The close reading assignment that was completed today in class was very useful! I absolutely loved it! It made the reading of Paradise Lost so much easier.I absolutely love this reading, John Milton is a brilliant writer. The fact that he verbally told this poem is amazing. According to Book I of Paradise Lost, John Milton is focusing on the fact that God gives all of us free will. We have the choice of how we want to use this free will. God already knows how the scenario will play out, but he gives us the choice to make the right decision. Also, I feel that Milton focuses on the idea that God never turns his back on us. In this poem, Satan constantly forces himself into damnation. God never told Satan he had to do this, it was Satan using his free will. The use of imagery and other literary concepts Milton uses in his work is creative. Like Dr. MB stated, you can definitely get lost in Milton's creative words and miss the meaning of the whole text.
In addition, I love how Milton starts from the very beginning with Adam, Eve, and the forbidden tree. Then he goes into how Satan chose to leave Heaven and he turns against God. Resulting back to free will, Adam and Eve had free will and used it to make a bad decision. With this being said, God makes each of them pay for their consequences. This just results back to the fact that every action that we complete has a consequence. However, in Paradise Lost Satan does not care about his consequences and asking God for forgiveness. He simply rebels against God and tries to take God's authority. Satan says "To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!" (Lines 262-263). These lines are very powerful, Satan is saying it is better to rule as a king in hell then to be a servant in Heaven.
Finally, overall I absolutely love this book although it is very difficult to read. However, with a little close reading and the Oxford Dictionary I believe I will get there! haha :)
I loved today's class too! I felt like I was able to comprehend a lot of Paradise Lost better because of the brainstorming and sharing we did in all of the groups. It was really useful to me to see the different ways Satan, God, and the Devils/Hell contribute to the story.
ReplyDeleteI'm also really loving this text! I find it to be one of the most interesting of what we've read in class so far!
I agree, yesterday's class was very rewarding! Yesterday's class discussion and close reading was by far one of my favorite class session this semester. It was such a great opportunity to see how everyone else was interpreting the different parts of Paradise Lost. Before coming to class yesterday, I wasn't so sure how I felt about the novel, and now I that I feel as though I understand more of the particulars, the remains parts are more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteAs a rule I really dislike group work, but class yesterday was definitely an exception. The ability to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of each other was, for me, very helpful and helped me to more fully engage with the text. Milton's work in interesting and thought provoking and I enjoyed the opportunity to develop deeper thoughts on "Paradise Lost."
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