Product Description

Here in one volume are the complete texts of two of the greatest epic poems in English literature, each a profound exploration of the moral problems of God's justice. They demonstrate Milton's genius for classicism and innovation, narrative and drama-and are a grand example of what Samuel Johnson called his "peculiar power to astonish."

Edited by Christopher Ricks
With a New Introduction by Dr. Susanne Woods

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179977 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Released on: 2001-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451527929
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
John Milton (9 December 1608 - 8 November 1674) was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. He was both an accomplished, scholarly man of letters and polemical writer, and an official serving under Oliver Cromwell. His views may be described as broadly Protestant, if not always easy to locate in a more precise religious category. Milton was writing at a time of religious and political flux in England, and his poetry and prose reflect deep convictions, often reacting to contemporary circumstances. He wrote also in Latin and Italian, and had an international reputation during his lifetime. After his death, Milton's personal reputation oscillated, a state of affairs that has continued down the centuries. He early became the subject of partisan biographies, such as that of John Toland from the nonconformist perspective, and a hostile account by Anthony à Wood. Samuel Johnson described him as "an acrimonious and surly republican"; but William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", at a time when his reputation was particularly in play.[2]

From AudioFile
PARADISE REGAINED is concerned with the devil's temptation of Christ in the wilderness. It's a substantial subject; nonetheless, the work is often seen by critics as a coda to Milton's masterwork, PARADISE LOST. Anton Lesser, a longtime member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, takes us inside Milton's seventeenth-century blank verse with remarkable clarity and emotion. One can almost hear Milton grappling with the English Civil War, the Reformation, and his personal quest to express Christ's divinity through heightened yet comparatively modest phrases. Lesser's voice is completely at one with Milton's subject matter, meter, and language. After three centuries, this work is much more accessible than one might think. B.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Classic work
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.

Shakespeare's Successor
Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were indeed grand masters of literature for all time. "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" is enough to put John Milton in the same category. Like Marlowe and Shakespeare, Milton demonstrates extreme scholarship and a superb mastery of the language. It is interesting how Milton takes figures that are mentioned briefly in the scriptures and turns them into major characters. It is also frightening how Milton was able to make God and Satan 3 dimensional as opposed to simply good (in God's case) and evil (in Satan's case). This book is not for everyone. But if you do not mind an unorthodox portrayal of God and Satan and if you want to enjoy beautiful language, superb images, dramatic confrontations, and powerful images, you must read this masterpiece composed with superb and delicate skill.

Paradise Lost
"The poem provides an unwitting expose to the absurdity of Christian mythology." With all due respect, I have to question how someone can consider what Milton intended as the "justification of the ways of God to men" an "unwitting exposé." For sure there are several controversies throughout PL-Milton most certainly DOES represent Satan as noble, rationalize the Fall, and present God as less interesting and engaging than the Devil-but he most certainly does NOT do so "unwittingly." Above all Milton was an advocate of freedom-freedom of thought and theology no less than the freedom from censorship he championed in Areopagitica. He was in many ways unorthodox, even denying the Holy Spirit as a person of the Trinity. In Paradise Lost, Milton was not writing a treatise on God's justice and unwittingly undermining his own religion: the issues of Satan's heroic charm and God's apparent coldness are fundamental parts of that treatise. Sin is tempting and attractive, but "the wages of sin is death" (as shown by the "Unholy Trinity" of Satan, Sin, and Death, by which point in the narrative the heroic appeal of Satan the reader may have felt at the beginning of the poem starts to fade). And the cold, often unappealing reason and justice of God are hard to come to terms with-indeed, impossible to come to terms with, without the redemption of Christ. Milton hardly tries to "negate his own words with addendums and disclaimers." Show me one such addendum or disclaimer that isn't part of his intended theodicy. In my opinion, Milton's epic is one of the most cogent examples of Christian apologetics ever. Did you miss the line that "with reiterated crimes [Satan] heaps on himself damnation, while he sought evil to others, and enrag'd might see how all his malice serv'd but to bring forth infinite goodness, grace and mercy, but on himself treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd." Also, I suggest reconsidering the significance of his statement that "Virtue is but choosing"-a brief statement which alone can "justify the ways of God to men," even without the hopeful ending and the redemptive fulfillment in Paradise Regained. Virtue, defined here as the choice to serve God, would not be possible had not man and woman been given free will; and maybe, just maybe, the horror of hell and Satan, the woes of man (and even the death of Christ) were worth the price of making possible the concept of love.

For all that, I do agree that "Paradise Lost features some of the most wonderful passages written in the English language." But I can see how you might think Milton was writing an exposé, intentional or not, if you only read (or only paid attention to?) those first hundred pages about the rebellious angels. (If you ask me, though, the description of Eden, the ironic pursuits of the demons and the perverted parallels of Hell to Heaven, and all of Book IX are the highlights). However, debate is good. I'm sure we both agree with Milton that the freedom to express one's beliefs is of paramount importance. That said, I believe that PL is indeed an exposé, in part at least-not of Christianity, but of the irony and vanity of evil. His arguments for the justice of God seem valid to me, and (is it just me?) his description of Satan as a hero, of Satan's self-righteous volunteering to leave hell, and of the horrible perversion of the" Unholy Trinity", serve not to justify Satan and thereby justify rebellion, but instead, to expose evil for what it is-tempting, but horrific. The most I personally can feel for Satan is pity, and by the end of Paradise Lost, that pity has turned almost entirely to enmity. As a whole, although Paradise Lost certainly raises some debatable issues, it accomplishes what Milton set out to do-justify the ways of God to men.