Paradise Lost...The Movie??

[Saturn]

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2006/0424/paradiselost.html

This will either be spectacular or completely awful

[dks]

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2006/0424/paradiselost.html

This will either be spectacular or completely awful

I love that...yes, Saturn. No gray areas for you, eh?? I can identify.

[Saturn]

With a work of genius like Paradise Lost you are faced with an awesome responsibilty.

This is one of the most famous and influential works of literature in teh English language.

I struggle to see how this could be achieved on film

Like with Hamlet - either you'll have a questionable film like Mel Gibson's version or the sublime full version by Kenneth Branagh.

[Credo Buffa]

With a work of genius like Paradise Lost you are faced with an awesome responsibilty.

Um. . . yeah

Either way, if it gets more people to actually read it, or at least attempt to, I'm all for it.

[Saturn]

With a work of genius like Paradise Lost you are faced with an awesome responsibilty.

Um. . . yeah

Either way, if it gets more people to actually read it, or at least attempt to, I'm all for it.

But if the film is crap no-one will see/or read it so it could PUT OFF a whole generation who'd never read it anyway

[Credo Buffa]

I was going for the whole "read the book before the movie" idea. . . but you're probably right

How many people actually read Paradise Lost for fun, anyway? I mean, I would, but that's only after being forced for my English major. I mean, it's long, it's difficult, it gets a really bad rap in popular culture. . . If only people had the opportunity to see the reward that lies underneath all that. . . !

[Saturn]

I read Paradise Lost for pleasure [or because Keats read it]- but then I'm a very strange person- I've also read the whole 1200 pages of Gibbon's History of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, the whole of Spenser's Faerie Queene, Virgil's Aenied in about four different translations - ditto Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Oh and the complete works of Shakespeare a few times too...

I once thought I might need to go to a BA meeting [bibliophiles anonymous ].

[Credo Buffa]

I mean aside from the people on this forum, Saturn

If we look at the whole of society, it's hard enough to get people to read the newspaper on their own, let alone an epic work of classic literature, let alone an epic work of classic poetry. In a fit of cultural fever, someone might pick up Jane Austen or Dickens, but not Milton.

[Saturn]

Yes you're right there.

Most people don't have the time, the motivation or the desire to read something as challenging and complicated as Paradise Lost.

Why would they when there's a new Stephen King novel to read

[Credo Buffa]

Or worse. . . The Da Vinci Code

[dks]

Yes you're right there.

Most people don't have the time, the motivation or the desire to read something as challenging and complicated as Paradise Lost.

Why would they when there's a new Stephen King novel to read

Ok. I'm a bigger dork, then. In undergrad, I read Milton's PL and P. Regained by candlelight, sir...I was trying to empathize with the great poet--or I was not very bright--

[Credo Buffa]

Ok. I'm a bigger dork, then. In undergrad, I read Milton's PL and P. Regained by candlelight, sir...I was trying to empathize with the great poet--or I was not very bright--

I'm going with "not very bright"

Just kidding

Reading Paradise Lost was such a labor of love for me that I can't imagine having to read the whole thing squinting so that I could see the lines before having to interpret them!

[Saturn]

By candlelight?

Well I was wearing britches and a powdered wig

[Credo Buffa]

Well, I actually got in my time machine and went back to the 17th century and sat next to Milton while he was writing!

So there!

[Saturn]

Or worse. . . The Da Vinci Code

That really is a pile of old rubbish