Somewhat pretentiously, I decided to read some of 'The Classics' in order to inflate an already bloated ego. This was one of those classics. Now I don't doubt Milton's skill, or that some people find it fascinating, but, having been a huge fan of The Secret 7 as a boy, I'm sorry to say that the rather protracted and verbose text left me cold. Perhaps I'm simply not ready for 'The Classics' after all. ( )

I chose this for the prompt "a book on someone else's bookshelf" and the someone else is my daughter. For some reason, she picked this up last year during quarantine and became obsessed with it. She spends lots of her free time researching it, reading critical analysis of it and so she wanted me to read it so we could discuss it. Although I know I studied it at some point in school, I have to say that I didn't remember much of it. It was much more dense in its writing than I remembered and am still confused by my daughter's passion for it. Of course, the most interesting character is the devil since he is written with complexity and all the other characters are pretty one dimensional. We are meant to be taken in by him and feel sympathy for him which is quite a blasphemous approach. This is just one of the many issues that I'm sure I will be discussing and debating with my daughter until she's onto her next kick...which hopefully won't be another 500 page epic poem (as I quickly hide The Illiad and The Odyssey...maybe Beowulf is short enough to leave out - lol). I have also just read a lot books on racism, discrimination, civil rights, LGBT rights, and lots of other heavy subjects so my brain needs a few dumb thrillers now. ( )

This book is actually only 611 pages with 362 pages of notes. I didn't really bother to read the notes. Maybe another day I'll read this book again to study the whole thing over.

I really love Milton. He might just be my favorite poet. In college, I believe, I only read Paradise Lost. I might have read Paradise Regained, but I don't remember reading that one. The rest of these poems were brand new for me. Most of them I liked too.

One of the main reasons I like Milton is because he's such a good writer. Something about his poems give me light in my dark brain. I can see why William Blake liked him so much. I also like Milton because who he was as a person, but this is his poems, not his non-fiction, which I have to read at some point.

If you never read Milton before, I recommended him. He's not really for everyone. Depends if you like old poets and don't mind pro-religious writers. His words are truly beautiful. ( )

Poor

Takes guts and ingenuity to make god be the bad guy and crazed tyrant and satan the hero. ( )