[HN Gopher] The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost
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The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost
Author : drdee
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-11-19 22:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newstatesman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newstatesman.com)
| pge wrote:
| In case anyone is interested, the full text of Paradise Lost with
| helpful annotations is available online at Dartmouth:
|
| https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/intro/text...
| cess11 wrote:
| It's also on Standard Ebooks, in case one considers the
| annotations distracting:
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost
| kibwen wrote:
| I know that people spend a lot of time fixating on how to write
| a good opening line for their books ("It was a dark and stormy
| night", etc.), but Paradise Lost has I think the most beautiful
| _closing_ passage of any book (spoilers for The Bible):
|
| _They looking back, all th ' Eastern side beheld_
|
| _Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,_
|
| _Wav 'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate_
|
| _With dreadful Faces throng 'd and fierie Armes:_
|
| _Som natural tears they drop 'd, but wip'd them soon;_
|
| _The World was all before them, where to choose_
|
| _Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:_
|
| _They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,_
|
| _Through Eden took thir solitarie way._
| Frummy wrote:
| HN discussing this link in old thread here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38876560
| KineticLensman wrote:
| The book being reviewed by TFA is not itself a review of Paradise
| Lost, but a study of how people have interpreted Paradise Lost
| since it was published in 1667. TFA says 'The biggest story that
| Reade is telling is that of slavery.'
|
| YMMV, but I don't think that this was Milton's main message -
| IIRC from reading PL years ago at school, the main story was
| Satan's rebellion against God. Satan was presented as a sort of
| heroic anti-hero, who has some great lines, although he
| eventually (of course) loses. So, I guess I'm saying please don't
| let this review of a book that highlights lots of peoples'
| reactions to PL influence your judgement of the underlying source
| text.
| tupshin wrote:
| "the main story was Satan's rebellion against God"
|
| so Satan rebelling against being enslaved?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| More like the rebellion of a subject against their king,
| which isn't quite the same as slavery used in TFA (which is
| mainly the slavery of the blacks under the whites).
| sigzero wrote:
| Wrong and not even close.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I found the first 20% of this book a bit tedious as I got used to
| the style of English, but I'm glad I stuck it out. Eventually it
| became very natural to read and the beauty of the language is
| something I'm not sure I've encountered anywhere else.
|
| At least through a contemporary lens I didn't get the impression
| it was political whatsoever. What it did seem to do was fill in
| the (many) blanks present in the corresponding biblical
| narratives.
| cvoss wrote:
| Yeah, the political or otherwise ideological nature is read
| _into_ the work. It doesn 't come _out of_ the work. But, I
| think, precisely because PL is one of the greatest masterpieces
| of the English language, it becomes a focus for that kind of
| attention, where people want to construe it for their own
| objectives. See also the centuries-long debate running through
| the likes of William Blake, C.S. Lewis, and Philip Pullman on
| whether or not we should see Satan as the sympathetic and
| virtuous hero. That debate is a touchstone of religious
| ideological conversation.
|
| As an aside, I find that PL fills the blanks in the biblical
| narrative almost too well! There are some aspects of our modern
| cultural understanding of what angels, demons, and Satan are
| like that come straight out of PL and have no foundation in the
| biblical narrative. It leads to a lot of confusion among
| religious persons because they end up believing in these
| details that don't come from the avowed authoritative source.
|
| You may have heard a Christian try to claim that Adam ate the
| fruit after Eve did, with the express purpose of not being
| separated from her---that he knew she'd be exiled, so he
| intended to stay with her by being exiled himself. In that way,
| Adam acquires a sympathetic and heroic tint in his role in the
| Fall. But this is completely fabricated by Milton! It's
| straight from PL and nowhere to be found in the biblical
| narrative.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > At least through a contemporary lens I didn't get the
| impression it was political whatsoever.
|
| The poem has a strong republican sentiment (lowercase 'r')
| throughout. During Cromwell's control, he argued for
| republicanism; he likely composed much of the early elements of
| the poem while in hiding after Restoration, fearing very
| correctly for his life; and he remained a republican for all
| his life. Milton's characterization of Satan in the poem is
| incredible because of the way he chooses this unlikely figure
| to channel so much of his misgivings and criticisms of absolute
| and monarchical power.
|
| In a modern context, it's fascinating to see how much sympathy
| Milton can make for Satan (a figure who, in most modern secular
| contexts, is far more commonly simplistically presented as pure
| evil incarnate) and how the poem poses evergreen questions
| about the role and nature of grievance, revolution, vengeance,
| power, and the masses in governance.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > it's fascinating to see how much sympathy Milton can make
| for Satan
|
| When I read PL at school, Satan came across as a really cool
| dude who could fly! Admittedly I was (much) younger then.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| One of the fascinating consequences of PL's incredible
| storytelling and poetry is to humanize Satan. Unlike the
| Son of God, or God themselves, Satan seems _far_ more
| multifaceted. He has hopes, dreams, ambitions, and
| ruminates and obsesses over his own failings as well
| whether freedom from tyranny, as he sees it, is worth
| getting cast out of heaven for. To him, he lost paradise.
| These things make him feel alive in the poem, like a real
| person, a creation entirely Milton 's own.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Using religion as a basis for political ideology is nothing new.
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