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Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
 Possibly the Best Edition Out There June 22, 2008
Nick (Switzerland)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
I have read "Paradise Lost" four times, and took no less than three semesters on it at university. This was the edition we used to work. Modernised spelling, coherent punctuation (plus variations of it in the notes), good introduction, and enormous work in the notes; this edition has all you need for a good reading of the epic poem.
As to the poem itself, some people are hard on it for all the wrong reasons. Remember that it is a 17th century poem, that English was not exactly similar as it is today, and that there are many, many words which were first used in English in "Paradise Lost". Milton was innovative with words, and he gave English new words, and expressions, such as the most famous "all Hell broke loose", which was first uttered in "Paradise Lost".
A poem like this cannot be read without good notes, and this is what this edition has to offer. Notes aren't enough, though, they have to be good, and in this edition, they are. The poem itself is not burdened by the numbers of the notes, because there are so many, the editor decided not to show them in the text per se, but at the end of the book, you will always have the reference, the lines, which the notes are about.
As to the poem itself, if you don't know it, you certainly know of the story of the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve, and the rebellion of Satan in Heaven. I'll only say that Milton's God is one seriously problematic figure in the poem, and that it caused centuries of academic discussion as to whether Milton's God is a good God or a devilish one, whether "Paradise Lost" was truly a "myth", in the old sense of a story which explains why we're here and how it got to be, or whether it was an attack on Christianity. Scholars still discuss this today, so make your own mind if you can!
Classic work March 18, 2005
FrKurt Messick (Bloomington, IN USA)
118 out of 141 found this review helpful
Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till on greater Man
Restore us and regain the blissful seat
Sing, Heavenly Muse...
Not a lot people know that 'Paradise Lost' has as a much lesser known companion piece 'Paradise Regained'; of course, it was true during Milton's time as it is today that the more harrowing and juicy the story, the better it will likely be remembered and received.
This is not to cast any aspersion on this great poem, however. It has been called, with some justification, the greatest English epic poem. The line above, the first lines of the first book of the poem, is typical of the style throughout the epic, in vocabulary and syntax, in allusiveness. The word order tends toward the Latinate, with the object coming first and the verb coming after.
Milton follows many classical examples by personifying characters such as Death, Chaos, Mammon, and Sin. These characters interact with the more traditional Christian characters of Adam, Eve, Satan, various angels, and God. He takes as his basis the basic biblical text of the creation and fall of humanity (thus, 'Paradise Lost'), which has taken such hold in the English-speaking world that many images have attained in the popular mind an almost biblical truth to them (in much the same way that popular images of Hell owe much to Dante's Inferno). The text of Genesis was very much in vogue in the mid-1600s (much as it is today) and Paradise Lost attained an almost instant acclaim.
John Milton was an English cleric, a protestant who nonetheless had a great affinity for catholic Italy, and this duality of interests shows in much of his creative writing as well as his religious tracts. Milton was nicknamed 'the divorcer' in his early career for writing a pamphlet that supported various civil liberties, including the right to obtain a civil divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, a very unpopular view for the day. Milton held a diplomatic post under the Commonwealth, and wrote defenses of the governments action, including the right of people to depose and dispose of a bad king.
Paradise Lost has a certain oral-epic quality to it, and for good reason. Milton lost his eyesight in 1652, and thus had to dictate the poem to several different assistants. Though influenced heavily by the likes of Virgil, Homer, and Dante, he differentiated himself in style and substance by concentrating on more humanist elements.
Say first -- for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell -- say first what cause
Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator and transgress his will,
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Milton drops us from the beginning into the midst of the action, for the story is well known already, and proceeds during the course of the books (Milton's original had 10, but the traditional epic had 12 books, so some editions broke books VII and X into two books each) to both push the action forward and to give developing background -- how Satan came to be in Hell, after the war in heaven a description that includes perhaps the currently-most-famous line:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, that serve in heav'n.
(Impress your friends by knowing that this comes from Book I, lines 261-263 of Paradise Lost, rather than a Star Trek episode!)
