/lit/ - Literature

wtf did I just read?

>>22320921
Paradise Lost

>>22320932
Sure, but I didn't expect to be reading an exhortation to war by Moloch lmao.

>>22320944
why not?

Using the opportunity, what does "a mind not to be changed by place or time" mean is Lucifer's speech? The rest I can understand without much effort, but for some reason I can't decipher how that particular piece fit in with the rest. Isn't it good and virtuous to not be broken by hardships or seduced by pleasures? Isn't it virtuous to follow the same moral code regardless of circumstances?

>>22321233
>what does "a mind not to be changed by place or time" mean is Lucifer's speech?
It means a resolute mind can make a good situation out of a bad one.

I don't get it, it lost against whom? versus the hell?

>>22321363
Not against, but by.
Paradise Lost by mankind.

I am a little disappointed that Milton didn't do a third work about Revelations.

>>22321404
John himself already did one hell of a job desu.

Paradise Lost

>>22321415
John Milton did not do anything with Revelations.

>>22321423
I'm talking about John the apostle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bx72IV85g

>>22321415
>>22321423
>>22321430
kek

>>22320919
Much has been said about Paradise Lost, but what about Paradise Found?

>>22320921
Paradife Loft

>>22320919
>Satan invents the first cannon
>This is described as the most fiendish invention ever
Damn, what would Milton make of nukes and A.I.? Technology is so much more devastating now.

>>22321233
To expand to this,
> a mind not to be changed by place or time
can have either a positive or a negative conotation, in the negative, we can have things like pride (one of the seven deadly sins), stubornness, inflexibility, and so many synonyms for unchanging even in the face of circumstances where they should be changed. In a positive conotation, it can mean faith and/or humility (one of the seven holy virtues), resolution, steadfastness, "a mission", and so on, all characteristic of Christ.
Ye, Milton was a genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYsi7bpJak

>>22320919
I won't spoil it completely for those who haven't read but the way the climactic moment plays out is worthy of Shakespeare as a dramatic turn, and the way it reflects and plays into other dynamics - just really, really sublime. Milton's prosody is also wonderful once you get used to the eccentricities of his language.

>>22322868
Book 9 really is the best book, even though people usually talk about books 1-4 (which are also great don't get me wrong).

Is Milton secretly a Luciferian? He made God look like a complete power-tripping tard.

>>22322964
Milton seduces us with Satan's false-heroism as a way of showing us how easy it is to do so. He's warning us against Satan's seductions.

>>22322424
That one is more about Christ and has a patristic voice to it. Even though those parts are nice in Paradise Lost, critically people were more fascinated with the creative force of Milton's Lucifer.
>>22321233
Image on the left isn't what Lucifer is in PL. If you analyze the logical inconsistencies and direct references to heresies (well documented in editions with footnotes), it's pretty clear that Lucifer is not simply misunderstood or the good guy. He is jealous of God's authority and wants to LARP that he can defeat God at all costs. He has either completely deluded himself in his quest to spite God or he is trying to gather more followers who will spite God with him. He tells himself lies about God's nature that were already demonstrated to him. If anything Milton shows the breathtaking extent to which Lucifer hated God. It's true that Milton had some idiosyncratic views regarding salvation and Christianity, but I don't think he was idolizing Lucifer.

>>22321309
I think that “a mind not to be changed by place or time” has to do with God being unchanging. As a particular, it’s an impossible goal.

>>22323264
>As a particular, it’s an impossible goal.
pic related desu
>demon generals: SATAN WE GOT OUR SHIT PUSHED IN! WTF?! GOD IS TOO POWERFUL!
>Satan: not great, not terrible

>>22320919
I just can't read poetry, now if there was a prose edition...

>>22323429
Is it the verse or meter that screws with you? Because this rhymes not.

>>22322964
Given what he had to work with in the source material, you can't really blame him.

>>22323503
Meter

>>22323517
I don't understand how someone can hate meter. What don't you like about it? Does the structure feel too binding?

