Should Paradise Lost be considered a failure?

Should Paradise Lost be considered a failure?

It's a great poem, undoubtedly, and one of the finest works in the English language. But at the very beginning, Milton claims that his goal in writing it is to "justify the ways of God to man." Yet less than 200 years after it was written, you had guys like Blake and Shelley claiming that Satan is the real hero and that God is the villain, a wicked tyrant. If those sorts of conclusions can be drawn from the poem, it seems to me that it's failed in its purpose. And at any rate, given the religious aftermath of Milton's time, it's clear that he was unable to justify God's ways to the people of England.

Why should a failure from the reader be considered a failure of the work?

No. While maybe not a success at his stated purpose, it's still a classic and for a good reason. Have you read it? I dislike arguing with Shelley but he's wrong in this case.

>God is good. Educated, well-adjusted adults can only arrive at this conclusion, I am right---

Spotted the idiot.

Why would brainlets misinterpreting a work cast a shadow over its worthiness. You write for yourself and your equals, you don’t write down, to the common man.

You shouldn't necessarily consider the poet in the opening who calls upon the muse to help "justify the ways of God to man" to be the same person as Milton. The poet is a narrative device of the epic just like the muse is, and should not necessarily confused with the author. Anyway, there is a justification given in the novel of the fall of mankind, the line goes something like, "man is free to fall, though sufficient to have stood". Whether or not you agree with this justification is not necessarily reflective of the work, although I myself find the justification unsatisfying.

The justification is a convention of the Epic. You don't have to take it seriously, Milton probably did and didn't.
>he thinks Blake was a satanist
He is everything that proddies and antiproddies (satanists) hate and almost wrote Nietzsche's entire oeuvre before Nietzsche -- especially his later works. I'd thank you not to shit on /our boy/. Not to mention, he is an unparalleled artist.

Got a copy of his Complete Illuminated Books. I have no drive in life, user – where do I start?

From the start?

In 1667 I'm absolutely sure that it would have justified to virtually everyone who read it the 'ways of god to man'. In the last 100-150 years maybe not but that's only because our overall cultural zeitgeist has changed since 1667. It will undoubtedly change again, and who knows, maybe it will change to a state where the average person who reads Paradise Lost will consider it to have justified the ways of god to man.

However as with any work as transcendent and as epic as Paradise Lost there are many ways to judge it and interpret it. Justifying the ways of god to man is merely one way that it can be judged. I would say that in virtually every other way someone could judge it as a piece of poetry it is damn near flawless.

So my answer is yes, it COULD be considered a failure, but only in relation to one single way of judging the work and only (so far at least due to the nature of the present) temporarily.

He might have failed but who cares about him the works should stand on their own

>Got a copy of his Complete Illuminated Books. I have no drive in life
welcome to the club friend

>being this much of a retard

Not even worth a decent reply.

There is no meaningful sense in which the god of Abraham can be legitimately defended as being good. And if, as the OP says, So-and-So writing 400-ish years ago wrote a piece of fan-fiction with such-and-such an aim (to defend that god), and its result was only to later Whosit and Whathisface to reject the goodness of god's role in the work, then W&W have been helped by way of this fiction, to see the larger picture aright. Nor is it any sort of defense to point to the private, weird-as-it-might-be religious feelings of W&W.

>When Milton writes
>>‘Him who disobeys me disobeys’
>he is, quite simply, doing wrong to his mother tongue. He meant
>>Who disobeys him, disobeys me.
>It is perfectly easy to understand WHY he did it, but his reasons prove that Shakespeare and several dozen other men were better poets. Milton did it because he was chock a block with Latin. He had studied his English not as a living language, but as something subject to theories.
>>Who disobeys him, disobeys me,
>doesn’t make good verse. The sound is better where the idiom is bad. When the writing is masterly one does NOT have to excuse it or to hunt up the reason for perpetrating the flaw.
>...
>Shakespeare was greatly indifferent. He was fanciful. He was a technical master. The gross and utter stupidity and obtuseness of Milton was never more apparent than in his supercilious reference to ‘Woodnotes wild’.

