As my classic (or possibly one of my classics, we'll see) for the Challenge, I decided to give Paradise Lost, the famous 17th century epic poem by John Milton, a try (or another try, I should say, as I'd read the first dozen or so pages before).

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 one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse; (I, 1-6)

Paradise Lost is evidently intended as an emulation of the great epic poems of Antiquity - the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid - but then in English, and on a topic that according to Milton is far more worthy than the topics of those other poems: the struggle between God and Satan, Satan's defeat and subsequent revenge by causing the Fall of Man, and God's eventual triumph. It's a premise that certainly isn't lacking in ambition, nor does Milton seem particularly modest (his brief introduction to his work is fairly entertaining in its venomous condemnation of poets who use rhyme, clearly something Milton considers beneath him). It's a good thing, then, that Milton can in fact, as they say, walk the walk (though perhaps in this case talk the talk would've been a more appropriate description of his achievements).

The poem is indeed, quite simply put, a very impressive achievement. No poem of (roughly) ten thousand lines can be top-notch all the time, but even when he's uninspired, he's still decent, and when he's good, he's excellent. Milton's baroque style - bombastic, dramatic, with innumerable Latin influences in content, vocabulary and perhaps even word order - won't appeal to everyone, and some later generations of poets despised him for it, but he does excel at it.

An additional point of interest, to me at least, in the language, was the discovery of etymologies. Thanks to the rather helpful notes of my copy (edited by Christopher Ricks), I came across large amounts of English words that still exist, but in a different meaning; and in many cases, the meaning used in Paradise Lost is one that makes clear its Latin etymology, which I'd never before considered, or else that etymology is explained in the notes. Examples include "opportune" (apparently linked to Latin "portus", i.e. port, referring to the winds that speed a ship's journey to the port) and "vehement" (from Latin "mens", mind, meaning "out of one's mind" ), among many others. No doubt those with a real interest in etymology will know these things already, though.

Unfortunately, if Milton can perhaps aspire to approach the levels of Homer and Vergil in terms of language and writing, the content does not match up. Not that the chosen topic does not allow for epic storytelling, and indeed Paradise Lost does have its gloriously epic moments, but the problem is quite simply that there is too much propaganda in the story. Part of the reason why the Iliad in particular is rated as highly as it is, is the way Homer shows respect and admiration for people on all sides of his conflict - not only for Achilles, but also for Agamemnon, his rival, and Hector, his enemy.

Milton does in fact start out - books I and II of the twelve - with a description of Hell in which Lucifer and his fallen angels, having quite literally fallen from Heaven and now plotting their revenge, are depicted as evil yet strong and worthy foes. But after that, Lucifer/Satan is mostly depicted as a reviled, pathetic creature, able to do his modest cowardly evil only because God lets him, perhaps even wants him to. In a lengthy flashback to the war in Heaven itself (books V and VI), Milton denies his antagonist all glory and worthiness even at that early stage, by having him humiliated both verbally and on the field of combat by some lowly, eminently forgettable angel who, unlike Lucifer, has remained loyal to God. On the other hand, God and Jesus are - of course - perfect and flawless, and their angels do go on quite a bit about how they should be praised. Far too often, Milton wastes his considerable talent in writing verse on boring, insipid content - angels preaching, Adam serving as a sock-puppet for Milton's preaching, Satan condemning himself. And in book VII, he endeavours to recount the creation story of Genesis I, having Raphaël tell it to Adam; as good a poet as he is, his baroque style is doomed to pale against the elegant simplicity of the real thing, even in my taste.

At this point in the book I was getting a bit fed up and starting to wonder if the rest would be as boring. The early parts of book VIII - Raphaël expounding in a lengthy and rather confusing way on (17th century views of) astronomy - were not very reassuring, but fortunately things changed dramatically for the better as Raphaël stopped talking, and Adam began to tell about himself and Eve. This led to book IX, undeniably the high point of the poem, dealing with the Fall of Man itself: Satan tempting Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden apple.

The reason why these passages are so much better should be quite obvious: they deal with flawed, mortal characters. Adam suddenly turns out to have unsuspected emotional depths, as does Eve; and Adams real crowning moment, his real proof of character, comes in the moving passage when he decides to follow her example and eat of the apple, for her sake, despite knowing he will pay a terrible price (However I with thee have fixt my Lot / Certain to undergo like doom, if Death / Consort with thee, Death is to mee as Life (IX, 952-954)). I suppose that view puts me diametrically opposite Milton's own, considering that this is the very act by which Adam condemns himself and all his progeny, but he can hardly have expected his readers to abhor the tragic beauty and nobility shown by Adam here. Camilla recently quoted William Blake in another post, who evidently had an opinion rather similar to mine and said something to the effect of "Milton is of the devil's party without knowing it: he writes in fetters when he writes of angels and God, but at liberty when of devils and hell."

The final books follow much the same pattern, being interesting or touching mostly when they concern Adam and Eve, such as in the final lines:

They looking back, all th'Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wiped them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

(XII, 641-649)

Paradise Regained is, to be quite honest, rather forgettable in its entirety. It deals with Jesus' famous stay in the desert during which Satan attempts to tempt him; but before too long, the complete futility of these attempts is not only crystal clear to the reader, Milton even explicitly states it. As such, narrative tension is reduced to essentially zero, and the thankfully short work is little more than room for Milton to show off his poetic skill and his knowledge of Antiquity (though I should note in passing that it's interesting how much attention he has for the Parthian Empire, rarely given much thought by most people even now). The closing lines are not bad (in content, I mean; in style Milton is still quite good here), and could have been touching like those of the original poem if they had involved a Jesus with any character depth at all, but alas.

I had intended to discuss in some detail Milton's rather annoying misogyny, surely even by the standards of his time, but seeing how long this review already is and what the time is, I'll just point out that it's there, and move on to my conclusion.

Paradise Lost certainly is worthy of the title of classic, and Milton of that of great English poet, but his preachiness and propagandistic aims (and occasional swipes at Christians of other denominations, and let's not forget the misogyny) make the work as a whole far less good than it might have been. Still, there are many passages, including in particular the better part of acts I, II and IX, where the content lives up to the poetry, and the result is a thing of beauty. I'm glad that I read it, and cautiously recommend it to those not already frightened off by either the baroque style or the often propagandistic content.