Paradise Lost by John Milton

Source of book: I own this.

Date originally posted on Facebook: December 28, 2010

I am slowly re-posting my old Facebook reviews to my blog. This one was my major reading project of December, 2010. 

 

This work probably needs no introduction. However, like so many great works, it is known of, but rarely known. If you were to refer to someone as a siren, most would understand the concept, but would have to confess that they had never read Homer.

I was introduced to Milton, like most, by a sonnet or two and a couple pages of Paradise Lost in high school. At the time, I was already beginning to appreciate the craftsmanship of the sonnet form; however, I lacked the stamina to really get beyond the surface of Milton’s often unfamiliar syntax. A few years later, I struggled through a bit of Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. After this challenge, Milton seemed a bit easier, so I went back and read through those parts of my textbook. (Yes, I still have most of my high school textbooks.) At that time, I still wasn’t really ready to dive in, but noticed the beauty of Milton’s language.

After announcing my poetry reading project (starting with Frost), I was in my library with my wife, Amanda, trying to decide what to start next. She suggested Paradise Lost. I decided to take her up on the challenge.

In my opinion, every household should have three vital books which are necessary for understanding literature. The first is a good dictionary. The second is The Bible. The third is Bulfinch’s Mythology, particularly the first volume. I kept these close at hand for reference during the reading of Paradise Lost.

Milton set out consciously to emulate the Greek and Roman epics. The scope of the poem was to be sweeping, considering the history of mankind from before creation to the present age. The style was to pay homage to The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid in form, style, and content. Milton also drew from both biblical and legendary sources for the story. A number of our popular conceptions of angels and demons can be found here, and probably date from earlier sources.

Amazingly, Milton wrote most of Paradise Lost while blind. Considering that there are over ten thousand lines, his memory must have been incredible. It is also clear that he knew the Bible and mythology intimately.

The poem is divided into twelve sections, each between 15 and 35 pages (in my edition). I found that it took a little over an hour for each section, as I had to look up some of the allusions to mythology. Thus, I figure I spent about 14 hours reading it. It was worth every minute.

The initial barrier is the language. Not only does Milton have an extensive vocabulary, including a number of archaic words; he reverses the order of words to suit the cadence of the meter and the epic style of writing. For example, he commonly places adjectives after their nouns, rather than before, as expected. I found I often had to read a sentence over again to figure out exactly where each verb was, then figure out who was doing what. At first, this is a bit like trying to speak like Yoda. However, with a bit of practice, it came more easily. By the end, I rarely thought about it at all.

Paralleling the epics of the past, Milton starts in the middle of the story, and tells the rest in the form of a recounting given by the angel Rafael to Adam immediately prior to the fall. Thus, after a brief preamble, the story begins in hell after Satan and the fallen angels are banished there after their rebellion.

It has been said that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost. There is some truth in this: Satan is arguably the central character, and certainly the most active. He could also be considered a hero in the mold of the Greek “Tragic Hero”, a person undone by his tragic flaw. That flaw is usually, at its rood, pride. So it is here. Satan cannot stand the fact that God placed his Son in charge of everything – a job Satan wanted. In revenge, he seeks to spoil God’s new creation by causing the fall of mankind.

Thus, there is a parallel between the fall of Satan and the fall of Adam. Milton explicitly links the two with similar phrases and incidents. I also found that to a frightening degree, Satan says what we all think. His words are really the representation of our own dark thoughts – our desire to rule rather than submit, our taste for revenge and destruction, our manipulation, our belief that we know better. In that sense, I believe that Milton intended the fall of Satan to be the story of the fall of all of us. With Satan, we all have said, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

It would, perhaps, be necessary to quote the entire poem to encompass all of the excellent lines. A few, however, stood out to me:

In the prologue, Milton (echoing Homer and Virgil) invokes the muse, in this case, God himself. 

            And chiefly thou O spirit, that dost prefer

            Before all temples the upright heart and pure,

            Instruct me, for thou knowest; thou from the first

            Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread

            Dove-like satest brooding on the vast abyss

            And madest it pregnant: What in me is dark

            Illumine, what is low raise and support;

            That to the height of this great argument

            I may assert eternal providence,

            And justify the ways of God to men.

