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    05/08/2024
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    Paradis Perdu

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    Chapter: 19 | Listen:

    Comme Virgile a développé l’épopée à célébrer l’origine de sa propre patrie, Milton l’a adaptée encore plus pour raconter l’origine du mal et le remède à la chute de l’homme; c’est ce sujet qu’il appelle “des choses qui n’ont encore été tentées ni en prose ni en vers.” L’auteur continue à combiner l’innovation et la tradition quand il débute le premier livre “in medias res” avec la visite au monde infernal (cf. Odyssée livre 11, l’Enéide livre 6), car la malice de Satan est le principe déterminant de l’action négative. Mais au centre du poème se trouve le triomphe du Fils de Dieu sur les anges rebelles, ce qui neutralise le projet nocif de Satan. Ce dessein de la conquête du mal par le bien se présage dans les deux conseils d’état: En enfer Satan s’engage à trouver et ruiner la nouvelle création lorsqu’au ciel le Fils s’offre comme sacrifice pour sauver l’homme avant que Satan ne l’ait corrompu. Après ces préliminaires, nous voyons Eden et “nos premiers parents.” Satan, découvert en train de les épier, est expulsé du jardin. Puis Dieu charge un ange d’expliquer à Adam et Ève l’histoire de la guerre au ciel, où a commencé le danger imminent. À la demande d’Adam, l’ange raconte la création du monde visible et surtout le développement naturel: Toute croissance se déroule de l’assimilation de la nourriture; le mangeur épure la pâture, non pas vice versa. Cependant, Satan, qui rentre dans le paradis sous forme de serpent, apprend à Ève […]

    04/08/2024
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    Paradise Lost (version 2)

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    Chapter: 13 | Listen: 3

    As Vergil had surpassed Homer by adapting the epic form to celebrate the origin of the author’s nation, Milton developed it yet further to recount the origin of the human race itself and, in particular, the origin of and the remedy for evil; this is what he refers to as “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.” After a statement of its purpose, the poem plunges, like its epic predecessors, into the midst of the action, shockingly bringing to the front the traditional visit to the underworld, for Satan’s malice is the mainspring of the negative action. But at the center of the poem lies the triumph by the Son of God over the angelic rebels, which counteracts Satan’s evil design. To preview this pattern, the fallen angels’ council in hell is counterbalanced by a council in heaven, in which the Son offers himself as a scapegoat for mankind long before the original sin has been committed. With this background, the narrator introduces us to Eden and our “Grand Parents.” Satan is detected spying on them and is expelled from the garden, after which God sends an angel to tutor Adam and Eve in the history of the heavenly war that has led to the present situation. At Adam’s request, the heavenly guest then recounts the creation of the visible world, explaining also the proper nature of development, whereby all things proceed from lower to higher by refining that which nourishes them. Satan, however, returning in the form of a […]

    04/08/2024
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    Adam and Eve

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    Chapter: 15 | Listen: 4

    LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Adam and Eve (From “Paradise Lost,” Fourth Book) by John Milton. This was the Weekly Poetry project for Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 (though written nearly ten years earlier) in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil’s Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification; most of the poem was written while Milton was blind, and was transcribed for him. Milton first presents Adam and Eve in Book IV with impartiality. The relationship between Adam and Eve is one of “mutual dependence, not a relation of domination or hierarchy.” While the author does place Adam above Eve in regard to his intellectual knowledge, and in turn his relation to God, he also grants Eve the benefit of knowledge through experience. ( Summary from Wikipedia)     [chương_files]  

    03/08/2024
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    Paradise Regained

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    Chapter: 4 | Listen: 1

    Paradise Regained is a poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes. Based on the Gospel of Luke’s version of the Temptation of Christ, Paradise Regained is more thoughtful in writing style, and thrives upon the imagery of Jesus’ perfection in contrast to the shame of Satan. (Summary from Wikipedia) The Librivox recording of Paradise Lost can be found here.     [chương_files]  

    03/08/2024
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    Paradise Lost

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    Chapter: 20 | Listen: 2

    Paradise Lost is the first epic of English literature written in the classical style. John Milton saw himself as the intellectual heir of Homer, Virgil, and Dante, and sought to create a work of art which fully represented the most basic tenets of the Protestant faith. His work, which was dictated from memory and transcribed by his daughter, remains as one of the most powerful English poems. (Summary by Caeristhiona) This is a recording of the text of Milton’s first edition of 1667, which had ten books, unlike the second edition (1674) which was redivided into twelve books in the manner of Virgil’s Aeneid. See Wikipedia entry.     [chương_files]  

    18/07/2024
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    Areopagitica

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    Chapter: 7 | Listen: 2

    A prose tract or polemic by John Milton, published November 23, 1644, at the height of the English Civil War… Milton, though a supporter of the Parliament, argued forcefully against the Licensing Order of 1643, noting that such censorship had never been a part of classical Greek and Roman society. The tract is full of biblical and classical references which Milton uses to strengthen his argument. The issue was personal for Milton as he had suffered censorship himself in his efforts to publish several tracts defending divorce (a radical stance at the time and one which met with no favor from the censors)… Areopagitica is among history’s most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to free speech.     [chương_files]  

    10/06/2024
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    Areopagitica (Version 2)

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    Chapter: 5 | Listen: 4

    The noblest and most extensive defense of freedom of the press in English. Although Milton was sufficiently practical to serve as a censor of books himself when his opposition to this practice was ignored by the government, he never lost his conviction that the best way to battle falsehood was to let it have its say and be defeated by the superior power of truth. Strangling infants in the cradle was simply not his style. In this long essay, in the form of a five-part Classical oration addressed to Parliament (the counterpart of the Areopagus or council of elders in ancient Athens), he brings to bear on this subject a wide variety of arguments, including antique precedents, philosophical and religious considerations, and his own experience as a published author. The document presents the portrait of the idealistic core of the British republic struggling against the political expediency that upholds the government. (Summary by Thomas Copeland)     [chương_files]