Veeky Forums help me out.
I've been struggling through the first book of the poem for nearly two hours. I find it insufferably difficult. the syntax is all over the place, sometimes it's like figuring out a puzzle. I've spent 15 minutes wrestling with one fucking sentence and still can't make sense of it.
Any advice for getting through this? Am I dumb or is Milton's writing this enigmatic for others too?
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>Not for you OP
I am on my journey to Paradise lost right now and am about to finsih Aeneid.
Is it necessary to read Ovid's Metamorphoses before reading Divine Comedy or can I also jsut read that later.
>Paradife Loft
I knew the faggot was blind but I didn't know he had a lisp too.
keep trying. i read that shit as a moderately bright but autistic 24yo. if i could do it, so can you.
It is a "long s" not an "f."
Post the sentence you can't understand.
I notice that if I spend a long amount of time working through the syntax of a sentence, it will eventually make sense somehow but gosh, some of these sentences really slow me down.
Why is F an S in -18th century Engrish?
>long s
>ſukſeſ
You just need to get used to the pentameter and archaic diction. The idea is by the time you read Milton you should be familiar with atleast KJV prose and Shakespeare's blank verse. It's also good to read Homer because of all the Greek allusions. Then you can really appreciate it for what it is.
Ovid's Metamorphoses is just a record of Greco-Roman myth, I'd keep it lying around and occasionally read a story or two from it. I'm pretty sure that's where Dante picked up most of his knowledge of Greek myth
"For never since created man, / Met such imbodied force, as nam'd with these / Could merit more than that small infantry / Warr'd on by Cranes"
I mean, I understand the gist of it: the demon army is the only army to surpass the pygmy that fought the cranes. But there seems to be something off with the sentence.
The diction doesn't bother me. I read my KJV Bible daily and have no problems with it. I've read several plays by Shakespeare and loved them all. Never had any problems with him. And I've read Homer too (Lattimore transition) and loved it with no problems either.
I feel like Milton often just wrote sentences that were just syntactic clusterfucks. I don't know.
>Peter Parker
It seems pretty clear to me. The subject is "created man" who "met with such imbodied force", "never since... could merit more than that small infantry..."
That's just the poetic art. Paradise Lost is great
To be honest though it slows down midway through, don't worry to much about it, it's best to form appreciation for the aesthetics than to trudge through it on some timetable
Huh, maybe it's just stylistic, that's his appeal. Shakespeare has similar moments, but that's why it's great, you have to slow down and take it apart at times
Have you read the Bible? More specifically the KJV to have developed an ability to parse the style of language unique to the era? Because I didn't have much trouble reading it at all, it was very clear to me. That is not to say that I could catch every metaphor or reference, but that is not necessarily so important as being able to understand the syntax of the writing. Actually I might throw more weight on Divine Comedy (Longfellow tr.) for its difficult language. Basically: what experience do you have reading this kind of material? Because if it's your first, of course you're going to have a hell of a time. Anyway you remind me of this """review""". All I ask is that you don't shortchange it because of your own shortcomings.
Maybe my footnote is throwing me off. It says:
> since created man: since the creation of man
The way I interpret it is something like this: "For never since the creation of man, has any embodied force been met, as this one, that could merit more than the Pygmy people which were warred on by cranes."
It seems he leaves a lot of his syntax implied, which confuses me sometimes.
See
Well actually having perused the thread and realized it was your response to say you've read your KJV and Shakespeare, then the only thing I might (re-)recommend is that you go try and fight your way through the Divine Comedy as well. Also I had a Penguin edition of Paradife Loft that had some reference notes in the back, I only used it a couple times but I imagine it could be helpful, although not necessarily for being to grapple with the syntax.
It might be useful to know that Milton uses a lot of inverted syntax
"Created" is being used an adjective basically. The footnote is right I presume, but the subject is "man" and the verb is "merit". "Met with such imbodied force" is modifying "man". So...
For never since (the first) man, who was met with such embodied force as named with these, could (man) merit more than that small infantry.
I've read the Divine Comedy as well. And I'm actually learning Italian now to read it in the original. It's not really the subject matter which is catching me but just the syntax. Thanks for all the suggestions though.
It's because Milton loved Latin. He uses Latin syntax sometimes.
I think that makes sense. So he's comparing the pygmies fighting off the cranes to humans fighting off the demons? As opposed to what I thought, which was that Milton was comparing the demons to the pygmies (and praising the pygmies for their war effort). One comparison is brilliant, the other silly. haha
Also, implying that the demons are more successful at their war effort against humans than the cranes are against the pygmies I think. So he is still praising the pygmies, while highlighting the ferocity of the demons.
20 minutes spent on this sentence. haha
That actually makes a lot of sense. I didn't even think of that.
For never since created man
Met such imbodied force, as nam'd with these
Could merit more than that small infantry
Warr'd on by Cranes
=
Since the creation of man, whenever humans have met a force as strong as these (demons), they have never fared any better than the pygmies attacked by cranes.
imo
for never since (first) created man,*
(who were) met with such embodied force, (such) as named with these**
could merit more than that small infantry
(who were) warred on by cranes
*man used collectively
**such as named with man, meaning later man
Milton's writing is just fucking ugly.
ahaha please, user. explain.
What's there to explain? All you have to do is read it to get a feeling for Milton's unpleasing syntax and terrible ear for words. It simply isn't good poetry, and his shit characters don't help either.
>unpleasing
>shit character
Milton knew 20 languages, so it draws from a lot of sources hemetically and linguistically that its difficult/impossible for a modern reader to 'get'...you have to be happy just 'making sense' of it rather than trying to 'understand' everything intuitively
thematically*
Reading it now too. Not that difficult, but I read shakes before I got to Milton so I guess I'm used to the style.
it’s an f, spanish was like this too
Is this your first epic? Not only is the language tough, but it's also packed with references to previous ones that make understanding both easier and more pleasurable. If you haven't finished with the Greeks and Romans, as well as read the Bible in its entirety, I wouldn't recommend starting with Paradise Lost.
t. read it before starting with the Greeks or Romans
Is it paradise lost of paradife loft? no wonder the girl didn't understand me