The imagery of warfare and ambition in the angels, God's wisdom and power and wrath, the very human characterisations of Adam and Eve, and the development beyond Eden make a very compelling story, done with such grace of language that makes this a true classic for the ages. The magnificence of creation, the darkness and empty despair of hell, the manipulativeness of evil and the corruptible innocence of humanity all come through as classic themes. The final books of the epic recount a history of humanity, now sinful, as Paradise has been lost, a history in tune with typical Renaissance renderings, which also, in Milton's religious convictions, will lead to the eventual destruction of this world and a new creation.
A great work that takes some effort to comprehend, but yields great rewards for those who stay the course.
The Greatest Writing in the English Language February 3, 2007
Brickbat70 (Missouri, USA)
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
There's enough already said about why and how Milton wrote this book, so I don't have anything to say about that. It's a story most people will be familiar with, and any surprises will involve the beauty of the language or a random, surprising insight into a character's motivation. In the end, Milton deserves to be called the greatest writer in English because of the pure strength and beauty of each individual sentence.
This is undoubtedly a difficult book to read. I teach a small bit in a sophomore high school English class, and I tell them, "This will be the most complex text you will encounter this year." We have to practice unpacking sentences one at a time and stating them in our own words in order to get their meaning. It's a slow process, and one that most adults will also need to go through.
But it's all worth it! Reading Milton might or might not change your view of God and man, but absorbing him will change your love of language. The words are vivid and powerful and beg to be read aloud. If you like your poetry Great in the sense of sounding larger than life and tackling humanity's major questions, Milton is it. (And, in my opinion, he even takes out other wonderful poets that I also love, including Dante, Virgil, Homer, and Shakespeare).
This put Milton among the likes of Dante, Homer and Virgil November 8, 2003
Robert Riley (Charlotte, NC)
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
This is John Milton's masterpiece, though not the great epic he had intented to create. He actually wanted to write one about his beloved England, something along the lines of Arthurian legend. But what came out in 1667 was the story "Of Man's first disobedience," an expansion on Genesis 2 and 3. After creating a vast, vivid cosmos and setting up the battle between the two prevailing forces of God and Satan in the reader's mind, Milton puts Adam and Eve at the very center of it all. But its up to them (like all of us) which side they want to be on. This epic is a true classic among the classics.
The Paradise Within July 31, 2009
R. Chaffey (Chicago)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Paradise Lost" by John Milton is the definitive English epic poem (even if it does not always read like one). Much more a dramatic tragedy, Milton's extension of the biblical story of the Fall of both Satan and mankind is timeless. For while Milton may have woven the politics of his own time in regards to tyrannical kings and their heroic counterparts into the battle between heaven and hell, it is a situation that lends itself to any century.
Many critics have often thought the 'problem' with "Paradise Lost" was the fact that Satan seems like the epic hero - the reader immediately begins identifying himself with Satan and rooting for him in his fight against God, an uneasy feeling to be sure. However, as the course of the poem unfolds, Satan's true tragic nature reveals itself and the reader can marvel in Milton's keen ability to bring to life Heaven, Hell, and Paradise (the Garden of Eden). The epic begins in Hell with the fallen angel now known as Satan rousing his troops into further rebellion against God, but the only action they can take is to pollute his newfound paradise and its brand new inhabitants, Adam and Eve. Satan undertakes the journey to spy out the land and learn how to tempt these two to sin. And while he is successful in his attempt to do so, it is a victory that gains Satan no glory, since he does not understand that he can never truly win against God.
Milton set out to answer the question of what (or who) caused Adam and Eve to sin, tracing some of the blame away from Satan and examining the relationship between Adam and Eve in the garden. Milton perhaps raises more questions than he does offer any answers, but that is partly what makes "Paradise Lost" a mirror that still reflects today. Milton includes numerous classical allusions that readers of his day would be familiar with, as well as biblical accounts (including apocryphal works) to flesh out the barebones structure of the biblical account in Genesis. While parts of the poem can be tedious (especially the seemingly somewhat unnecessary books 11 and 12), "Paradise Lost" is a true masterpiece of literature that should be required reading for everyone, regardless of any religious preferences, for at its heart it is an examination of what it means to be.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
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