>>22323902
tbf Milton's meter is weird

>>22321233
Friendly reminder that God wanted Adam and Eve to be unthinking automatons with no knowledge of Good and Evil until Lucifer gave them the great gift of breaking God's control over them as perpetual children and granting them Free Will instead.

>>22322746
>in the negative, we can have things like pride (one of the seven deadly sins), stubornness, inflexibility, and so many synonyms for unchanging even in the face of circumstances where they should be changed.
like satan in the garden realizing he still feels like shit even though he's no longer in hell

>>22324617
Free will existed before the Fall. How else were Adam and Eve able to make a decision against God?

>>22323429
It reads almost like highly ornate prose. It's blank verse: un-rhymed Iambic pentameter. Easier to follow thank Shakespeare for the most part, but Milton does have a unique syntax.

>>22324642
NTA but if they had free will before eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, then what’s the point: If you can’t morally evaluate your decisions, but have “free” will, it’s essentially random will—they had no way to see why they should or shouldn’t disobey God.

This is simply false. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a 'test' by God to see if Adam and Eve are worthy of the tree of life. In the Christian tradition there is a belief that God would have given Adam and Eve the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil if they passed the test. The problem was in the disobeying God and for that there must have been free will involved.

>slavishly aping latin forms
>poem doesn't every rhyme

No thanks.

>>22325727
This seems to me a sensible counterpoint and its a problem with which many Christian thinkers have faced. Maximus the Confessor talks about how prelapserian man possessed two wills: first a natural will and a gnomic will, and it's the latter - a faculty of spontaneous decision making, that was the cause of the fall into temptation and the fall.

>>22322964
No because Satan in Paradise Lost is pathetic. He can't be content with what God gave him so he demands more and gets his ass blown out due to that. Instead of doing the smart thing and just apologizing to God and getting to go back to heaven instead he bitterly fucks over humanity just to spite God some more.

>>22324642
>How else were Adam and Eve able to make a decision against God?
How were they supposed to be able to make a decision when they lacked the knowledge of Good and Evil? Also, if they lacked that knowledge, how were they supposed to know disobeying God was Evil? The whole story literally breaks down on even the most cursory examination, it's really laughable how people try to bend themselves into all kinds of shapes to interpret away the literal meaning of the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. In short, if a person does not have this knowledge, they can't weigh decisions in a moral sense. By the way, this also shows that the Old Testament God is unjust, since it's nonsensical to punish a person who does not have the capacity for moral reasoning.

>>22325760
If God is all powerful and all knowing, what need does he have for tests? He made Adam and Eve, their every action and decision are rooted in how God made them, even more so prior to having the knowledge of Good and Evil for themselves.

>>22325842
Because without the possibility of a fall they wouldn't be in the likeness of God. Before the creation of man, God created the monsters under the sea. (Genesis 1.21) In the tradition there is an implication that these are the leviathan and other demons. But good said that they are good as long as they are in their proper place in the hierarchy of being. If Adam and Eve cant stoop to such a level they cant be completly deified, so they must have a possibility of turning away from God. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a 'protecting veil' - a test. If they had passed the test they would enjoy both trees - of life and of good and evil, but because they failed, they were plunged un division and seperation from God.

Why does this story make people like satan so much?

>…Thither he plies
>Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power
>Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss
>Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
>Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
>Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
>Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
>Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned
>Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
>The consort of his reign; and by them stood
>Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
>Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,
>And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,
>And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

>>22325889
Great routine in mental gymnastics. Doesn't change the fact that their decision is rooted in how they were made, thus God made them sick (with a tendency that could be exploited by The Snake) and then allowed The Snake to influence them, then punished them for a fault that God made in them and a situation he directly orchestrated. All of this, again, BEFORE they had knowledge of Good and Evil. In short, if God is the author of everything, He has full responsibility for everything that happens. You can't weasel out of this.

>>22321430
Ah more jewish delusions. kek
>2 more millenia

>>22320919
so is this just bible fanfiction?

>>22328114
Yeah, but it’s really good fanfiction.