Later in book VI, Satan attempts to recruit the angel Abdiel to his rebellion. Abdiel will have none of it, and answers (in part):

                                                This is servitude,

            To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled

            Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,

            Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled;

One of the better pictures is Milton’s personification of Sin and Death, who with Satan make an unholy trinity. The picture of the woman Sin, her entrails gnawed by her offspring Death, is perhaps one of the best pictures in literature.After the fall, Sin and Death decide to leave hell and make their home in the more pleasant place that is the earth. The following conversation ensues, Sin speaking first:

            ‘Second of Satan sprung, all conquering death,

            What thinkest thou of our empire now, though earned

            With travail difficult, not better far

            Than still at hell’s dark threshold to have sat watch,

            Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half starved?’

                 Whom thus the sin-born monster answered soon.

            ‘To me, who with eternal famine pine,

            Alike is hell, or Paradise, or heaven,

            There best, where most with ravin I may meet;

            Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems

            To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corpse.’

               To whom the incestuous mother thus replied.

            ‘Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers

            Feed first, on each beast next, and fish, and foul,

            No homely morsels, and whatever thing

            The scythe of time mows down, devour unspared,

            Till I in man residing thought the race,

            His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect,

            And season him thy last and sweetest prey.’

As a picture of the effects of sin, and the death it brings, was ever a more poignant statement made?

Paradise Lost is rightfully considered one of the greatest works of English literature. I am glad I took the time to read it.

Note: This post sparked an enlightening discussion among my friends when I originally posted it. I welcome any further comments, particularly from those who have read this important work. 

Note on illustrations: Although my edition is not illustrated, I did have the chance to see the original illustrations of William Blake for this work. Blake's art is moving when seen up close. It seems to have a life of its own on the page. I also linked some of Blake's illustrations in my review of Inferno from The Divine Comedy.

Gustave Dore also made a set of excellent illustrations for Paradise Lost. 

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source of Book: I own this.
Date originally published on facebook: September 14, 2010

I recall reading a short story and an excerpt from The Great Gatsby in high school, but had never really spent time with Fitzgerald before.

This was his first novel, and launched his career. It is an odd combination of elements, being partially in ordinary prose, partially in blank verse, and partially in the form of correspondence between characters. Fitzgerald built the novel from previous efforts, which explains the feeling that certain parts don’t quite fit the rest of the novel.

This Side of Paradise was also, like several of Fitzgerald’s works, partially autobiographical. The protagonist, Amory Blaine, is essentially himself, and he recounts several of his early romantic affairs. I purposely did not read about Fitzgerald himself until after I finished the book, so I could enjoy the book without being distracted by the man. However, I gained some interesting insights into the book afterward by examining his life, and the parallels with the book.

The plot can be generally summarized as this: a young man grows from childhood to early adulthood, learns of himself, becomes disillusioned with love and life, and is left dissatisfied.

Amory, like the author, was born to a moderately wealthy family, attended Princeton, served in the armed forces at the very end of World War I, and fell in love with a difficult, fascinating woman. In the book, she chooses to marry money, and leaves Amory heartbroken. In real life, she chose Fitzgerald after his book became a success. Their marriage was the opposite of a fairy tale, however. They both partied and drank to excess. She spent the last years of his life in a mental institution with schizophrenia, later dying in a fire. He drank himself to death at a young age.

It was an odd coincidence that I read this book while reading G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. As a young man, Fitzgerald read voraciously; Chesterton was a favorite author early on, and is mentioned throughout This Side of Paradise. At first, Amory cites Chesterton as a favorite, and later rejects him as he loses faith in everything.

The overwhelming mood of this book, as seen through Amory’s eyes, is one of ennui, a boredom with life, people, and himself. Amory is described as an egoist – certainly accurate, and a remarkably self-aware description by Fitzgerald. Amory is always about himself. Even the women he loves, he loves as a reflection of himself – they mirror his own personality and provide a foil for his talent and wit. To a degree, this is a similar character to Sir Willoughby in George Meredith’s The Egoist, who also views others as a mirror for himself. However, while Willoughby evokes pity even as he is ruthlessly exposed for the reader, Amory remains an unsympathetic character throughout.  A real strength of the book is the way Fitzgerald is able to acknowledge his weaknesses, even though he was ultimately unable or unwilling to master them.

