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Milton's Paradise Lost: Lecture on Books XI-XII (Patreon)

Published:
2023-12-17 21:51:19
Imported:
2023-12
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It is with heavy hearts that we draw to the close of Paradise Lost. The close of this epic masterpiece, but certainly not the end of our loving engagement with Milton.

Today we're discussing the poem's optimistic ending, sacrifice, responsibility, learning from our greatest mistakes, biblical visions, lamentation, love, loss, the wisdom of Christ, justification for the ways of God, fall of mankind as happy fault, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 congratulations on reading Paradise Lost
  • 2:00 reflecting on our greatest mistakes
  • 4:00 seeing ourselves in Adam & Eve
  • 5:00 sacrifice, responsibility, rebirth
  • 7:00 the final books of this masterpiece
  • 8:00 on reading literature for sentiment
  • 9:00 connecting with the first reader
  • 11:00 assimilating biblical literature
  • 12:00 Son & God converse in heaven
  • 14:00 the mindset & ethos of Christ
  • 16:00 archangel Michael vs Raphael
  • 18:00 the passages that resonate with us
  • 20:00 Eve’s lamentation for the flowers
  • 22:00 ‘where shall I seek his bright appearances?
  • 24:00 Adam’s visions of mankind’s future
  • 26:00 Milton’s rendition of Cain and Abel
  • 29:00 ‘judge not what is best by pleasure’
  • 31:00 the vision of Noah & the flood
  • 34:00 justifying the ways of God to men
  • 35:00 the idea of the sins of the fathers
  • 37:00 Milton’s rationale for his structure
  • 38:00 a vision of the Tower of Babel
  • 40:00 ‘man over men he made not lord’
  • 41:00 a procession of Messianic figures
  • 42:00 birth, death & resurrection of Christ
  • 43:00 ‘goodness infinite, goodness immense’
  • 44:00 fall of mankind as happy fault
  • 45:00 how the poem ends on an optimistic note
  • 49:00 for readers who fell in love with Milton
  • 53:00 what did you make of Paradise Lost?

Our Miltonic Journey:

Questions to Consider:

1) What will you remember most from your journey through Paradise Lost?

2) What area connected with John Milton are you now most keen to explore?

3) What did you make of the ending of this epic masterpiece?

4) How would you persuade another to read Paradise Lost? And what advice would you give to facilitate a meaningful reading experience?

And please do share with us your impressions and favourite passages from the end of Paradise Lost

Congratulations on reading Paradise Lost, everybody!

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Comments

Anonymous

Congratulations to each of us pilgrims for traveling from Innocence to Experience -- to Paradise and back again via Heaven and Pandemonium and then inexorably on to Nod, alas. Quite an adventure, harrowing at times, and rather trippy too. I marvel at Milton's mind. The proto-science fiction, the action, the fantasy, the time-travel, the sensuality, the psychology and the wisdom. Was not Milton himself -- resenting his blindness perhaps and the ways of his world -- a bit like his Satan full of grievances? Who was more audacious, Satan or Milton? Did not Milton permit himself to reimagine, embellish, enlarge upon and, in doing so, extend and fairly re-write much of the very foundations on which Scripture rests -- inventing "personalities" for each of God the Father and Jesus Christ? Putting words in their mouths? Was not Satan Milton's own super-sexy "abiblical" Frankenstein's monster which Milton himself created and unleashed upon the world? Who is still with us. Was this too not a kind of rebellion? Sacred but also profane depending on your dogma or so it seems to me -- which I admit is often quite thrilling. And the language. Magisterial. Similar but different to the King James Authorized Version -- less flinty, more organic, intimate and sensual -- with Shakespeare somehow hovering above and below the whole work? I am an American from the midwest who grew-up attending simple, small and austere Lutheran churches. Reading Milton's Paradise Lost for me is akin to stepping into a true soaring medieval cathedral for the very first time -- at evensong. But it also carries with it a whiff of heresy. And does Milton succeed in PL's cosmically ambitious goal: justifying the ways of God to Man? Well, almost.... Although perhaps intimations are possible to us terrestrial folk, those ways are likely to remain ineffable, imponderable and therefore unknown til the Last Day, no? Here Milton is a bit like Prometheus, attempting to steal fire from the gods in order to give light and warmth to Man. But his -- and our -- reach (gloriously in this case) exceeds the grasp. How could it be otherwise? Alas.

Anonymous

Sincere apologies for the length of my screed above ;). And sincere thanks to Ben's lectures and all your posts which helped me make this epic journey (pun intended).