In the middle of my journey, I picked up Paradise Lost. I did so out of embarrassment, a dutiful feeling that I must at least try to read it, finish it even, before the dark evening of my life. It had sat for years on my bookshelf, a pristine copy of the Norton Critical Edition, its purple cover framing a Renaissance-era portrait of Adam and Eve in front of the Tree. Having fallen sadly out of the habit of reading serious literature, I needed an easy goal as an inducement to begin, so I promised myself I would read one page a day. As it turned out, it took me six months to finish, the longest and most intense period I had ever committed to any book.
As I learned, Paradise Lost may be sui generis, but Milton demands that one write about it; that one acknowledge, not in a merely celebratory, but in a collaborative way, its profound greatness. Indeed, until I read Paradise Lost, I had not encountered true genius.
I use the word confidently, yet hesitantly. Milton’s first lesson to me was that all words and expressions must be stripped down to their essentials, used like jeweler’s tools, fitting exactly and only into their true meanings, yet not thinly or spartanly. His words are precise, but also full, ripe, bursting with power.
The late Scott Elledge,
