John Milton, part 7: Adam, Eve and partnership | Jessica Martin
Milton's view of marriage as partnership gives Eve a prominence that works against the misogyny of the tradition he usesWe first see Adam and Eve through Satan's eyes. He is sitting "like a Cormorant" (IV.196) in the branches of the highest tree in Ede...
John Milton, part 6: of course the poet can’t justify God | Jessica Martin
Milton can't turn God into a character. But he can show Adam and Eve encountering God through love and sacrificeAdam and Eve stand together in Eden before the Fall. Twilight is coming on, and Eve is surprised by it. She turns to her husband and she say...
John Milton, part 5: the devil’s best lines | Jessica Martin
Satan is the great salesman of Paradise Lost, who can talk his way past everyone – except himselfSatan is the first figure to speak in Paradise Lost. His address (to his second-in-command Beelzebub) is the kind of thing a politician has to say to his...
John Milton, part 4: the language of a universal hubbub wild | Jessica Martin
Epic poetry can do special effects on an unlimited scale, and Milton takes full advantage of this freedom in Paradise LostReading Milton is a breathless, cumulative experience, a wild ride, a long but always rich haul. His genius is immersive – immen...
Will Hollywood’s Paradise Lost lead us out of financial hell? | Randeep Ramesh
Will the movie version of Paradise Lost offer up the same parallel of our times as John Milton's poem?Brilliant art anticipates the shape of things to come in a manner that embarrasses the predictariat of historians, politicians and journalists. Whethe...
John Milton, part 3: does Paradise Lost really attempt to justify God’s ways? | Jessica Martin
Milton allows his story to carry him, like Orpheus, down into hell: blind in this world, he prays to see clearly thereWithin 30 lines of his opening, Milton states the boldest possible intention: he plans to "justifie the ways of God to men". So it is ...
John Milton, part 3: does Paradise Lost really attempt to justify God’s ways? | Jessica Martin
Milton allows his story to carry him, like Orpheus, down into hell: blind in this world, he prays to see clearly thereWithin 30 lines of his opening, Milton states the boldest possible intention: he plans to "justifie the ways of God to men". So it is ...
The science of poetry, the poetry of science
Both depend on metaphor, which is as crucial to scientific discovery as it is to lyric"Poetry is about feeling, science is about facts. They're nothing to do with each other!" The A-level students in a school I visited last week were passionate on this...
Milton, part 1: a puzzling epic of heaven and hell | Jessica Martin
Jessica Martin starts a new series on John Milton's epic Christian poem, Paradise LostJohn Milton's Christian epic – or at any rate most of it – came out in 1667. Extremely ambitious in design and scope (yet a slimmish fast read compared with some ...
New Paradise Lost film needs more art house and less Hangover
Alex Proyas's adaptation of Milton's epic poem will no doubt make for a fun CGI blockbuster, but casting Bradley Cooper as Satan would make the poet turn in his graveAlex Proyas is a mercurial director, responsible both for the stylishly gothic comic b...
Seven Angels: Kyoto beef to the rescue
When poet Glyn Maxwell was asked to turn Paradise Lost into an opera, he didn't think it could be done. Then he remembered a lavish banquet thrown for the G8 world leaders …Three years ago, I was working on my libretto for The Lion's Face, an opera a...
John Milton, part 8: Adam and Eve find in loss a new paradise glimpsed