Saturday, November 27, 2010

It's about four in the morning or so

well fuck it, I'm staying awake tonight to see if I can pull this insomnia at night thing into the more normal 'trouble falling asleep but doing so eventually anyway' and away from the 'I watch the sunrise and then get sleepy' category.
I am currently digesting Paradise Lost by Milton and am going to go through the epics before I return to normal reading. As I am not a Christian or Catholic I get to read this from a pure poetical standpoint and dig deep into his word and line - which are beyond measure beautiful and striking. Interesting is how words have changed meaning over the years, i.e. reeking - now it refers to something with foul and unappealing odor and when he wrote it it meant more of vaporizing or disintegrating.
While not as cool as Beethoven being deaf or Monet being nearly blind  - Milton was totally blind when he wrote all 12 books of Paradise Lost. being unable to see what needs to be worked and writing in iambic pentameter is astounding to me not to mention being able to keep the complicated narrative of Paradise Lost in mind while doing the aforementioned composition. oh, and he was also hated at that point in history by the powers that be so he did this in hiding and was jailed at some point around then as well, not for being a bad guy but for saying the wrong things about the powerful.
This is not to be taken for better perusal of his history and selected from my memory of a blurb I read somewhere - probably the preface to the tome I am reading.
I feel ashamed for waiting this long to read it and can only admit that I have skimmed the other epics (Odyssey, Iliad, Aeneid, Metamorphosis, Beowulf) some fairly heavy skimming but still. I am correcting this oversight presently.

6 comments:

  1. You are a saint to tackle such heavy literature..at 4am mind you.. I used to read quite abit, somehow through the years I have only been able to digest things in small doses (poetry, articles, etc)..
    I shall see about rectifying that come spring..my brain needs to expand..

    Enjoy your reads...

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  2. How odd is it that, without communicating it, we've both turned to the classics. I'm at mid point through the Iliad, just finished 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', and about a third of the way through 'The Three Muskateers'...

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  3. When I was gifted a Kindle recently, I discovered that most of the classics are available to download for free. I've decided I'm going to take full advantage and wade through them again. Not that I've read everything, but many of them. Paradise Lost is 99 cents.

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  4. Quite a literary undertaking. Let us know what you think... Haven't dabbled in that stuff since college.

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  5. http://jinglepoetry.blogspot.com/2010/11/poetry-potluck-nature-plants-creatures.html

    Dear poet, welcome join Jingle Poetry Monday Potluck…
    First time participants can link in 1 to 3 old poems, or poems unrelated to our theme…
    We value your contribution and cherish your talent!
    Hope to see you soon,
    xxx

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  6. Think I learned something important today. Creativity plus boundaries can equal more creativity. Thank you.

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