Heaven, Hell and Paradise Lost

In the latest installment of Ig’s Bookmarked series, Simon (Binding the Ghost), editor-in-chief of Belt Magazine and a PW contributor, makes a strong case for revisiting 17th-century poet John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a retelling of the biblical fall of man. Reflecting on what the poem has meant to him, Simon finds echoes of his own thankfulness for his past struggles with alcoholism, which remind “me I’m fallen, I’m a human,” in Adam’s gratitude for his expulsion from the Garden of Eden, which opened his eyes to “humanity’s debasement.” Milton’s great achievement lies in having converted “the inert skeleton of scripture into something pulsing with feeling,” Simon contends, crediting the poet with adding a dimensionality to Adam and Eve that’s absent from Genesis. He surveys how literary critics have understood the decision of Milton, a devout Protestant, to characterize Satan as “charismatic” and even, according to Simon, “sexy,” noting that poet William Blake suggested Milton sided with “the Devil’s party” while literary critic Stanley Fish theorized that Milton wanted readers to feel drawn to Satan’s “lies, the better to demonstrate all of our fallen natures.” Simon’s love for the poem is infectious, and the conversational prose style is refreshingly unstuffy. The result is an astute and approachable appraisal of Milton’s epic. (Aug.)