Anyone read Paradise Lost? I finally got around to reading it and wasn't really impressed.

Milton took basic ideas from the bible and basically added conversations and textual details to it. I know a lot of it's fabricated but it doesn't seem like he really created anything too amazing...at least, not worthy of the "aura" that seems to go with this book.

I mean, I finished it and just kinda said "Okay..." through most of it. I'm not saying it was boring, it just wasn't anything great. It felt kind of like reading Grendel, the story some guy (forgot the name) wrote about the monster in Beowulf. He took and idea that was already established and just made some filler details for it. From a reading perspective it isn't bad, but it's like watching a spinoff show of a popular TV series, ya know?

Anyone else feel this way?

It's probably not the same book, but the book I'm thinking of is called "From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained" It was a children's religious book that gave kids nightmares about Armageddon. Check it out:

http://quotes.watchtower.ca/scans/1958_paradise_lost_208-209_large.jpg

Yeah...I don't think so.

I personally loved Milton's Paradise Lost. You are evaluating the epic poem from a far too contemporary standpoint, what Milton did in describing his protagonist, Satan, was to imbue a storyline that did not cast him as all that was evil but to give him a more human side if you will. Before there were true existentialist thinkers, Milton wrote the books with strong existentialist undertones that clashed with the dogma of moral absolutism; this, by itself, is a fascinating critique of religion and the constructs of faith. Milton's epic was ground-breaking and stirred considerable controversy upon publication. Additionally, I recommend you pay deeper attention to the lines, Milton's work has countless deeper allusions and intertextual references that, if caught, make the book substantially deeper. I think you only read the book at a superficial level.

-MV

I remember reading it in high school and not being too impressed with it. But I will admit my taste in literature back then was not very broad. Good literature to me were the lyrics of Neil Peart on Rush's concept albums...

"Hold the red star proudly high in hand!"

MVP - No, trust me, I understand what he set out to do. Satan, however, is not the protagonist. There is no overall hero of this story.

You may be right, however, that I'm looking at it from a modern of a perspective. Even if this is true and I acknowledge it, I don't think I'll like the book any more than I do.