Paradise Lost [Hardcover]

This is fine gift edition of Milton's biblical soap opera. Pullman's introductions to each of the books of the poem are infectiously enthusiastic and he largely succeeds in persuading us to put aside our struggles with the technical difficulties of Milton's language - suggesting instead that we embrace its phonological drama. The sense does largely follow the sound.

That said, the marked lack of scholarly notes makes this a bad choice for a newbie. Yes, it's nice to read the poem without constantly flicking back and forth looking for glosses on Milton's archaicisms and allusions, but realistically, any student is going to have to fork out on notes to plumb the text's true depths.

The book itself is beautifully presented and chock-full of glorious illustrations (I'd have liked to have seen Gustav Dore's though...) - so it will make a great gift for any lit-head. Older children coming here through 'His Dark Materials' may get the literature bug through this initial encounter, though an illustrated edition of Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' might be a safer bet.

The only work of English literature to be properly epic in absolutely every manner, nothing else I have ever read approaches it in majesty. Its construction, its scope, its subject matter, its imagination, its aspiration, even its very sound - blank verse though it may be - all contribute to its majesty. And a unique majesty it is. If epics should concern LONG tales, of heroic deeds in arms, that name is hardly befitting to "Paradise Lost". Its size, respectably grand as it is, does not in anyway compare to, say, "The Lord of the Ring".

As expected from a work of its reputation, "Paradise Lost" is polymathic, and incredibly so. Milton built on and, surely, surpassed the tradition of ancient epics which he studied. The syntax, diction and metre are highly wrought - linguistically there is a wrought grandeur about the text and is entirely suited to its matter. Figurative language deluges forth, of the most minutely woven texture. And what a work of poetic imagination it is! A cosmic strife, a Satanic council - essentially a massive conflation of what happens in biblical timeline up to the Expulsion. What is more, just about every discipline of academia - from astronomy and geography to theology and politics - is drawn upon.

All that said, "Paradise Lost"'s most sublime grace is to never for a moment loses its focus. Time and again it casts a look that is anything but uncritical on its own milieu. Nevertheless all of these are never gratuitous to its primary engagement with its central theme of free will. Sure enough there are several lesser, less explicit themes, but none which free will does not belie springs readily to my mind. Such an unlaxing and explicit concentration confers all the intensity that both the casual reader and the intellectual critic may take an equal measure of pleasure in. Ultimately most relevant to Christians, Milton's polymathic exploration of this conundrum in so exquisitely nuanced a presentation will pertain to civilization as long as the issue of free will is debated. Its concern is universal and so much of it is a startling imaginative work of Milton's own that it simply is not mired in its own age. Milton was a hugely intellectual and polymathic writer; "Paradise Lost" demands a proper mental engagement (though it does not necessarily have to be a scholarly one). But this is a requisite which all that have any respectability at all as a man capable of partaking human civilization, morality and conscience will not mind. The Romantics looked back on Milton with reverence; here was probably the moment when the imagination- and aesthetic-driven mode of literary composition was truly innovated. Never have I read any other writer in whom both the artistic - rooted firmly in transcendental, human sensibilities - and rational intellect are in full force at strife, neither yielding.

I am not going to attempt to review any further a poem which has over three centuries of scholarship behind in a review such as this one. But just to give a fairer and hopefully not misleading review, I would point out that the poem does lose its momentum in the last two books, namely after the infernal host has retired from the narrative and when the poem becomes less of Milton's imaginative conflation of the biblical story but a pageant of selected episodes from the Bible. Here Milton perhaps let his cold intellect take over as he felt the self-conscious need to remain in orthodox propriety. Technically the last two books are as fit as an ending can be to the poem, completing the poem's symmetrical structure as well as being loaden metaphorically in a crescendo towards a potent finish. It cannot be faulted from that point of view. However, it is reduced almost to merely being an interpretation of the Scripture: the function of academic essays, not a literary work. In my view, technical beauty in a work of art does not have any merit in itself unless it compounds to the satisfaction of its experience.

Oxford University Press has brought us the most deserving printing I have seen of this literary masterpiece. The text is spaciously set in good-sized print on very high quality paper. The handsome volume is bound in black boards and bright red endpapers with a bookmark of the same shade of red and an elegantly stylish and appropriately black dustjacket. (The colour scheme throughout this edition is black sparingly dashed with red.) It is also evocatively illustrated by the contemporary engravings from the first illustrated edition of 1688, herein exquisitely reproduced.

The text is that of the Oxford World's Classics edition. It has the arguments and Milton's "The Verse", but none of the other prefatory materials that were attached at various point in the poem's early printing history. Philip Pullman furnished this printing with an introduction, an epigraphic reflection for each book, and an afterward, otherwise the poem stands, as stated in the Afterward, on its own. Just how older literature ought to be allowed to do as much as possible. Ironically, though, even the most casual of readers will probably wish for some information on the knowledge and thinking of Milton's time at certain point or another in the text. So unless he already has read the poem or has substantially read literature contemporary to or predating Milton - which I deem nigh impossible in our present day and age - this slimline non-academic edition may not be the best to read from. For one thing, Pullman's contribution is, in the best tradition of a true artist, opinionated and personally interpretative. As Pullman himself shrewdly points out in the introduction, it is more important to just listen to the poem first before seeking anyone else's view on it. Reading from this volume is a joy, but it would probably serve better those who, entranced by its spell, are already quite familiar with the poem.

Excellent, and Putnam's prefaces for each Book were a bonus. I also found that my enjoyment and appreciation was enhanced by listening to an audio rendition read by Anton Lesser while reading to the verse.