![]() ![]() It's a great act of human heroism that it was ever created."Ī rare first American edition of Paradise Lost is included in the Morgan Library exhibit. "And we have, as a result, this extraordinarily beautiful poem. "So he was, day after day, packet after packet," says Kerrigan. When the secretary was late, Milton was said to have grumbled around the house, "I want to be milked. He recited the entire work to an assistant, 40 lines each morning for five years, says William Kerrigan. Paradise Lost is more remarkable for the way it was created: When Milton began writing the poem in 1658, he had been blind for four years. everyone bowed their head as if they were in church." "Last week, we played a recording of the first 26 lines to a group that was visiting, recited by Actor Mark Rylance. "And the sublimity of its subject matter is matched by the sustained beauty of its language."Īt the Morgan Library, Kiely says people have "almost genuflected" in front of this manuscript: "There's a great sense of reverence in the room whenever I visit it," says Kiely. It describes gods and monsters," he says. Kerrigan calls it the greatest work of its kind in the English language: Milton's masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is an unrhymed poem in iambic pentameter that chronicles the biblical fall of man and covers creation, the great battle of the angels, original sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. All of this, along with some of the greatest poetry in the history of the world." "He published the first book devoted to censorship. He was an interesting man, politically - one of the first European intellectuals to argue in favor of divorce on the grounds of lack of spiritual companionship," says Kerrigan. " was a very great poet, a great mythmaker. Scholar William Kerrigan, the editor of the Modern Library's Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton, says there's plenty to celebrate. "It's a 33-page manuscript, and you can see eight pages in the exhibition." "You'll never have another opportunity to see as many openings as there are here," says Kiely. ![]() In New York City, preservationists at the Morgan Library have disbound a portion of the only handwritten manuscript of the poem that survives from the 1660s and displayed the loose pages in a hushed exhibition space.ĭeclan Kiely, the curator of the Morgan Library's exhibit, says it's a once-in-a-lifetime display. 9 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton, and fans around the world are celebrating with literary events, exhibits and readings of his epic poem Paradise Lost.Īt Cambridge University - where Milton studied at Christ's College - the faculty of the English department reads the entire text of Paradise Lost - all 10,000 lines - in a 12-hour, continuous live Webcast. His epic poem Paradise Lost would be published in 1667.ĭec. Hulton Archive/Getty Images English poet John Milton, in an engraving dated 1660.
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