« SAY WAHT? |
Main
| Obama: Deep Down He's Shallow »
December 16, 2011
Paradise Lost: The Series
"The end of learning," he wrote at about this time, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright." In other words, you rebuilt from the destruction wrought by the fall through study. --
John Milton, part 1
Milton's immediate biblical source material was very brief, very plain. The account of the fall in the second and third chapters of the Book of Genesis is over in an economical 46 sentences – and that's throwing in two (mutually inconsistent) accounts of the creation of humanity, not to mention a brief excursion into the nature of the mineral deposits roundabout the great Mesopotamian rivers. --
John Milton, part 2: marrying the epic with the sacred
Milton's opening invocation has the vaunting boldness common to mission statements. He uses his first lines to summarise his subject, calls on his Muse to sing it, then spends a line or two reminding people that the Muse in question isn't some pagan floozy but the voice of God. --
John Milton, part 3: does Paradise Lost really attempt to justify God's ways?
Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 16, 2011 10:47 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Post a comment