This desu

>applying human morals and definitions of goodness to a deity

>made in God's image
>don't have a God given sense of morality

>legitimately
By who's (legal) standard, and who prosecutes?
Blake somewhere lists Christ's 'violations' of many if not all ten commandments in his final days leading up to crucifixion. Bearing false witness against himself, bearing a sword (all the future murder), etc. The implication clearly is not that he is 'bad,' but that he is God.
The commandments are for men, and a standard for mortal goodness, but they do not apply to God who quite literally (or do -you- presume to try a spook?) is above the law. Your assertions are not only vain but hackneyed through the ages, this one in particular.

If God is so arrogant as to hold himself above his own commandments, I see no reason to follow him.

Yes! YES! One more free spirit! I've always had a warm spot reserved for you, buddy.

What's funny is how no one is going to remember this guy's stupid post here yet Paradise Lost will always be central to the Anglo canon so long as the West exist.

It's not a mere coincidence that the Anglo canon is mostly ecclesiastical. Shakespeare himself surely would have had overtly Biblical subjects in his theater had Biblical scenes not been banned from the stage.

God said to himself "If I am so arrogant as to hold myself above my own commandments, I see no reason to follow me" then he...

Go read Prometheus Bound

>Prometheus Bound
I'm the devil merchant poster. I haven't read Aeschylus in nearly ten years. Let's check good old wiki:

>The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who defies the gods and gives fire to mankind, acts for which he is subjected to perpetual punishment.

Oh, yeah, that one. A bit like the story of the Garden of Eden (the tree of wisdom).

Anyway, OP is going to hell unless he repents. Just be sure to repent sooner than later because deathbed conversions are rarer than one might believe i.e. the famous expression "he died as he lived."

We could say his goal was a failure while the poem was a success.

Reminds me a bit of the Death Wish books. They were intended to portray vigilantism negatively. But the people loved it and it become the prototype for the guys like the Punisher.

You're making the case for God worst dude. If he's not someone we can relate to, if he's downright INHUMAN than how could anyone, even the stupid or insane, not side against? You'd have to be a traitor of the highest order to allign yourself against him. Satan comes off as a hero even more.

Isn't Promoetheus the good guy? Unless you think that we were better off living in caves without fire and being mauled by bears.

He's the good guy according to the narrative, indeed, but I don't think the two stories deserve comparison as that guy suggested. They both disobey divine commands but what results from their disobedience is totally different. Humanity's struggle is not Promethean. Some endeavors are Promethean, but it is not the human condition. The Garden of Eden attempts (and in my opinion succeeds) to describe the human condition if we interpret it by the doctrine of original sin.

As a side note, I once listened to a Jewish rabbi describe how the notion of "fall from grace" is heretical to what they believe when interpreting that story. They believe that it's a story about maturity and how we lose our innocence after we figuratively eat the apple and now have to take responsibility for our actions. It's a reasonable interpretation, but I don't agree with it as a Christian.

Arrogance, Pride, etc. are facets of being human (=made in the image of God, recall) of which [all] of (((us))) are familiar, and contemptible when DISPLAYED by a fellow human being PRECISELY because they are reserved for deity. The Greek 'know thyself' meant principally KNOW THAT YOU ARE NO GOD. Some attitudes suit them, what we call 'arrogance', for instance, which we loathe as an aspect of behavior because (our) experience is confined to those persons who think themselves deific, but are not. Ad hominem looks silly when leveled at deity. It presumes a false equivalence.

I might be slightly jewish.

>As a side note, I once listened to a Jewish rabbi describe how the notion of "fall from grace" is heretical to what they believe when interpreting that story. They believe that it's a story about maturity and how we lose our innocence after we figuratively eat the apple and now have to take responsibility for our actions. It's a reasonable interpretation, but I don't agree with it as a Christian.

