For a modern reader, Paradise Lost is alienating, coming as it does from a different era politically & psychologically. how far do you agree?

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“for a modern reader, Paradise Lost is alienating, coming as it does from a different era politically & psychologically.” how far do you agree?

In addressing the view propounded in the title, the term “alienating” must be addressed. In this case, it means that the modern reader would find ‘Paradise Lost’ either simply inaccessible, or perhaps a work with which they might not identify with to a degree that a contemporary audience would have done. The term ‘modern reader’ also, needs clarification, and in this case it is assumed that the ‘modern reader’ is anyone who enjoys reading modern novels of what is widely considered to be a fairly high literary standard living in 2010, with no extensive knowledge regarding Milton, Classical Civilisation and Literature or the events of the English Civil War.

There is much to commend the view that this modern reader would find ‘Paradise Lost’ “alienating”. In the former interpretation of the word “alienating”, regarding a stylistic inaccessibility, the syntax and classical references which Milton employ would do much to push the modern reader away. Milton often arranges his sentences in a fashion which would be unfamiliar to the modern reader: the first line of the poem is a case in point (“Of Man’s first disobedience… Sing heavenly Muse…”). As written here, the modern reader would have little trouble understanding that Milton is invoking a muse to tell the reader about Original Sin. However, besides the fact that the relevance and effectiveness of this classical tool may well be lost on the reader, the relatively long passage of in between these structurally integral phrases mean that it becomes harder to figure out what is being said. It is impossible for the modern reader to skim-read or casually leaf through Milton’s epic; it must be read with concentration and focus in order to understand what is being said consistently. The modern reader, then, would probably find reading ‘Paradise Lost’ somewhat challenging, but certainly not impossible. Even so, the syntax would prove an obstacle to understanding which could serve to dissuade the modern reader from reading. Another factor which could alienate the modern reader is Milton’s liberal use of Classical references which, without footnotes, would almost certainly make no sense to the modern reader and, even with footnotes, fragments the reader’s enjoyment of the narrative and make reading ‘Paradise Lost’ seem more like a literary exercise than anything else. Again, the first line is an example of the obstructive nature of these lofty references to the modern reader: “that on the secret top/Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire/That shepherd”. Although this may seem a basic reference to Moses to some, an absence of footnotes may well leave the modern reader, who may not have any knowledge of Biblical trivia, clueless. The literary tools which Milton employs, then, may mean that the modern reader cannot understand ‘Paradise Lost’ at the most elementary and superficial level without huge reliance on footnotes or research, disabling a conventional reading experience and causing no small level of alienation.

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Taking the latter interpretation of “alienating” (i.e. that the modern reader would not fully relate to the goings-on in ‘Paradise Lost’ when considering the contemporary socio-political and religious backdrop against which the poem was intended to be viewed), it is again clear that there would be no shortage of estrangement from the sentiments of the poem. The parallels drawn between Satan’s almighty struggles against the tyrannical God and the events of the English Civil War, while seeming obvious once the reader is informed of them, could well escape the reader’s attention if not for the notes preceding and following the ...

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