Feeling Lost Reading Paradise Lost?

Hello readers, this review is a bit special, unlike usual reviews, today I will share with you my reflections on a very complex, challenging and intriguing work of literature. It is of John Milton, Paradise Lost, an epic poem written in the 17thc. Before we start exploring the world of Milton and his epic, let us first introduce what is an epic for you readers who are unfamiliar with this genre. An epic is a long story in verse dwelling upon an important theme with a very elegant style and language. In fact, Milton wanted his epic to be different, he came up with something new, because poetry at that time was poetry that rhymes, epic poetry by definition is a poem that has a meter and a rhyme scheme. What Milton did is writing twelve thousand lines that do not rhyme, and when asked he said that he was not interested that his poem is read and appreciated by the laymen, he wanted to shook the traditions and break free from the shackling conventions of writing poetry. Miltonic epic is new, different and challenging. It puts the reader into a trial, he is challenged in his own beliefs and assumptions, to read Milton is to question one’s own beliefs, to put your assumptions under scrutiny. How is that? Well, if we go back to the conventions of an epic, we learn that an epic, by definition, is a poem that starts from the middle; all epics have a plot to the story, characters, and a story, what characterizes an epic is it’s starting from the middle, it doesn’t start with the beginning, it starts with the middle and then it goes to the beginning and then toward the ending. This would lead us to infer that the hero is introduced from the outset; the poem opens indeed with Satan, presumably, he is the hero of the poem since we are following the tradition of epic poetry. And this is the “declic” of the poem because we cannot associate the idea of Satan as a hero with the person of Milton who is very Puritan. This person who is Protestant and extremist even is going to start his poem with Satan. Is he consciously and deliberately wants his hero to be Satan? Does this suggest that the enemy must be God or Christ or Adam and Eve? This is unsettling at the beginning, disturbing even, and it is in this sense that we talked earlier about the trial in which the reader is put into.

This is a poem that leads us to much reflection, it pushes us to step out of its frame, to move beyond the conventions and what we unconsciously acquired, this is not an invitation to doubt or to disbelief even though reading Milton’ Paradise Lost is very triggering and very challenging.