>the you want to jump straight into classical works like Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy but you need to study tons of things to understand them
How do you do it? I read the first 3 books of Paradise lost and I really enjoyed it but a lot of the metaphors were flying right over me. I really want to get into these books, what should I do?
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Get an edition of Paradise Lost that has annotations on the same page which explain the difficulties.
Check out this site. It has a lot of annotations that will explain things
Thank you! I love Milton's use of language but sometimes I get a bit lost this website is a big help
>Start with the Greeks
>Read the Bible
It isn't a meme
This
Three years of high school Latin, a milquetoast American Protestant upbringing, and some mild annotations (Modern Library edition) were more than enough. Also, make sure you get a version with modernized spelling.
just read it through. I founf that if I was trying to understand every line I wasn't really reading the thing, Like a not seeing the wood for the trees type thing.
Once you've read it through once (and you'll probably get more than you realise), go back and look up bits you didn't get.
Ah thank you I'll do just that. I think being jet lagged also caused me some troubles while reading it haha
You don't tho
Not OP but is there something wrong with reading Milton for fun?
You and me both buddy. I bought Paradise Lost three years ago, read a few pages and gave up on it quickly. I'm mostly finished with the Greeks chart except Plato and plenty of those works are confusing the shit out of me. is the best advice IMO.
You're meant to reread these works throughout your life. Stop thinking you're meant to completely grasp a work like that on your first read through.
DO NOT TALK OF DANTE AND MILTON AS IF THEY WERE OF SIMILAR VALUE.
Alright thanks man
yeah.
Modern library is pretty good for that
Which books in the Bible besides Genesis are necessary to read in order to understand Paradise Lost?
leviticus
Yeah, Milton was so much better.
oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-220
oyc.yale.edu
Yale courses on Dante and Milton they put online.
Three reads: first, jump in, second, scream for help, third, swim. Once you do this for big ones, the rest are easier, I find. Plus I enjoy this method because I enjoy reading about authors and history, in particular the history of writing. It's not something I do for a classic I don't like in the first reading though. You really shouldn't derive pleasure merely by outside accounts unless those accounts are important to you culturally, socially such as learning to drink beer and wine. But that's not to say you can't learn to enjoy almost anything you're indoctrinated into, such as mortification of the flesh. Eating Extreme! spicy food or jumping into a thorn bush, or reading Paradise Lost. The first sips are bitter, sour, and then when the blood runs, you feel joy - adrenal gland maximised to full squirt.
>dude do all these things if you're Jewish this is the word of the lord your god lmao
There, I've saved you some time
He references the Greeks a lot. The Metamorphoses of Ovid would be enough to catch all those references. The Bible obviously. Those two would probably be enough, maybe look up Milton's cosmology first, but he explains it anyway.
>the philistine
you ruined it!
Seriously speaking though, Paradise Lost holds more theological significance and careful research than The Divine Comedy, though DC has obviously had more influence over the centuries