Championing a classic

A quarter of a century ago, the now-deceased Yale literary critic Harold Bloom published a book titled How to Read and Why. In a short section on John Milton, Bloom laments, “the common reader now requires mediation to read Paradise Lost with full appreciation, and I fear that relatively few will make the attempt. This is a great sorrow, and true cultural loss.” Twenty-five years later, little has changed in terms of readership. For the most part these days, Milton’s 17th-century epic lies woefully unread. So why write a “biography” about a book no one reads anymore?

In Paradise Lost: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 224 pp.), Alan Jacobs, a professor of the humanities at Baylor University, has shouldered the task of introducing to general readers one of the greatest religious books in the English language.

Jacobs writes with the assumption—and the hope—that he is not wasting his time. In six brisk chapters, he covers Milton’s biography; an overview of the structure and key moments in the epic; the vicissitudes of Milton’s reputation among literary figures and scholars such as Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, Mary Shelley, C.S. Lewis, and Stanley Fish; and the echoes and more serious engagements with the poem in contemporary popular culture.

The opening chapter, on “The Poet,” reports the basics—Milton’s education, political involvement in the defense of liberty, connections to the Puritans, and career as a writer of poetry and prose. For readers interested in more details, Jacobs points toward newer and more notable biographies, such as Barbara K. Lewalski’s The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography (2002). One bonus is that, whereas some Milton critics enjoy speculating about his alleged Arianism, Jacobs recognizes that there is no evidence of the heresy in Paradise Lost, and he wisely omits the matter entirely.

In the chapter discussing the poem itself, Jacobs organizes the epic in terms of musical movements. However, much of the chapter concerns the poem’s inherent sexual politics. Some critics have made far too much of Milton’s relationship with his daughters (accounts based on sketchy testimonies) and read into the poem a misogynistic antagonism. Jacobs’ refusal to give absolute credence to those with axes to grind is enormously refreshing. Without mentioning the critic directly, Jacobs provides textual evidence to corroborate one critic’s view that “Paradise Lost is possibly the most thorough critique of misogyny in the English language,” especially in the prelapsarian Adam’s express desire for an equal partner, and in the postlapsarian Eve’s comments articulating Christian devotion to God in the last lines of dialogue in the poem.

The next three chapters collapse centuries of critical discussions about Milton’s poem, ranging from Addison’s disagreement with Dryden about the true hero of the epic, to proxy wars in which scholars, such as C.S. Lewis, have used Milton’s poem to debate Christian theology. Years ago, after giving a talk on philosophy in Paradise Lost, I was asked by a well-meaning pastor, “We have heard about the philosophy of Paradise Lost, but where is the piety?” In essence, I answered with what Jacobs claims to be the moral of the entire epic: Happiness comes from obedience to God’s moral law. Through these chapters, Jacobs never fails to include arresting details that will attract readers unfamiliar with the epic. For example, in the fifth chapter, Jacobs covers some fascinating material related to William Blake, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Percy Shelley, but readers will likely be most interested in the influence of Paradise Lost on Mary Shelley’s novella Frankenstein.

Finally, Jacobs looks at the influence Paradise Lost has had on music, video games, and contemporary young adult fantasy. Jacobs is a knowledgeable and genial guide who helps readers not only understand the poem better but also catch a glimpse of hundreds of years of debates about its theology, politics, and influence on our cultural imagination. Jacobs’ prose is poetic at times, and the book manages to be simultaneously academic and accessible.

But what would make his efforts a waste—and perhaps cement the particular cultural loss Bloom feared—is if people were to read Jacobs’ book without ever reading Milton’s epic. Bloom, who “passionately love[d] Paradise Lost,” acknowledges that “Milton requires mediation” because “he is learned, allusive, and profound,” but the “adventurous reader would be well counseled to brave the difficulties.” To assuage these difficulties, aspiring readers of the epic would benefit greatly from Dennis Danielson’s parallel prose edition.