Paradise Lost | On Milton, Renaissance Literature, and First Impressions

Samuel Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, once said of Milton: "Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is." I think this statement pretty much sums up the sentiments I have heard from others regarding Paradise Lost over the last several years, and as a fifth year English major, I have heard a fair number of sentiments on an equally fair number of literary works. The opinion that many of my classmates seem to have is that Paradise Lost is a work which one should read at some point, especially if one is a student of literature, though it may not be an enjoyable text, or even a text which one would like to take up again in the future. So, right from the start, I think I may be a little biased in my approach to reading Milton. However, I remember thinking, once upon a time, that Shakespeare was much the same way. "Shakespeare is 'the greatest writer of all time' and everyone should read something of his, though his work is often not enjoyable nor understandable." Yet now, however, I sincerely enjoy Shakespeare and see why he is the subject of so much study. And so, with a notion of "perhaps this won't be so bad," I set off to read Paradise Lost. Since I am hesitant to provide my analysis or any "deep" thoughts when I am only 400 lines into the poem, I hope here to simply give an overview of my first impressions.

You know, it's not so bad so far. I expected something lofty and difficult to understand, and though the invocation at the opening of Book 1 certainly attempted to be as such, I have not found the poem to be too terribly bad at all. In fact, I rather enjoyed the reading so far. Aside from the early modern word spellings, the poem reads, in my opinion, a lot like a short fantasy piece could read today. I also enjoyed the poem's focus on Satan rather than God. It's a refreshing change of pace, and I think that it's interesting to see Satan characterized as any other character might be. He expresses his worries and fears to Beelzebub at the opening of Book 1, and Beelzebub offers advice which seems to ease these anxieties. Satan is almost made human-like in this opening portrait, though this is juxtaposed with further imagery of Satan abd Beelzebub in a lake of fire where no light but only darkness is visible--a truly supernatural image. Further, I admire Satan's perseverance (another human-like quality). He has been cast from heaven, his rebellion defeated, and yet he still carries on the fight. And even though he admits that he may not overthrow God, he nevertheless aims to at least subvert some of God's authority. While I cannot yet pinpoint why, I feel as though Satan isn't so bad here. I see no blatant indication (aside from that he *is* Satan) that Satan is thoroughly and unquestionably evil. In fact, Milton's Satan, so far, puts my thoughts more in line with Twain's Satan in Letters from the Earth, if I recall correctly.

I'll post more later, when I get farther in and have more opinions on the text.