Paradise Lost

[Milton No.18915106]

How shall I behold the face
Henceforth of God or angel, erst with joy
And rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes
Will dazzle now this earthly with their blaze
Insufferably bright. O might I here
In solitude live savage, in some glade
Obscured, where highest woods, impenetrable
To star or sunlight, spread their umbrage broad
And brown as evening; cover me, ye pines;
Ye cedars, with innumerable boughs
Hide me, where I may never see them more.

[Anonymous No.18915168]

KWABB

[Anonymous No.18915455]

>>18915106
Is it a bad sign if I think Satan talks a lot of sense?

[Anonymous No.18915487]

>>18915455
I thought he spoke sensibly when I first read it too. Having become more studied in theology, Satan on rereads appears more babbling, or at the least, no longer cunning. He was fundamentally flawed but he said it not for his blinding pride. It is what it is. I would encourage anyone study more theology if they have a true interest in hearing it, but not if their hearts are already made deaf. Perhaps later, but not while the heart is deaf.

[Anonymous No.18915491]

>>18915487
>He saw* it not for his blinding pride
Now look at me babble

[Anonymous No.18915525]

>>18915455
Satan was also created by God, and since we're all God's creatures, even Satan will, at some level, make sense

[Anonymous No.18915538]

>>18915487
What particular theology are you speaking of? I'd say I have a pretty good understanding of it; the Catholic's, Protestant's, Calvinist's and most of the better known sects.

Of course, anyone rebelling against a tangible and assured of existence being of infinite power is stupid, yet that's not really the point. It's that, even granted the logical and intellectual impossibility of his victory, he still, through his rage, anger and humiliation, wishes to be in control of all that affects him.

Men worship success; but cunning failure is still cunning, even if damned to failure from the start.

[Anonymous No.18915582]

>>18915455
It means you're human

[Anonymous No.18915588]

^^^

[Anonymous No.18915644]

>>18915538
Augustinian specifically. You can perhaps admire his revolutionary instinct, but I came to regard his rationales in his deception as Eve as shitty. Of course, she wouldn't know better, having only known blessedness, but everything he said was a total fabrication or a perversion of the truth. They would not be as gods, as even in his rebellion Lucifer did not become himself any true god; and all-encompassing knowledge does sound as a tantalizing lure, but is it worthy for the exchange of forsaking their closeness to goodness, according now to their intimated knowledge of inclement emotion, anxious fear, previously unknown, and thus their familiarity with God, for seeking to know that which is outside of His brilliant abode, outside of which nothing good exists, by definition?

I'm not saying he's a poorly written character, he is of course masterful and cunning, but the rhetorical flourish that awed me the first time really on the second time just deflated my heart for its hindsight simplicity and transparency. Hindsight it is, however, and the true argument is that this was all necessary to attain true blessedness in man. A blessedness that is meditated on and individually discovered, because any true gift that is bestowed with such ease will often be discarded frivolously. But it still feels like a show of an older person arguing with a child.

[Anonymous No.18915658]

>>18915455
>Is it a bad sign if I think Satan talks a lot of sense?
JM was a republican

[Anonymous No.18916188]

Honestly how the fuck am I supposed to read this?

Should i read the bible first?

[Anonymous No.18916210]

>>18915455
He's supposed to be an anti-hero. He's obviously bad but every step that leads him there is logical after his initial arrogance.

[Anonymous No.18916216]

>>18916188
It won't be easy reading if you're an ESL. Most english speakers can read it readily enough, but there are some editions you can find that have modern english in the margins for some words that fell out of use.
Read study editions of Shakespeare until you can understand it well enough without the notes.

[Anonymous No.18916228]

>>18916216
This board regularly overestimates the general literacy/reading comprehension of the average anglophone.

[Anonymous No.18916236]

>>18916228
I read this in high school, anon.

[Anonymous No.18916243]

>>18916236
nigga we were reading the fault in our stars

[Anonymous No.18916261]

>>18916228
It isn't Chaucer though. Every word is still spelled the same, it's just the syntax that is to most speakers now unorthodox. But, when reading any epic poetry, they all follow by certain degrees similar flourishes, so if you're used to reading any of them (Iliad? Odyssey?) I feel like you should probably be able to read all of them. Niggas just need to believe in themselves.

[Anonymous No.18916474]

>>18915644
Attempts to mesh pure theology with direct Scriptural readings, especially in such abstract and semi-conjectural matters as the state of Eden, are difficult, and never end well, hence too Milton's difficulties over sex in Paradise. Frankly I'm not a Christian (I presume you are?), and, though I have read Augustine's main works, can't really comment earnestly on any of these matters other than as of any of the merits of a particular work of fiction.

Personally I see Satan as something of a duality—your child/adult metaphor was quite apt. For, we have Satan's finite being, as rendered through both his corporeal senses, and also his mind, each battling one another with desires and reality. The mind constantly goading the body on to continual acts of malevolence by taunting it with its finitude, its dependence and necessary supplication, on another, God, whilst still being aware of the inevitable defeat. It's a combination of the delight in destruction, and the delight in a forlorn hope; sadism and masochism, if you'll allow me. Like the child who rebels against his parents; he is aware of his necessary defeat, yet he still takes pleasure in his impotent yet defiant destruction. And so too he enjoys that he is 'acting within the bounds' so to speak. How we transfer from feigned defiance, to prove our capacity for it, to actual defiance, which shall bring on an actual rebuke. Play fighting vs real. The child doesn't overstep his mark of defiance by overrunning the red-lines set by his parents; Satan, in his opposition to the infinite, God, is always 'within the bounds', he is never actually a tangible threat to God, he is never deserving of any actual attack from God—he isn't even worth it!

Regarding Eve, I regard it merely as a more simplistic fairy tale about not erring from God. In Augustinian terms, they are tempted by the awareness of others, by the awareness of the inequalities of beings, by directly coming into contact with Satan (also I suppose the other Angels), a being intermediate between God and Man. Thus, the finite becomes aware of its imperfections in comparison to God, and, through a lapse, attempt to effectively supplant God, or at least a part of him, his judgments as corresponding to them.

[Anonymous No.18916565]

>>18915455

Isn't it Adam speaking here?

[Anonymous No.18916572]

>>18916474

What difficulties about sex in paradise are you referring to?

[Anonymous No.18916608]

>>18916572
Per Augustine Body = Bad, thus too Sex = Bad. It's the question of, 'abstinence is good, but is it SO good that we should all stop having sex and allow the human race to disappear?'

Milton decided that in paradise, where nothing bad could happen of course, that they did in fact have sex, but in a manner where, whilst all the normal pleasures that occur during sex were still there, all the effects that are negative aren't—like the inability to think or primal carnal lust, for example.

I want to live in Eden and fuck and love a cute boy desu.

[Anonymous No.18916865]

>>18916608

[Anonymous No.18916916]

>>18915106
Who cares?

[Anonymous No.18917433]

>>18915455
Yes.