The contrast with Chesterton could not be greater. Chesterton is one of those larger than life personalities, like an overgrown child who is still discovering the world for the first time. Everything is thrilling and exciting to him. Conversely, Amory is thrilled by nothing. Even young love seems diminished. The whole narrative seems to give the feeling of a world shrunken and desiccated. The color has entirely gone out.

Another facet of this novel that struck me was the parallels with modern society. Amory could easily be from my generation. He is bored with work, love, and knowledge. He considers himself smarter than everyone else, despite a lack of evidence. He has difficulty believing or caring about anything.

The era, too, fits the modern era. The boom of the gilded age gave way to the war, then to the ‘20s and prohibition, and finally to the great depression. Although the book was published in 1920, Fitzgerald’s personal circumstances already gave a hint of the depression to come. The soulless drinking, partying, and self regard carried through the ‘20s, leading to a cultural hangover much like we are experiencing today. Amory despises the poor, even as he is threatened with poverty himself.

From the aesthetic point of view, this book is of mixed quality. At times, the use of language and description is piercingly good. Fitzgerald’s ability to show personality with a minimum of words can be breathtaking. So too, he captures the emotions of youth extraordinarily well, particularly as he was young himself at the time.

The book has its weaknesses as well. The tone and form is inconsistent, probably due to the multiple sources drawn together at the last. Fitzgerald also has a tendency to drop literary names, simply listing Amory’s current reading list at various times, and expecting the reader to draw conclusions. This works to a degree if the reader is familiar with Chesterton, Swinburne, Brooke, and others of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. However, it lacks the clarity and wit of the passages where he allows the personalities to come through his writing directly.

The most memorable lines of the book come right at the end, in the form of Amory’s thoughts as he walks through a graveyard on his way back toward Princeton. He has just delivered a speech to a wealthy father of a friend from school in which he argues for socialism, despite believing little or nothing of what he says. The irony is that these memorable lines were largely stolen from the diary of his future wife, who never attained his renown, but became bitter over his success.

As Amory reflects on the meaninglessness of modern life, deciding that there was no God in his heart, and little left but disillusion and unrealized dreams, he describes his generation as, “[A] new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” In the final line, he stretches his hands to the sky and laments, “I know myself, but that is all.” Such is the lament of our present age. 

North of Boston by Robert Frost

Source of book: I own the complete Robert Frost - a gift from a very special woman.

As part of my systematic reading of my poetry collection, I am reading through my favorite poet, Robert Frost, in chronological order. I previously reviewed A Boy’s Will. This is his second collection, North of Boston.

The two make for an interesting contrast. A Boy’s Will consists entirely of short poems, most with a stanza form and regular rhyme. North of Boston, with one exception, is entirely narrative poems in blank verse.

(Frost was particularly touchy about the confusion between free verse and blank verse. Free verse lacks both meter and rhyme. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter - the choice of Milton and Shakespeare and many others.)

North of Boston focuses on human interaction, particularly conversations. The poems tell stories, with twists and turns often reserved for the end. Despite the formal constraints of the poetry, the characters come alive through their words. Even laconic dialogue reveals the characters of Frost’s beloved New England.

I was struck again by the similarities with the short stories and sketches of Sarah Orne Jewett, who also lived in and wrote about the rural New England countryside and small towns. Both writers capture the essence of the cold winters, and hard scrabble existence, the lines of care etched on the faces as they draw out the deeply human and sympathetic qualities of their characters.

Here are a few that I particularly liked.

“The Mending Wall”

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I spent a portion of my teen years building rock retaining walls, both for and with my family, and also to earn some money from neighbors. Even a well built wall tends to need regular repairs, so this was completely familiar. I also understand his neighbor’s point of view. If this is taken beyond the literal sense - and I believe Frost intends it that way - it speaks to the importance of boundaries, even between good friends who have nothing to fear from each other. That certain degree of separation creates a level of comfort. Perhaps this is particularly so for those of us who are introverts.

I was also reminded again of how good “The Death of the Hired Man” is. Within the space of six scant pages - 175 lines - Frost creates three memorable characters: Warren and Mary, the married couple whose dialogue forms most of the poem; and Silas, the old hired man, who comes “home” to die.

