Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

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.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

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.

  • Like 1
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

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.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

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.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

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.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
Posted

My take was that humans, being knowledgeable, know when they are doing wrong. Therefore, humans can sin. Animals do bad things to each other, but they are following their instincts. Therefore animals do not sin. Some sins can be forgiven, but some are so bad that only God could forgive them, because the victims are not in a position to. That is my opinion of original sin.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...