .Quote:
Originally Posted by Bleeding Pawn
You weren't asking me, but I'll answer anyway: PR is a much simpler, plainer, less complex, less ambiguous, less profound work. I've often said that it proved that Milton could write simply and elegantly if he wanted to. It's neglected because it lacks all of the intricacies and controversies (linguistic, literary, national, sexual, poetic, mythical, theological, philosophical, etc.) of PL; there's simply less for a critic to write about and less for other poets to borrow from. It's not a text like PL where you can immerse yourself in it, or read dozens of times and get something new out of it. All that said, it's still a superb work, with perhaps its only flaw being that it's too perfect. I actually think of Milton's late works, Samson Agonistes is more interesting than PR. Though one thing I find interesting about PR is its "novela epic" format. I don't know of any precedent for crafting an epic-like narrative in 4 books...Quote:
Originally Posted by Bleeding Pawn
I read it here; they have a Kindle version, but I haven't tried it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
"Paradise Regained" reminded me of one of Milton's other notable works: "Comus."
"Comus" is remarkable as well. All three poems discuss the matter of resisting temptation.
I`ve never read it though (PR) but I can`t resist asking this from someone ( it might be off-topic). What`s your take on Divine Comedy? not from the literary angle but if we break it into several pieces and judge it from an historic point of view.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Bleeding Pawn,
Why does "Paradise Regained" make you think of the "Divine Comedy?"
What connections do you see between the two texts?
^they are both heavily based on the Christian mythos - PL having more to do with Hell and PR having more to do with Heaven (although not really from what I understand)? I don't know.
Although, Dante and Milton are worlds apart when it comes to writing. Any similarities to be found are only from whatever Milton drew on from Dante.
What`s your take on Divine Comedy?
The single greatest work of literature ever written... from someone who's read a good deal.
I'm not sure what you mean by "take on," or "literary VS historic." I wouldn't say it as emphatically as Luke, but I would definitely say it's one of the handful of works with a legitimate claim to the greatest work of literature ever. I dislike trying to judge literature through translation, though, because I'm aware how much is lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bleeding Pawn
Many renowned literary works in English are translations:
Madame Bovary
The Illiad
War and Peace
The Prince
Don Quixote
The Aeneid....among others
Sorry I just don't understand what you mean by "literary works in English" when you cite works in French, ancient Greek, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Latin. How are they "in English"?Quote:
Originally Posted by astrum
ruggerlad,
Books that are frequently read in English literature courses.
I've read many translated works in English classes.
Translation is a necessary evil; I know those works are masterpieces, but the only point I was trying to make was that it's difficult to judge fairly one work in translation against another in the original language because you don't know how much form and content is lost in the translation.
It sounds a wonderful course, anstrum. But it's subject is not English Literature: it is European Literature.
For their contemporaries Shakespeare would have been far more easily understood – after all he was writing for the equivalent of movie goers or soap opera fans. (And he was not writing to be read – he was writing scripts for popular performance.) His language includes demotic elements even in the verse passages.
Milton by contrast was writing for an “audience fit but few” in a consciously developed literary style.
Nowadays the new reader will probably find Shakespeare’s slang and demotic harder going than Milton’s magificent Latinate periods, although I’d have thought I’d find Shakespeare more interesting because there are so many characters and incidents. Samuel Johnson (who didn’t like Milton’s politics or religion) commented that great as PL was “the lack of human interest is always felt”. (Quote from memory.)
PS I take it that when reading poetry, we all read it out loud (even if inaudible to others).
PPS I'm not sure I've read all of PL. Note to self - do so.
Yes, do so; I've read it all 3 times, and it just gets better each time.Quote:
Originally Posted by ruggerlad
I will but I'm not sympathetic to the theology - by all accounts justifying the ways of God to man is basically saying humans have messed it up.
On the other hand the greatest enthusiast for PL I know is a passionate Marxist.
And it sounds a doddle compared to The Faerie Queen.
From a Christian point of view Paradise Regained is really odd. The Fall is overcome through Christ, of course, but the significant event would be either the conception, the birth, the crucifixion or the resurrection.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
Instead Milton tells the story of the temptation in the wilderness, which only appears in two gospels. Why on earth that bit? Or why in heaven's name?
I understand Milton was not an orthodox Christian in so far as he did not accept the Son was equal to the Father, but rather subordinate. This might explain why Messiah is such a nobody in PL.
Just thought of the answer. Milton dramatizes the temptations in the wilderness because Christ is there in conflict with the devil, so balancing the temptation of Adam and Eve in PL. But the temptations are not the pivotal event in Christian salvation. For St Luke, the temptations are not even a definitive defeat of the devil as he ends the account "When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time" (Luke 4.13), ie the devil is not yet defeated.
I read Paradise Lost when I was 17 and not the best reader of verse at all. I actually found it easier to read than Shakespeare and it taught me to listen to the metre in verse, something for which I thank Milton continuously; reading Paradise Lost changed my reading experience more than any other book has. Give it a try but if it's too hard, don't stress, leave it and try again later when you have read more literature from that age. Enjoy!
Is there anything else that even comes close to it?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
There's Keats' abandoned Hyperion, which he abandoned precisely because he found it too Miltonic (which is too bad, because it's as good an imitation as I've found). In general, I think most of the poets after Milton who were inspired by him either ended up as bad imitations or realized they couldn't better what Milton had done and needed to find their own voice. You can hear echoes of Milton in most of the romantics (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats), especially in some of their earliest works when poets tend to imitate more.Quote:
Originally Posted by astrum
Paradise Lost is not at all a hard literary creation, difficult or non-interesting to read. Its creator John Milton had one of the most musical minds of his century, as evidenced by the perfect music embedded in his most earliest works such as Allegro and Il Penseroso which he did as part of his M.A. Vivo Voci. Even in both these early poems, there are allusions as to his mind having become tired of getting immersed in such heavy subjects as dealt with in Paradise Lost. If the hint in these two college-year poems can be followed, we can arrive at the conclusion that the theme of Paradise Lost was conceived in his mind, far earlier than when he was studying in the college classes. Gauging from the musical content and perfect rhythm of Allegro and Il Penseroso, Paradise Lost also has to have rich musical content which we tend to abandon when we read this work, instead of singing it. What is in a poem after its musical content has been abandoned? There is no wonder a few who try to read it find it hard; let them sing it in its original tune which is plain, simple and common, when the poem will reveal itself in its full charm and majesty. There have been references here about recordings of Paradise Lost but they are all more like renderings of prose, doing injustice to Milton, one of the most musical poets in the history of English Literature, second only to perhaps Tennyson. The advise is to sing Milton instead of reading him, and the poem will become no hard at all- to memorize, enjoy and understand.