thistle

I am reading Paradise Lost. It's incredible. There are so many lines and ideas in it that have echoed throughout Western culture. Milton's interpretation of the Bible is the one that has stuck in the popular imagination- Lucifer as the rebellious angel banished to Hell, who tempted Eve as vengeance against God and the Messiah; the war in Heaven; the concept of "true" love being without lust. It makes me shiver about every other page because I read a line that I've read or heard so many other places, or a concept comes across that I always took as Biblical truth that it turns out was mainly Milton's conception of the Biblical truth.

I'm generally predisposed to prefer Lucifer to God and Adam, for a variety of reasons. He resembles many modern anti-heroes, and of course being a former Goth I'm not too sympathetic to the good/ heroic/ positive/ non-evil characters. However, as a modern person it's hard to sympathize with the all-perfect angels, Jesus, and God in the book. They don't make mistakes, they don't question their creator, they don't want anything but what they've got. Satan wants to know more, or at least convinces other characters that they want to know more. What was it that Eve got in exchange for Paradise? Not riches, not beauty, not pleasure- she got knowledge. How did Satan convince the other angels to rebel against God? He convinced them that they were, or might be, their own creators- that the story God had always told them might very well not be true. He is a questioner, a wonderer, an explorer.

I'm only halfway through, but so far reading the poem from the perspective of sympathy for Satan lends the whole thing an eerily modern feel.

I'm sure I'll post more about this as I read on, but here are two of the lines that have been repeating in my head since I read them.

"Farewell happy fields, where Joy forever dwells- Hail, horrors, hail."
"Abashed, the Devil stood, and felt how awful goodness was."