The notion if sin in Judaism especially old Judaism is totally different from in Christianity. The concept that you can be born with sin or that sin is eternal doesn't even make sense from a Jewish perspective. Sin is basically unbefitting acts and it goes away naturally over time or through doing good acts.

The Christian concept of sin is really a look at the psychology of one man, Paul. Who was guilt-ridden and hopeless. People that believe it inherit his thinking. And that's really why sin is so different.

>The Greek 'know thyself' meant principally KNOW THAT YOU ARE NO GOD

What about the Greeks that were Gods?

Arrogance and Pride are VIRTUOUS in any manly society. Herclus and Beowulf were not humble.

>Achilles, Odysseus, and Herakles were all prideful and arrogant
>greatest Greek heroes
>in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics he states that pride is a good thing as long as you are not overly prideful
Stop projecting your cuckold ideology onto superior societies.

True. But only if one REALLY has the wherewithal to back it up. Also note that these societies were fundamentally religious, or oriented toward God or the gods.

Your middle example's false, actually. Odysseus was pious, often secretly so, because he knew with whom he dealt: murderous thugs. Examples one and three met horrendous ends.

The Greek religion and Gods are as far removed from the Christian Gods as you can get. That's why the two cultures were so fucking hostile to each other.

In the Greek religion YOU sacrifice to the Gods because you're supposed to be strong, Gods will fuck with you and take pleasure in your suffering. You're supposed to enjoy this shit because you're tough.

In the Christian religion God sacrifices to you and wants to releive you of your suffering because your a pussy.

The crucifixion is another good example. In the classical religion to be crufied means you are rejected by the Gods. While in the Christian religion martyrdom is seen as the ultimate way to get close to God.

Satan is far closer to the Greek ideal than Jesus.

Pardon? You sacrifice to the Gods to win their favor, OR to thank them for 'your' successes, a good crop, the birth of a child. In other words, youre absolutely wrong. That Christ completely perverted this ideal, literally turned it upside down, initiated nothing new EXCEPT humility, as well as the gathering up of all gods into a single unit to suit the initially Jewish ideal. Nonetheless Pagan luck and Christian faith are far closer than (you) make out, i.e. on the human scale.

>as well as the gathering up of all gods into a single unit to suit the initially Jewish ideal

This sounds more like Hellenistic Judaism where all the Greek gods are real but they are angels or aspects of The One. Christians certainly did not gather up all the Gods, they just picked one and declared the rest don't exist.

>You sacrifice to the Gods to win their favor, OR to thank them for 'your' successes, a good crop, the birth of a child

My point is in the Pagan religions you sacrifice because you have power. You are quit literally giving up something, maybe a cow for instance. It's a sign of your power that you have excess to give. Wealthy people would often compete over who could give the biggest sacrifice, sort of like what the Jewish bad guys did in that one New Testament fable.

Contrast with the Christians who proclaim themself powerless and need God to sacrifice TO THEM.

t. Nietzsche fag

>this sounds more like
I was considering Paul among the Athenians at a shrine dedicated to the unknown God. This is the one we worship, he said-- and that's the 'gathering together' because what gods outside of myth are really known?
Greek sacrifice was much like Jewish sacrifice because the edible parts were ALWAYS reserved and eaten. By the priests or Levites amongst the Jews, the people at large (at the festivals) among the Greeks. If (you) require more on this cf. Walter Burkert's Greek religion.
Point is among the Greeks of heroic times and long afterwards sacrifice is clearly an expression of piety, not of 'self reliance.' To neglect it before travel, a voyage, war or whatever was ALWAYS viewed as the first ingredient in the recipe for disaster.

I think you're analyzing from how the Greeks themself expressed it and I'm analyzing it from a psychological point of view.

Say let's say it's about piety. There are a thousand ways that a culture could choose to express piety towards their God. So what is chosen reflects a certain thing in their psychology.

To a Christian sacrificing to their God would be blashemous because the founders of the religion have a very different psychology than the Jews are Greeks who saw sacrifice as a key element of piety.

