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One winter morning, poet Dawn Potter sat down at her desk in Harmony, Maine, and began copying out the opening lines of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Her intent was to spend half an hour with a poem she had never liked, her goal to transcribe a page or two. Maybe she would begin to appreciate the poet's art, though she had no real expectations that the exercise would change her mind about the poem. Yet what began as a whim turned rapidly into an obsession, and soon Potter was immersed in a strange and unexpected project: she found herself copying out every single word of Milton's immense, convoluted epic.
Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton is her memoir of that long task. Over the course of twelve chapters, Potter explores her very personal response to Milton and Paradise Lost, tracing the surprising intersections between a seventeenth-century biblical epic and the routine joys and tragedies of domestic life in contemporary rural Maine. Curious, opinionated, and eager, she engages with the canon on mutable, individual terms. Though she writes perceptively about the details and techniques of Milton's art, always her reactions are linked to her present-tense experiences as a poet, small-time farmer, family member, and citizen of a poor and beleaguered north-country town.
A skilled and entertaining writer, Potter is also a wide-ranging and sophisticated reader. Yet her memoir is not a scholarly treatise: her enthusiasms and misgivings about both Milton and Paradise Lost ebb and flow with the days. Tracing Paradise reminds us that close engagement with another artist's task may itself be a form of creation. Above all, Potter s memoir celebrates one reader s difficult yet transformative love affair with Milton's glorious, irritating, inscrutable masterpiece. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Work to treasure
I am amazed that no one has reviewed this wonderful book before now.I admit that I had missed its existence until a friend, who knew I was teaching a course on Paradise Lost in a Lifelong Learning Institute, asked me if I had read it.His description guaranteed that I would track it down instantly, and I am grateful that I did.It may not sound promising--a woman who lives in an unglamorous part of Maine sets out to add to the many chores she has to maintain her farm and care for her husband and two children: the added chore?--copying out, word for word, the whole of Milton's epic, Paradise Lost.If this sounds like a weird or extremely eccentric undertaking, I must say that it is not.I know from experience that copying passages of literature, whether poetry or prose, is a perfect way to gain a deep feeling for the way the author manipulates the language, so I was attracted to the book in part because I already thought her project would be fascinating.In addition, as one who has taught Paradise Lost as often as possible over a teaching career of nearly 40 years, I am eager to read almost any appreciation of that great work.All of that I found in Dawn Potter's book.

But there is so much more.This is a memoir of life in a small town, remote from the academic or social contexts of either great cities or university towns; Potter makes no effort to glamorize or sentimentalize the town of Harmony.(I have not been to Harmony, but I visited friends in Dexter many years ago, so I have a pretty good idea of the area she describes.)At the same time, she convincingly portrays the kinds of "riches" that are available only through an appreciation of the simple daily details of making do or getting by or even enjoying life in an environment where making a fire in the morning, finding ways to deal with mud season or black flies, sorting out the characters and quirks of small town neighbors are significant parts of daily life, and daily life is what matters.It is exciting to watch her finding in Milton--seemingly as remote a man as one could imagine from the life she is living--a way of thinking about life that has strong affinities to hers.She portrays her own life with its frustrations and warts, as well as its beauties, and she portrays her experiences of Paradise Lost, encounters with its quirks, its occasional ugliness (those paeans to female submissiveness!), and its undeniable glories, and these come together to form a memoir truly compelling, as well as a testimonial to the power of a great literary work, even one that fails almost as many times as it triumphs, to provide illumination, consolation, pure aesthetic beauty.I hope many will read Potter's book and be moved to try reading Paradise Lost, as well.They cannot fail, though wand'ring, to rejoice. ... Read more

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Milton's Comus is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by John Milton is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of John Milton then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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Kant and Milton brings to bear new evidence and long-neglected materials to show the importance of Kant's encounter with Milton's poetry to the formation of Kant's moral and aesthetic thought. Sanford Budick reveals the relation between a poetic vision and a philosophy that theorized what that poetry was doing. As Plato and Aristotle contemplate Homer, so Kant contemplates Milton. In all these cases philosophy and poetry allow us to better understand each other. Milton gave voice to the transformation of human understanding effected by the Protestant Revolt, making poetry of the idea that human reason is created self-sufficient. Kant turned that religiously inflected poetry into the richest modern philosophy. Milton's bold self-reliance is Kant's as well.

Using lectures of Kant that have been published only in the past decade, Budick develops an account of Kant based on his lifelong absorption in the poetry of Milton, especially Paradise Lost. By bringing to bear the immense power of his reflections on aesthetic and moral form, Kant produced one of the most penetrating interpretations of Milton's achievement that has ever been offered and, at the same time, reached new peaks in the development of aesthetics and moral reason.

