Monday, December 1, 2008

A friend sent me this link to a review of Paradise Lost: A Prose Translation.

Call me old-fashioned, but I had the idea that MILTON HAD WRITTEN A POEM.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I almost sent you that same link! I read the review almost in horror, trying to imagine Sin and Death in big blocks of prose on a page.

It is like reading Beowulf in a prose "translation"--somehow, it is all less alive on a page.

Laura

Dawn Potter said...

I find it interesting that academics think this is a good idea; as far as I can remember, no poets were interviewed. So apparently, for Milton scholars, disseminating the poetry to the masses is less important than disseminating the plot. But the plot of Paradise Lost is dull, as are the plots of all the great epic poems I can think of. What makes them great is the writing itself.

Frankly I'd rather read the Classic Comics version. At least it has pictures.