
Keats’ copy of Paradise Lost: A direct channel to the poet’s thoughts - lermontov
http://museumcrush.org/keats-copy-of-miltons-paradise-lost-a-direct-channel-to-the-poets-thoughts/
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mabub24
Paradise Lost is a beautiful and intricate poem. I would highly recommend
reading it with an accompanying text that drills into the context and all the
intricate literary and historical references. I read it in a British
Literature class (one of the best university courses I ever took, shout-outs
to Prof. Siobahn Caulkin, a brilliant teacher) and Milton's creativity and his
ability to work with form and tradition still sticks with me today.

On the side: I'd highly recommend taking notes on fictional books you read
like Keats has done in his margins. It helps to see how novels are all tied
together like complex machines of tone, theme, foreshadowing, and payoff. It
also helps to solidify just what the heck you're reading into words.

~~~
briga
Beautiful and intricate, but also hard to love. Milton is a spectacular poet,
but there's something about the poem that kept me from appreciating it beyond
its aesthetics. It's similar to Dante's epic in that sense, lovely and
complex, but also so lofty and serious that it felt like it wasn't written for
mere mortals like me.

That said, I still think it deserves its place in world literature as one of
the testaments to human creativity.

~~~
coldtea
> _but also so lofty and serious that it felt like it wasn 't written for mere
> mortals like me._

Well, it was written with the well-educated, versed in classics and latin and
(then) contemporary social/political references, "Italian" audience of its
time in mind...

