with Fred Parker, Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

These lectures offer a wide-ranging introduction to the pleasures of reading Paradise Lost, a magnificent work which deeply shaped the English imagination. Milton was throughout his life a radical libertarian; he had been close to the heart of power in Cromwell’s revolution. His poem, which begins in hell, was written out of the collapse of political hope, as if to explore what ideals could survive such disillusionment. We shall discuss how this relates particularly to his representation of Satan, another defeated rebel, and the extraordinary inwardness with which Milton conveys the Devil’s condition.

But the poem is no less extraordinary for how vividly it imagines the state of paradisal bliss, embodied above all in the love between Adam and Eve. What Milton does here is unprecedented: he is committed to the religious perspective that sees their transgression as cause of ‘all our woe’, but no less committed to a humanistic affirmation of the desire for knowledge and the power of human love – which he gives as the immediate causes of the Fall. The poem’s greatness is to fully convey the tensions here without minimising either way of thinking.

Paradise Lost is extraordinary also for its poetry. No-one before Milton had imagined that unrhyming blank verse was good for much outside the theatre, or could support a narrative poem. Here as in so much else, he was revolutionary. Although the lectures will travel across the whole poem to discuss its great themes and issues, we shall also make time to look closely at specific passages, bringing out how grandly and yet how subtly the poetry works.

No prior knowledge of the poem is required. A few passages will be sent out in advance of each lecture. But if you wish to prepare more fully, the recommendation for a first-time reading would be Books 1, 4, 9, 10, and the last lines of Book 12 (607-649).

Two sessions, Saturdays 10 October and 17 October, 6.00-8.00 pm British Summer Time

Fees

Full price £86.00
CAMcard holder £80.00
Student or retired on low income £80.00

Link

Benjamin Ramm on Why You Should Re-read Paradise Lost. BBC Culture (2017).