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Paradise Lost: Bk II

#61: Jan. - Mar. 2009 (Fiction)
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Saffron

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Paradise Lost: Bk II

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Book II Discussion

Please use this thread to discuss Book II of Paradise Lost
Last edited by Saffron on Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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After Book 1 I wasn't so sure what I'd gotten myself into with Paradise Lost. I must admit I struggled a bit with the language and the content. I think with Book II I am getting the hang of it. I am beginning to have the sense of sitting around listening to a fantastical story being told aloud.
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Right, PL is a lot to get into, but I think your approach is sound. There are some questions we might be thinking about as we read through this work. One I have already tried to indicate, and that is 1) the degreee to which PL works as an epic or a drama/epic, that is on the primary level of the reader's response, divorced as much as possible from the poem's theology.

Others would be: 2) How are we to understand the "mind" of Milton and his educated contemporaries with regard to the Christian religion? There might be a danger of oversimplifying their thinking based on the apparent truth that they saw biblical commentary as also to a degree historical commentary. However, to see them through a present-day lens of fundamentalist Christianity would be a big mistake. Today, as far as I can see, there is virtually no theology in fundamentalism, whereas for Milton--despite his protestantism--theology was still a very live issue, which means that the Bible did not answer all theological questions. I imagine that theology for Milton, and even for the less educated, was on a par with politics for us today. Milton was not a theologian, but he still felt called upon to weigh in with his "On Christian Doctrine." I guess I'm saying we have to be careful about seeing even Milton as a strict biblical literalist, and about translating all features of his poem into his personal beliefs.
3) Related to #2, would we agree with Sir Walter Raleigh's criticism that PL is just a monument to dead ideas? If Milton's Christianity is not our Christianity, or even if we are not Christians, what is there for us in the artistic/moral vision of PL? Anything?
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Paradise Lost

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I, too, have attempted to read this work several times over the years, and put it back on the shelf...but the Illiad was not a favorite for me.

Dwill suggessts:
"There are some questions we might be thinking about as we read through this work. One I have already tried to indicate, and that is 1) the degreee to which PL works as an epic or a drama/epic, that is on the primary level of the reader's response, divorced as much as possible from the poem's theology."

Finally having made it into Bk ll and found that I am enjoying it, I would say yes...but again...is it really possible to searate theology and politics from the piece when the two were so bound together in those times? Even now, it seems to me there remains an intense struggle to separate the two in reasoning as well as governing.


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Re: Paradise Lost

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Grindle wrote:I, too, have attempted to read this work several times over the years, and put it back on the shelf...but the Illiad was not a favorite for me.
So perhaps for you PL will have an inside track, since it lacks so much of the martial stuff and glorifying of violence.
Finally having made it into Bk ll and found that I am enjoying it, I would say yes...but again...is it really possible to searate theology and politics from the piece when the two were so bound together in those times? Even now, it seems to me there remains an intense struggle to separate the two in reasoning as well as governing.
The answer to your question is surely "no," but what I was thinking of is the possible validity of of at least some sentiment and drama in the poem, even if we reject the theology (as I do). It might even go beyond sentiment and drama to include respect for the statement of our human predicament-- in a different vernacular than we would use, but perhaps valid in translation for us. But that is for people to determine. I won't be sure where I stand myself until I've reread this poem. I hope that undertaking this work as a group will help those who have attempted it before get to the end this time. (Maybe we should read Moby Dick sometime?)
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Re: Paradise Lost

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DWill wrote: I hope that undertaking this work as a group will help those who have attempted it before get to the end this time. (Maybe we should read Moby Dick sometime?)
:laugh: You hit the nail squarely this time! I have tried to read Moby Dick; I even liked it, but couldn't get to the end -- maybe the support of a group would see me through to the end. Maybe that should be the next fiction!
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The book club as support group for getting through imposing classics--yes, that is a good statement of a purpose. Then you can't give up without feeling like a wimp!
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WOW. Everything that I found lacking in Book I I was happy to find here in Book II. I found the entire thing extremely enjoyable. It ranged from exciting to suspensful and was just excellent. It didn't seem to ramble as much as Book I did either. At least to me it seemed that Milton followed a clear path through to the end so that this book read in a rather straight forward manner.
Milton's entire concept still seems rather questionable however. There still exists this paradox that god is allowing all of this to happen while at the same time can stop it whenver he chooses. It's been suggested that god knows exactly where all of this is going to end so perhaps that justifies his allowing it to an extent...Perhaps his allowing Satan and Sin to enter the world are because of what happens in subsequent books (Adam and Eve), so I will have to wait for that to unfold to answer itself. (I am attempting to read this as if I am being introduced to all of this material for the first time. I have never read PL before but so much of this has been coopted into the fiction vernacular since Milton's time that I feel like I know most of the subplots already).
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Cool. I've been reading some background stuff and haven't caught up to you on my re-read. Seems what you're wondering about is this maddening theology that Milton didn't invent; it seems so tortured, doesn't it? God is like the house in gambling, and the house always wins. With omniscience, God always gets to be smarty pants.

I looked in my Milton book at "On Christian doctrine." I was surprised to see my underlinings there, don't recall having read it, but at least some of it I did. From my brief look, it's all there, how Milton works out, only from the Bible, the character of God and his powers. But I'm sure his ideas on this were not unique.
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[quote="DWill"]Seems what you're wondering about is this maddening theology that Milton didn't invent; it seems so tortured, doesn't it?
quote]

Haha- Yeah, pretty much the story of my life...I think thats the same for all recovering christians like my self.
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