Bamps

>christcucks actually take pleasure in mindless subordination
You can't make this shit up

I have never heard that protestants hate Blake outside of Veeky Forums. He is spoken about very favorably among the protestants where I live, myself being one of them.

How is the garden of Eden not portraying a promethean struggle?

t. Hasn't read nietzsche

Milton making Satan seem so appealing in the first two books is completely intentional. Of course Satan is appealing, it's Satan. Just because the romantics ignored the next eight books in which Milton picks apart all of Satan's purported heroic traits doesn't mean Milton didn't do what he set out to.

But the key is that a preemptive sacrifice to. Pagan gods naturally is a reference to the power of whoever is doing the sacrificing, and the sacrifice is a mutualistic exchange which is compatible with the pride of being sacrificer

>mindless subordination
As opposed to what? Mindlessness in general? The great organizational principle (read hierarchy) that established Western and much of Eastern Europe inclusive of the University system, inclusive of fucking 'science' itself, is now unravelled. Let's now pretend that our inheritances were secured by other means, etc. Bullshit like this CAN be made up, and continues on ad vacuum.

Subordination is part of hierarchy. And there's two positions in a hierarchy. The people ontop and the people who are subordinate. Guess what position your religion is grooming you to be?

LOL your religion even calls it's followers 'sheep' and talks about how you need a Shepard. Fucking slaves lol.

Sure. Skip the point. Another metaphor: the persons on the inside, those on the outside. Over time the positions have flip-flopped. What does your focus on the sheep milling about the perimeters of 'all that's going on' say about (you)? Why do (you) even care? Fear a sudden power resurge of mighty sheep come to swipe the vacuity (you) drift about in? Eh, no thank (you).

>the persons on the inside, those on the outside. Over time the positions have flip-flopped

What's this even supposed to mean?

>on sheep
The point of making fun of them is it reinforces both their position and the opposite. Christians in some way enjoy being made for fun being slaves (the more authentic the Christian the more so). You've got plenty of New Testament passages saying when you are mocked it means you are blessed. The more hardcore Christians even enjoyed being physically beaten because it meant they were matyrs. On the other end of the spectrum the self-willed people reinforce their identity by making fun of their opposites and affirm that their their path IS stronger because they are the one's doing all the mean stuff. It really is a perfect union.

So both sides get exactly what they want when you insult the Christians pathetic, effeminate religion...except for the people who merely were the religion as some sort of badge and don't buy into any of that 'blessed are the meek stuff'. Those one's don't like it, and I think they are the majority of Christians, especially on Veeky Forums.

Mindlessness is generally firmly in the ballpark of the believers, what with the mysterious ways, (leaps of) faith and holy mysteries.
And I don't know what you're even talking about, I was talking about mindless subordination to God. Hierarchy is immoral I'd you're a Christian, since you only have one master, and that's God. :^)

>what does this even mean?
I'll reference the divine right of kings, then stop. Do (you) *really* require any further illustration of what I mean?
Otherwise, youre right. Christianity *worn mindlessly* as a badge is contemptible, or even as a means of uniting 'right-minded' people for political purposes.
So far as making fun of them is concerned that's more your business than mine. But a biblical justification for your own behavior is more than a little ludicrous.

>mindlessness in the ballpark
Actually it's all mental although never perfectly thought. Faith isn't necessarily 'belief' in some typical way, nor is it ever capitulation. Working it out isn't easy; in fact, it never ends. Perhaps that's why it's still around. Even atheists display an abiding intetest.

There are so many pagans and crypto-papists on Veeky Forums that spend all day on character assassinations of protestants. Ignore papists and focus on literature. There is simply no way to have a constructive conversation with these people. And even if you try to keep things secular they will find a way to virtue signal their papist ideology.

/thread

Okay, Anglos (Gott strafe es), which edition of this do I buy?

>There is no meaningful sense in which the god of Abraham can be legitimately defended as being good

>all this enlightenment in one thread

fpbp as usual

How can a want of character be assassinated? What your smug bigotry 'signals' is ignorance.