As Academics Celebrate 400th Anniversary of John Milton's Birth, Paradise Lost is Growing in Popularity With College Students
It is truly good news that "Paradise Lost" is experiencing a resurgence of interest on college campuses as it is, even though a work of fiction, one of the most beautiful and thorough presentations of God's love for man outside of the Bible.
Many people may not know that this year marks the 400th anniversary of John Milton’s birth (he was born on December 9th, 1608). "But Milton remains incredibly relevant to us today," says Shannon Miller, professor and chair of the English department at Temple University. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Milton is the seventeenth-century English poet who is considered equal or superior to William Shakespeare. "He is important to us both for the issues of political revolution in which he was invested and for his poem Paradise Lost which explores issues of political revolution within a narrative about the fall from Eden," says Miller.
According to Miller, her students are routinely entranced by the complexity and beauty of the blank verse in which the 12 book epic is written.
"A poem that rejects consistent end rhyming as "bondage" for the poetry, offering a balanced line of verse that stresses sound and carefully deploys internal rhyme, is a delight to read, and especially to read out loud, as testified to by the growing popularity of college readings of the entire poem," Miller says.
