John Milton and Paradise Lost PPT的演讲稿_johndewey介绍
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Before my presentation of Paradise Lost, please allow me to ask you some questions about the Bible.How much do you know about the Garden of Eden?
First question: Satan appeared to Eve in the form of what creature?Serpent
Second: The Bible says Satan is the father of what?Father of Lies（谎言之父）Third: What happened when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit?
They committed the first sin and are led out of the Eden.We all know that the forbidden fruit is the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.After eating the apple, Adam and Eve were led out of the Eden, the paradise, and thereafter they lived a life full of hardship.Now, let’s get down to the subject, the Paradise Lost.Paradise Lost is Milton’s masterpiece.It’s the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf, and a long narrative epic poem in blank verse, consisting of 12 books.The story in the book was taken from the Old Testament of Bible, the Genesis（创世纪）.And the main characters are God/ Satan/ Adam and Eve.We will focus on the characterization of Satan and God later.Now, let’s look at what happened in this book.In the first part of the book, Milton tells us that because of man’s disobedience, people lose their paradise.And that’s the theme of this book – Fall of Man.Satan and his rebellious angels discu how to fight against God.At the same time, they hear about the creation of the earth and Satan decides to visit the new world.Meanwhile, God foretells how Satan will bring about Man’s Fall and the Son of God decides
to sacrifice himself for the Fall of Man.Then God sends the angel Raphael to warn Adam and Eve to be wary of Satan.Raphael tells Adam about Satan’s revolt against the God and urged him not to eat the apple on the Tree of Knowledge.However, Satan disguised himself as a serpent and succeeded in tempting Eve to eat the apple.Adam knows that Eve has eaten the apple.And he would rather die with Eve than live without her, so he eats the apple, too.As a result, they are led out of Eden, and face a new life in a new world.And Satan and his angels would be in shape of snake forever as a punishment.Now, the story is ended.God and Satan as the 2 main characters in this epic, what do you think of them.Let’s look at the first image — God.God is described as the creator of the universe with unlimited power.He is always praised as a true, good and kind image.But in Paradise Lost, God is a typical image of selfish despot.On the surface, God has given human free will;in fact, he has suppreed the true freedom.Let’s back to the background of this book, it was the 17th century, the revolution and the restoration began, in that time, monarchy and parliament stand for opposite cla interest.In this epic, God is the representative of an absolute monarch, or we may say the king of Britain.But Satan is portrayed as a brave hero, to stand for the Parliament.In traditional concepts, Satan is the devil from hell.However, in Paradise Lost, he is someone in whom evil is mixed with good.He is good because he is the real hero who dares to revolt against the despot, preserving but not discouraged after the failure.He is the representative of the Parliament.But if the God represents the despot in this book, how do you understand this sentence: to
justify the ways of God to man（向世人昭示天道的公正）.Its original meaning is that God is just, and we should obey him completely.It’s one of the purposes of this epic.As we have mentioned, Milton was a puritan poet.As a pious Christian, he had to justify God, so he said “to justify the ways of God to man”.But under the surface, the poem is to praise the rebellion spirit against the despot.God is just!But from the perspective of politics, he thought God is a despot and Satan is a real hero.Now, let’s come back to John Milton.As we can see, Milton is a great literary giant since Shakespeare, and is considered as one of the most important poet in his era.He is a great master of the blank verse, first used blank verse in non-dramatic works.In Paradise Lost, he acquires an absolute mastery of blank verse.He is also a great stylist.He is famous for his grand style.It’s art attained by definite and rhetorical device.But, though as a great poet, his works are rather dull reading for modern readers because of his writing style, the long and involved and sometimes seemingly interminable sentence constructions.His works are also difficult to read because of the extreme variety of pauses.In Paradise Lost, Milton’s pauses may come almost anywhere in a line of verse.