   

"Home," he mocked gently.  
 
"Yes, what else but home?  
It all depends on what you mean by home.  
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more  
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us             
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."  
 
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,  
They have to take you in."  
 
"I should have called it  
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve."   

I loved this when I first read it in High School, and still love it now, when I have more reason to understand its truth. I also loved the description of Silas’ ordinariness - his utter lack of distinction.

“Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,  
And nothing to look backward to with pride,  
And nothing to look forward to with hope,  
So now and never any different."    

Another poem I particularly loved from this collection was “The Mountain,” which recalled Jewett’s marvelous sketch, “An October Ride.” The wilderness, and mountains in particular, have a special place in my heart, and Frost’s description of the trail up the mountain as described by a local man reveals Frost to share the same sense of adventure. I love the opening lines:

The mountain held the town as in a shadow

I saw so much before I slept there once:

I noticed that I missed stars in the west,

Where its black body cut into the sky.

Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall

Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.

The rest is too long to quote, but is well worth reading. I would also recommend “Home Burial” for its lacerating portrayal of the different styles of mourning displayed by a husband and wife after the early death of their child.

Great lines abound in these poems, ones that stick with the reader. From “The Code,” for example:

The hand that knows his business won’t be told

To do work better or faster - those two things.

Apparently, this truth has been lost on lousy managers everywhere.

Or this one from “The Housekeeper,” which tells of an illicit relationship gone bad.

I tell them they can’t get me through the door, though:

I’ve been built here like a big church organ.

I’ll end with a shorter poem, though still in blank verse, which blends the narrative form with the compact incident and thought of Frost’s previous collection.

“The Wood-Pile”

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,

I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.

No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

One foot went through. The view was all in lines

Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Too much alike to mark or name a place by

So as to say for certain I was here

Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.

A small bird flew before me. He was careful

To put a tree between us when he lighted,

And say no word to tell me who he was

Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.

He thought that I was after him for a feather—

The white one in his tail; like one who takes

Everything said as personal to himself.

One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

And then there was a pile of wood for which

I forgot him and let his little fear

Carry him off the way I might have gone,

Without so much as wishing him good-night.

He went behind it to make his last stand.

It was a cord of maple, cut and split

And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.

And not another like it could I see.

No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.

And it was older sure than this year's cutting,

Or even last year's or the year's before.

The wood was gray and the bark warping off it

And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis

Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.

What held it though on one side was a tree

Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,

These latter about to fall. I thought that only

Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks

Could so forget his handiwork on which

He spent himself, the labor of his ax,

And leave it there far from a useful fireplace

To warm the frozen swamp as best it could

With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

Whether it is the self-absorption of the bird, the twisting clematis vine, or the hard work of splitting a whole cord of wood, Frost’s language brings a picture to life. I was reminded again of the way that the best writing is often the most transparent. Frost’s language feels so simple and natural - deceptively so. However, a close reading reveals just how much thought is packed into each line, each word. The seeming clarity of his verse conceals a delicious ambiguity and complexity waiting for the reader to discover. Frost may have been an early infatuation once, but I find I never tire of reading even as I age.

The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

One of the books I added to my own shelves this year is Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. I read a few excerpts, and liked the flow of the poetry and the clarity of style.

My wife, who visits the library with the kids far more often than I do, usually picks up books from my list. Occasionally, however, she brings me something random that struck her fancy. This is one of those books.

Heaney is an Irish poet, currently in his seventies, who has been writing for the better part of the last six decades. (His name is pronounced, “SHAY-mus,” incidentally.) He has consistently insisted on being considered Irish rather than British - a distinction which appears in his writing, particularly in his numerous poems related to the Irish conflict. The Spirit Level was published in 1996, so it is one of the author’s more recent works. (Although he has published several collections since: he is certainly not slowing down.) Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature the year prior. This is thus the second Nobel Prize winning poet I have read this year.

The name for this collection comes from a simple tool, the device used to determine whether something is level. The most common form uses a liquid with a bubble, which will be centered in the tube when the tool is parallel to the ground. I have several of these in my garage, made of metal or plastic. I like these old fashioned wood ones, though, even if they are less reliable.

