Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Re: recommendation for an interpretation guide"

In article <cknvc4$1gd3$1@ariadne.rz.tu-clausthal.de>, Jan Biel

> My version of the book has a preface by John Leonard where he quotes Lewis's
> preface, he covers the topics "tragedy or epic?", "nakedness", "milton's
> cosmos", "milton's god" "innocence and knowledge", "allusion and
> intertextuality". Are these topics also covered by Lewis? Would you
> recommend even using secondary literature after I read Leonard's preface?
> Maybe I'll just go ahead and try reading the poem as it is. Luckily there
> are many notes so probably I can understand most of it.

Lewis discusses "tragedy" and "epic", and Milton's cosmology and
theology. The other topics sound more "postmodern" than Lewis, but it
may be that he does speak about issues for which these words are now
used.

> > Nothing, however, will substitute for the experience of you, yourself,
> > reading the poem, itself.

> That was my intent of course :)

> > One hint: read it aloud, or at least "mouth the words." The sound
> > matters, in this as in any poetry. Miltonl not adhere closely to the
> > iambing pentameter rhythm xX,xX,xX,xX,xX . His deviations from it are
> > important.

> I love doing that. In fact I'm doing it already. Although right now I have
> fairly little experience of reading English poems aloud. It seems to me that
> Milton uses 10 syllables per line. I didn't realize it was iambic though.

Iambic pentameter, with occasional extra unaccented syllables, fits
English like an old shoe. "We write such lines when we are writing
prose. We speak them, too, in casual conversation."

> Until now I was just reading it freely, without rhythm, because I didn't
> find the poem to be very rhythmic which is probably due to my lack of
> experience. Could you maybe give an example of a deviation from the iambic
> pentameter? To my mind it happens all the time, but this is again probaby a
> mistake on my part.

Here are some lines from Book VI. I have put acute accent marks(')
after the syllables that seem to me to deserve them, and slashes(/) to
mark off the "feet." [At some points, Milton replaces certain vowels
with apostrophes, meaning that they are to be left out. For example,
in the first line, he writes "pursu`d" because in his time "pursued"
could be three syllables. I represent these by grave accent marks
(`).]

Drove' them/ before'/ him Thund'/er-struck'/, pursu`d'/
With ter'/rors and'/ with fu'/ries to'/ the bounds'/
And Crys'/tal wall'/ of Heav'`n/, which op'/`ning wide',
Roll'`d in/ward, and'/ a spa'/cious Gap'/ disclos`d'/
In'to/ the waste'/ful Deep'/; the mon'/strous sight'/
Strook' them/ behind'/; head'long/ themselves'/ they threw'/
Don' from/ the verge'/ of Hrav`n'/, Etern'/al wrath'/
Burnt' af'/ter them'/ to the bot'/tomless pit'/.

Here, several lines have a trochee (Xx) instead of an iambus as the
first foot, and one has another throchee in the middle. The last line
seems to me to have four feet, of which one is a spondee (XX). The
sound effect is so vivid it is almost comic: the devils land on the
floor of Hell like a ton of bricks. (Neat trick, considering that it is
bottomless.)

> Thanks a lot!
> Janbiel

--
Chris Henrich
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.
<jan.biel@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:
> Christopher J. Henrich wrote:

> > I like _A Preface to Paradise Lost_ by C. S. Lewis. It's short, it's
> > well written, and it explains some things that a reader needs to know
> > about the poem.