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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
Classic Read
Lots of famous phrases had their first appearance in this book. It's an epic poem that took me about 30 pages to realize didn't rhyme. I think the meter might not really do the text much favors either, but a lot of the great prose comes from really pushing against the form, like many great innovators of early modernity did. This is basically just some of the first biblical fan fiction, but that's also like saying As You Like It was just a dumb rom-com.
Lots of famous phrases had their first appearance in this book. It's an epic poem that took me about 30 pages to realize didn't rhyme. I think the meter might not really do the text much favors either, but a lot of the great prose comes from really pushing against the form, like many great innovators of early modernity did. This is basically just some of the first biblical fan fiction, but that's also like saying As You Like It was just a dumb rom-com.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
actual rating: 3.5
[collapses onto the floor] I have literally been trying to read this book on and off for the past 17 years and I finally did it!! Although really most of the credit goes to Anthony Olivera because I listened to the whole thing with his podcast The Devil's Party where he reads the whole poem and explains what it is actually happening section by section. I'm also relieved to know that Milton made it borderline incomprehensible on purpose and that I am not in fact as stupid as I thought I was ;) Giving it a technical 3.5 and rounding up to 4 because I'll be real I was mostly here for Satan so a lot of the stuff in the later half of the poem was not super interesting to me but overall it is a very interesting work and I really enjoyed listening to Olivera's analysis of it and getting a lot of historical context for things I would have otherwise missed. If you've been trying to read this and struggling I would definitely recommend checking out his work.
[collapses onto the floor] I have literally been trying to read this book on and off for the past 17 years and I finally did it!! Although really most of the credit goes to Anthony Olivera because I listened to the whole thing with his podcast The Devil's Party where he reads the whole poem and explains what it is actually happening section by section. I'm also relieved to know that Milton made it borderline incomprehensible on purpose and that I am not in fact as stupid as I thought I was ;) Giving it a technical 3.5 and rounding up to 4 because I'll be real I was mostly here for Satan so a lot of the stuff in the later half of the poem was not super interesting to me but overall it is a very interesting work and I really enjoyed listening to Olivera's analysis of it and getting a lot of historical context for things I would have otherwise missed. If you've been trying to read this and struggling I would definitely recommend checking out his work.
adventurous
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Surprised to say I genuinely hated that. Paradise Lost gets compared with the Divine Comedy a lot, which I think is a disservice to the Divine Comedy, because what I've been loving about Dante is how precise everything is. The Divine Comedy is easy to follow, clearly structured, and the changes it makes to theology all seem reasoned. Most importantly for me it's critical, and it's about *people*. It tells us who went to hell, and why, and often Dante even disagrees with it. The main character has feelings and emotions and wants explanations.
Paradise Lost on the other hand is functionally a Bible retelling, but positioning itself, for some reason, as scripture. Satan is the only character who has wants and desires, but they're Evil wants and Evil desires and he spends most of his time just brooding. The one exception to this is Eve, who eats the fruit so she might become godlike, but this is undercut by being told constantly that she was made to be pretty but brainless. Man's fall isn't blamed on her, or on Satan, but on Adam, for giving his wife the freedom to make that choice. The author jumps in to tell us women always do that.
That bit could easily be criticised by telling me it's from a different time, and I almost accept that, except that I just read the pilgrim's progress - a book from the same era, by another puritan man, and I was so amazed by how much less sexist than I'd accounted for that was. It even Specifically tore apart this point of view!
The thing I've not decided whether I like or not is the reference to classical mythology. Paradise Lost invokes Greek and Roman epic constantly - I've read the first manuscript, but the revised version was even structured into 12 books so it would copy the Aeneid. But this is all really weird feeling, because it's 1) English, and 2) Christian. It feels insulting to be constantly comparing your heroes to the Greco-Roman ones, while also saying their Gods either didn't exist or were spirits that belong in hell. But a lot of that is my own conjecture, because the poem really doesn't explain itself on that count, so it winds up feeling more like an appeal to intellectuals who've read the epics than anything else.
This extends to the language too. TS Eliot said that Milton wrote English like it was a dead language, and I agree. It's structured like Latin, which does feel very Biblical, but makes it harder to read. And it creates a style that I frankly just dislike. It's clearly meant to be read on the page, and that means it doesn't flow in the way Dante's does. Maybe I'm just biased by how much I Do like the divine comedy.
Essentially, it feels like a poem you're supposed to study rather than read, and I just don't like it enough to care to. Maybe I'll do this again in 10 years and love it then, I don't know, but for now, not for me.
Paradise Lost on the other hand is functionally a Bible retelling, but positioning itself, for some reason, as scripture. Satan is the only character who has wants and desires, but they're Evil wants and Evil desires and he spends most of his time just brooding. The one exception to this is Eve, who eats the fruit so she might become godlike, but this is undercut by being told constantly that she was made to be pretty but brainless. Man's fall isn't blamed on her, or on Satan, but on Adam, for giving his wife the freedom to make that choice. The author jumps in to tell us women always do that.
That bit could easily be criticised by telling me it's from a different time, and I almost accept that, except that I just read the pilgrim's progress - a book from the same era, by another puritan man, and I was so amazed by how much less sexist than I'd accounted for that was. It even Specifically tore apart this point of view!
The thing I've not decided whether I like or not is the reference to classical mythology. Paradise Lost invokes Greek and Roman epic constantly - I've read the first manuscript, but the revised version was even structured into 12 books so it would copy the Aeneid. But this is all really weird feeling, because it's 1) English, and 2) Christian. It feels insulting to be constantly comparing your heroes to the Greco-Roman ones, while also saying their Gods either didn't exist or were spirits that belong in hell. But a lot of that is my own conjecture, because the poem really doesn't explain itself on that count, so it winds up feeling more like an appeal to intellectuals who've read the epics than anything else.
This extends to the language too. TS Eliot said that Milton wrote English like it was a dead language, and I agree. It's structured like Latin, which does feel very Biblical, but makes it harder to read. And it creates a style that I frankly just dislike. It's clearly meant to be read on the page, and that means it doesn't flow in the way Dante's does. Maybe I'm just biased by how much I Do like the divine comedy.
Essentially, it feels like a poem you're supposed to study rather than read, and I just don't like it enough to care to. Maybe I'll do this again in 10 years and love it then, I don't know, but for now, not for me.
I love this work so much. The characterization of Eve was weird and it's obviously written in a different time period but the prose is phenomenal!
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved more than I expected to. Such great use of biblical language and imagery. Highly recommend.