This collection contains poems on a wide variety of themes, mostly in traditional forms. Heaney is particularly fluent in blank verse, and the majority of the poems use iambic pentameter, rhymed or otherwise. Many of the poems that are rhymed use approximate rather than exact rhyme. The author also makes extensive use of the tercet.

This collection has both strengths and weaknesses. Heaney has a bit if a tendency (as do other moderns) to name-check other poets and writers within the community, many of whom are not always familiar to the reader. This also was a problem, for me at least, in the poems about the Irish conflicts. There were individuals and incidents that were probably familiar to Irish readers of the mid nineties, but were meaningless to this American reader. Needless to say, the lack of context diminished the impact of the poems.

On the other hand, Heaney writes beautifully about his friends, living and dead. He is able to use small incidents to great effect, creating an instant kinship with both the author and his friend.

Although there are many others, I particularly liked his tribute to his father-in-law, The Sharpening Stone, which contains this gem:

I thought of us that evening on the logs,

Flat on our backs, the pair of us, parallel,

Supported head to heel, arms straight, eyes front,

Listening to the rain drip off the trees

And saying nothing, braced to the damp bark.

What possessed us? The bare, lopped loveliness

Of those two winter trunks, the way they seemed

A causeway of short fence-posts set like rollers.

Neither of us spoke. The puddles waited.

The workers had gone home, saws fallen silent.

And next thing down we lay, babes in the wood,

Gazing up at the flood-face of the sky

Until it seemed a flood was carrying us

Out of the forest park, feet first, eyes front,

Out of November, out of middle age,

Together, out, across the Sea of Moyle.

Another great line is to be found in the tribute to another Irish poet, Hugh MacDiarmid.

At your wits’ end then, always on the go

To the beach and back, taking heady bearings

Between the horizon and the dictionary,

In many ways, this is my ideal of a life, lived by taking those heady bearings between the horizon and the dictionary. Just a great line and a marvelous word-picture.

I also liked the longer poem, Mycenae Lookout, which offers an interesting take on Aeschylus’ Agamemnon by the night watchman. The poem is in five sections, with each in a different form, from heroic couplets in the first to the stark tercets of the second, which have either three or four syllables. This second section, regarding the captive Cassandra, is a brutal melding of form and language, with a couple of face-slappingly shocking and effective uses of vulgarity. After reading the play earlier this year, I thought that Heaney’s particular musings were an excellent addition to the experience.

As I noted earlier, Heaney has a knack for the small incident. I recognized myself in a couple. In A Sofa, he describes playing “train” with his siblings similarly to how our family did. Likewise, The Flight Path includes a passage where the narrator attempts to find his own house from above as he flies over it. This is absolutely like me - I spend too much time trying to line up what I see with my mental map of wherever we are.

Two more poems stand out to me as excellent. The first is the opening poem in the collection, and probably one of Heaney’s better known works, The Rain Stick. My wife read it before she checked the book out, and decided it was worth a look for this one alone.

Up-end the stick and what happens next

Is a music that you never would have known

To listen for. In a cactus stalk

Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash

Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe

Being played by water, you shake it again lightly

And diminuendo runs through all its scales

Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes

A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,

Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;

The glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.

Up-end the stick again. What happens next

Is undiminished for having happened once,

Twice, ten, and thousand times before.

Who cares if all the music that transpires

Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?

You are like a rich man entering heaven

Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.

Also a beautiful, and instantly recognizable picture to any musician or music lover.

Perhaps my favorite was this one, entitled Mint. The approximate rhymes, internal rhymes, and the rhythm itself tend to disguise the fact that this is a truly traditional poetic form: a four line stanza rhymed ABAB. Like the above poem, this one is best read aloud, and more than one time.

It looked like a clump of small dusty nettles

Growing wild at the gable of the house

Beyond where we dumped our refuse and old bottles:

Unverdant ever, almost beneath notice.

But, to be fair, it also spelled promise

And newness in the back yard of our life

As if something callow yet tenacious

Sauntered in green alleys and grew rife.

The snip of scissor blades, the light of Sunday

Mornings when the mint was cut and loved:

My last things will be first things slipping from me.

Yet let all things go free that have survived.

Let the smells of mint go heady and defenceless

Like inmates liberated in that yard.

Like the disregarded ones we turned against

Because we’d failed them by our disregard.