Lecture 4 | Satan's Remorse and Eve's Poetry (Book 4) | Paradise Lost in Slow Motion

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This lecture on Book 4 of Milton's Paradise Lost explores the following key passages:
Beginning lines: 0:55-5:00
Satan’s Great Soliloquy on Mount Niphates: 5:00-12:57
Descriptions of Paradise: 12:58-30:22
Close Reading Eve’s Love-Song: 30:23-38:39
Conclusion 38:39-39:53

[@TheNutmegStitcher]

This is a wonderful series! I'm glad the discussion group is lively and engaged. It makes a teacher's hard work rewarding.

[@closereadingpoetry]

@TheNutmegStitcher it does! I remember you applied for the live group. Could you send me an email?

[@tamaragrottker7677]

great thoughts. I had the same page all marked up. I think Satan finds it too burdensome to worship God. He also feels sorry for himself a lot and seems to ask for sympathy from the reader. It is interesting because in the previous book, you could almost believe him, but now he just seems pathetic! Also the line"...to which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n" made me think of "Fair is foul and Foul is fair." However, yes thought Eden sounds lovely, I think it seems to saccharine sweet. It so amazing it sounds impossible to have existed. Great writing! I am look forward to the next book.

[@telefraser]

I never would have thought Paradise Lost would be such a page-turner, I am enthralled. How does one apply to the live group ?

[@jamesduggan7200]

Thinking about this poem, I'm struck by the similarity between the pre-destination and foreknowledge in Christianity (and the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament) with the concept of mimesis in the Greek Pharmakon. So it shall be on Earth as it is in Heaven, that could mean we mime what we infer happens or happened in Heaven, just as we mime all things that affect us whether they come from intelligent beings or some inanimate stimulus, like sunlight or distant thunder. there seems to be some agreement that we tend to act out what's "real" in order to understand it (maybe).

[@geoffreycanie4609]

The word verse as a metaphor brings to mind the Veronese Riddle, an early example of written Italian, which plays on the idea of ploughing as a metaphor: "Se pareba boves alba pratalia araba albo versorio teneba negro semen seminaba" (He led oxen in front of him He ploughed white fields He held a white plough He sowed a black seed)

[@augustosarmentodeoliveira3023]

great job