{"id":375,"date":"2008-05-24T23:24:48","date_gmt":"2008-05-25T03:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=375"},"modified":"2008-05-24T23:30:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-25T03:30:57","slug":"paradise-lost-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"Paradise Lost<\/em> I"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started a new job two months ago, and now teach part-time at two different high schools. Oddly, I seem to have more spare time for reading now, partly because I have to get to work at the new school at 7:00 to avoid rush-hour traffic, but don’t meet any of my students until 8:15. In the last month, I’ve read half a dozen novels and the first seven books of Paradise Lost<\/em>, a work I had not read since college. (That would have been 1972 or 1973.) It seems appropriate to blog some desultory thoughts on the work, perhaps three per book. I’ll write about the novels tomorrow.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> The passage in Book I that most struck me as particularly worth quoting was the description of Mammon, principal architect in Heaven and now in Hell (738-51):<\/p>\n

\n

Nor was his name unheard or unador’d
\nIn ancient Greece<\/em>; and in Ausonian<\/em> land
\nMen calld him Mulciber<\/em>; and how he fell
\nFrom Heav’n, they fabl’d, thrown by angry Jove<\/em>
\nSheer ore the Crystal Battlements: from Morn
\nTo Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
\nA Summers day; and with the setting Sun
\nDropd from the Zenith like a falling Starr,
\nOn Lemnos<\/em> th’ Aegaean<\/em> Ile: thus they relate,
\nErring; for hee with this rebellious rout
\nFell long before; nor aught availd him now
\nTo have built in Heav’n high Towrs; nor did he scape
\nBy all his Engins, but was headlong sent
\nWith his industrious crew to build in Hell.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

2.<\/strong> The only non-famous line that was particularly familiar after all these years was 307:<\/p>\n

\n

Busiris<\/em> and his Memphian<\/em> Chivalrie<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

3.<\/strong> Right from the start, I’ve found the poem entertaining, sometimes even hypnotic, but also insubstantial: far more words than matter. So far from being a peer of Homer, Vergil, and Dante, Milton seems a poet in roughly the same class as Statius or Claudian. Is this unfair? He seems to do a mediocre job of justifying the ways of God to men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started a new job two months ago, and now teach part-time at two different high schools. Oddly, I seem to have more spare time for reading now, partly because I have to get to work at the new school at 7:00 to avoid rush-hour traffic, but don’t meet any of my students until 8:15. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-poetry","category-what-ive-been-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}