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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Title: The Prose Works of John Milton : the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church. Animadversions Upon the Remonstrants' Defence Against Smectymnus. Apology for Smectymnuus. the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. the Judgment of M. Bucer Concerning Divorce. Tetrachordon. Colasterion. Tractate of Education. Declaration for the Election of John Iii., King of Poland. Familiar Letters; Volume: 3; Original Published by: G. Bell and sons in 1888 in 552 pages; ... Read more

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Author name not noted above: Sir Thomas Browne. Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.Volume III features:• Essays or Counsels--Civil and Moral and The New Atlantis, by English scientist and philosopher SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), the former the foundational writings of his development of the scientific method, and the latter his utopian novel that influenced British notions of science as a noble endeavor.• Areopagitica and Tractate on Education, by English poet JOHN MILTON (1608-1674), respectively his tract against censorship and his ideas on educational reform; both helped modernize English society.• Religio Medici, by English polymath SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682), one of the earliest personal memoirs that, as a psychological self-evaluation, would later influence Jung. ... Read more

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John Steinbeck consistently appears on class reading lists across the U.S., and his work has influenced generations. Steinbeck lived and wrote during some of the most eventful and controversial eras of twentieth-century America, including the struggles of California’s migrant workers during the 1930s, which led to his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath.

A complicated man whose personal life often took a backseat to his writing—he fought his way through three marriages, was a distant father, and battled with alcoholism—Steinbeck wrote because he was compelled to. Yet he always doubted his abilities, and lived in fear of never writing a decent book.

Milton Meltzer’s biography includes numerous excerpts of this iconic author’s writing, and is the latest addition to the Up Close series. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.Volume IV features all the verse written in the English language by English poet JOHN MILTON (1608-1674), including the essential Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, plus "Song on May Morning," "Sonnet to the Nightingale," "The Passion," "To a Virtuous Young Lady," and others. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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While Johnson charged that Milton "unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy, Stephen M. Fallon argues that the relationship between Milton's philosophy and the poetry of Paradise Lost is a happy one. The author examines Milton's thought in light of the competing philosophical systems that filled the vacuum left by the repudiation of Aristotle in the seventeenth century. In what has become the classic account of Milton's animist materialism, Fallon revises our understanding of Milton's philosophical sophistication. The book offers a new interpretation of the War in Heaven in Paradise Lost as a clash of metaphysical systems, with free will hanging in the balance. ... Read more

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John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) is a literary landmark. His reworking of Biblical tales of the loss of Eden constitutes not only a gripping literary work, but a significant musing on fundamental human concerns ranging from freedom and fate to conscience and consciousness.

Designed for students new to Milton's complex, lengthy work, this sourcebook:

* outlines the often unfamiliar contexts of seventeenth-century England which are so crucial to Paradise Lost
* completes the contextual study with a chronology and reprinted documents from the period
* examines and reprints a broad range of responses to the poem, from early reactions to recent criticism
* reprints the most frequently studied passages of the poem, along with extensive commentary and annotation of unfamiliar or significant terms used in Milton's work
* provides cross-references between the textual, contextual and critical sections of the sourcebook, to show how all the materials can be called upon in an individual reader's encounter with the text
* suggests further reading for those facing the huge array of critical work on the poem.
With an emphasis on enjoying as well as understanding what can be a somewhat daunting work, this sourcebook will be a welcome resource for anyone new to Paradise Lost.

Customer Reviews (1)

Outstanding
I must admit I have heard many of these authors speak on numerousoccassions.They are not only powerful, but they are great role models.Iwould like any of them to be an influnence in the lives of any children Imay have.This book is a must have for any professional working to empowerteens to be all they can be. ... Read more

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Publisher: Printed for the Camden SocietyPublication date: 1876Subjects: History / GeneralLiterary Collections / GeneralLiterary Criticism / GeneralLiterary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, WelshLiterary Criticism / PoetryPoetry / English, Irish, Scottish, WelshNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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With an introduction by David Masson. This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1892 edition by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York - Boston. ... Read more

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In this authoritative edition of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost is presented in the original language of its 1674 publication, with explanatory annotations and word glosses.

• Edited by one of the world's leading Milton scholars, the author of the acclaimed The Life of Milton (Blackwell 2000), which won the Milton Society of America's James Holly Hanford Book Award
  
• Offers readers the opportunity to experience the brilliance and beauty of Paradise Lost as it was experienced by his contemporaries
  
• Presents Paradise Lost in its original 1674 form
  
• Incorporates accidentals (spelling and punctuation) from the 1674 edition
  
• Recovers Miltonic rhythms, pronunciations, and sound qualities often lost in modern editions
  
• Annotates names, places, biblical and literary allusions, and unfamiliar words
  
• Includes illustrations by John Baptista Medina from the 1688 Folio edition