KEV67 Posted July 3, 2023 Share Posted July 3, 2023 Started reading Paradise Lost by John Milton. I knew the style was lyrical, but it is even more different than I expected. It appears to be a 288 page poem all written in iambic pentameter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted July 3, 2023 Share Posted July 3, 2023 Just bought this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEV67 Posted July 20, 2023 Author Share Posted July 20, 2023 The book was published in 1667, which was a few years after the Restoration of Charles II. Things must have become a bit more relaxed, religiously. I would not have thought it was safe to write fiction on sacred books. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEV67 Posted August 5, 2023 Author Share Posted August 5, 2023 Although I am not following it very well the vocabulary is recognisably modern English. Shakespeare often seemed like a foreign language to me, particularly when I was at school. With Paradise Lost, it is not that I do not understand the vocabulary; it is that I keep on switching off. I do not pick up on many of the references. Most of these references are biblical, Old Testament, a bit of New Testament and Apocrypha. I suspect Paradise Lost is like James Joyce's Ulysses in that you need to study a whole degree to understand it properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEV67 Posted August 14, 2023 Author Share Posted August 14, 2023 God made Adam, then he made Eve in Book VIII. Now in Chapter IX they have to spend all their time gardening. Doesn't sound much like paradise to me. I am not into gardening. What are they gardening with? Surely they have not had time to develop metal implements yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEV67 Posted August 23, 2023 Author Share Posted August 23, 2023 The gardening tools were explained a little further on. Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit. If I understood correctly they then have a game of doctors and nurses. What I do not understand is that the only real knowledge this fruit of the tree of knowledge has given them is that they were not wearing any clothes. Why does it matter? There is no one else around. They have already seen each other naked. God already knows and the angels are above that sort of thing. I suppose it is a metaphor for something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KEV67 Posted September 6, 2023 Author Share Posted September 6, 2023 Finished it, just don't test me on any of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.