I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times I've bought John Milton's Paradise Lost. It's one of those works that I always seem to misplace, and this inevitably leads me to think, God must really hate me.

But the other night, while listening to Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral and rooting through a closet, I happened across a battered copy of Milton's epic, one that, strangely enough, I didn't remember owning. But it's mine: all my favorite passages are highlighted, including, "Long is the way / And hard, that out of hell leads up to light," with a simple note in the margin: "Seven!," obviously referring to David Fincher's gruesome serial killer movie Se7en. But I was puzzled to discover, upon further inspection, that my favorite passage, from Book I, wasn't highlighted:

... Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor! One who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

I quickly rectified the situation, with an arrow and added marginalia: "To be recited at funeral."

Comments

[Citizen Reader]

Ah, how nice, you've already started to plan your own funeral. I guess that's what reading a lot of Milton does for you. My only funeral instructions? Please don't hold one. Not even Milton can make what invariably turns simply into another hellish get-together with one's relatives worthwhile.

But anyway, before I got scarily bitter, I was going to say, how funny. I just picked up "Paradise Lost" on tape. I've never read it but thought I would ease my way in by listening to it first. How do you think this will work?

[Brandon]

I've always had a hard time listening to anything on audio, but Milton would only work for me since I'm already familiar with him. Years ago, I tried to listen to the "Odyssey" on tape, and I couldn't even make it past the first book. I think any kind of poetry on audio would be an absolute nightmare--rewinding, focusing, etc. My "Odyssey" experience made me realize that. You'll have to tell me how it goes. I can't imagine it's a good introduction to Milton, but I always need to see poetry for myself when I read it.