Paradise Lost – John Milton

This was number one in my mental “Books I really ought to have read” list, so it’s good to have it out of the way. It’s worth ploughing through, although this is right at the cusp of things I would read for pleasure in terms of difficulty.

I thought it read as older than it is; it seemed pre-Shakespearean, essentially. In particular, the constant references to Greek mythology were confusing for me, and seemed particularly odd given that this is a re-telling of the Genesis story. Apparently, Renaissance humanists regarded classical myth as the result of imperfect understanding of scripture, so Pandora’s Box is an erroneous version of the Eve story and so on.

I found it fascinating how Milton, using the narrative voice of Raphael, gets into such a mess when justifying (a) the existence of evil, and (b) all the icky practical aspects of procreation. They were problematic for Christian theologians in 1677 and they remain a problem today. The central issue seems to be that Adam and Eve cannot truly be held responsible for their actions because they don’t understand the implications. How can one fear death when death has not heretofore existed?

The central thrust of the poem may be totalitarian (knowledge is bad, kids) and resoundingly misogynistic, but despite these minor caveats it’s a book well worth the effort.