Paradise Lost
I finally finished Paradise Lost a few days ago. I might be the only person I know who has read it for pleasure, outside of any academic obligation. I was of course assigned parts of it in high school, but I always wanted to read anything except what I was supposed to be reading. Since then I read bits of it more, but had other things on my mind. So now I tore through it in the course of a week, and found it far more gripping than it's often reputed to be. The general verdict seems to be that it has brilliant moments interspersed between long dull bits, but I never felt that way.
I feel like Milton created a perfect, new epic, and a new way of conceiving epics, that really hasn't been picked up on since. He sets up the traditional epic hero, with his epic struggle, and then completely subverts him. It seems a popular way of assessing Paradise Lost to say "Milton was a closet Satanist" and that Satan is the real hero. If we just stuck with the first two Books, maybe this would be an acceptable position, but I feel it's a bit glib. Of course we are supposed to, initially, identify with Satan- at least I felt that was what Milton was really trying to do- just so we could see how seductive and intoxicating evil is. Once we get past that part, though, we need to move on to the rest of Milton's argument. Those who still see Satan as the hero by the end of the book- after he's knowingly led humanity to unspeakable misery, just so he can spite God- fail to move on, clinging to toys. I can sympathize with their position, but I would question their ability to resist worldly demagogues.
Of course, it seems most of the great writers inspired by Milton- eg Blake, Shelley, nowadays Pullman- hold to this position, and Blake at least strikes me as someone with unassailable integrity, so I don't want to overgeneralize. But overall it seems like a lazy, convenient way to read the poem, when Milton is doing something more radical, in exalting patience and abnegation as epic virtues through Adam, Eve, and the Son. Exalting Satan may seem radical, in the light of his place in Christian tradition, but the kind of military hero he becomes is already exalted in many places, entrenched in our ways of thinking in other forms, the kind of heroism that fuels militarism and totalitarianism and glosses over real suffering in favor of ideology, just like Satan allowed his vendetta against God to override his pity for his human victims. It's a fake radicalism, a fake change that gives us more of the same.
Paradise Lost is really a gorgeous book, whatever way it may be interpreted. I think modern fantastic literature, which is so prose-dominated, could benefit so much from more people actually reading Milton. If you haven't taken the time to read the whole thing, I really urge you to do it, not because it's an Important Book in the English canon but because it's just a glorious expression of what the English language can do, as opposed to vapid modernist sentiments about writing in "everyday speech" and debasing our expression to whatever our schooling leaves us with.
I feel like Milton created a perfect, new epic, and a new way of conceiving epics, that really hasn't been picked up on since. He sets up the traditional epic hero, with his epic struggle, and then completely subverts him. It seems a popular way of assessing Paradise Lost to say "Milton was a closet Satanist" and that Satan is the real hero. If we just stuck with the first two Books, maybe this would be an acceptable position, but I feel it's a bit glib. Of course we are supposed to, initially, identify with Satan- at least I felt that was what Milton was really trying to do- just so we could see how seductive and intoxicating evil is. Once we get past that part, though, we need to move on to the rest of Milton's argument. Those who still see Satan as the hero by the end of the book- after he's knowingly led humanity to unspeakable misery, just so he can spite God- fail to move on, clinging to toys. I can sympathize with their position, but I would question their ability to resist worldly demagogues.
Of course, it seems most of the great writers inspired by Milton- eg Blake, Shelley, nowadays Pullman- hold to this position, and Blake at least strikes me as someone with unassailable integrity, so I don't want to overgeneralize. But overall it seems like a lazy, convenient way to read the poem, when Milton is doing something more radical, in exalting patience and abnegation as epic virtues through Adam, Eve, and the Son. Exalting Satan may seem radical, in the light of his place in Christian tradition, but the kind of military hero he becomes is already exalted in many places, entrenched in our ways of thinking in other forms, the kind of heroism that fuels militarism and totalitarianism and glosses over real suffering in favor of ideology, just like Satan allowed his vendetta against God to override his pity for his human victims. It's a fake radicalism, a fake change that gives us more of the same.
Paradise Lost is really a gorgeous book, whatever way it may be interpreted. I think modern fantastic literature, which is so prose-dominated, could benefit so much from more people actually reading Milton. If you haven't taken the time to read the whole thing, I really urge you to do it, not because it's an Important Book in the English canon but because it's just a glorious expression of what the English language can do, as opposed to vapid modernist sentiments about writing in "everyday speech" and debasing our expression to whatever our schooling leaves us with.