Milton's "Paradise Lost"

It seems that there is this widely misunderstood notion about art, that if it is good then you have to like it, and that if you don't like it then you are stupid. The statement can be reversed: if it's bad then you have to hate it, and if you like something bad then you are stupid; or, if you like something that is good then that means that you are smart. The truth, as I see it, is that art isn't only about intelligence; it is on some level but not all. What is unique about art is its ability to touch people, and there are many ways for you to be touched, moved, affected, or influenced. Art is for the heart, and I don't think there is any one thing that can touch every heart. I have read many great works of literature in my life that I do not like. I can see why they are good; I can sit and analyze and agonize over them, but that doesn't mean that, realizing their merits, I would have to like them. That's not what art is about. Meryl Steep is one of the greatest actors of all time, and she is disliked by Catharine Hepburn, another one of the greatest actors of all time. You get the idea.

The other day I had a meeting with one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, my professor. I shared with him my newfound affection for Milton--I recently read and fell completely in love with "Paradise Lost"; the pleasure I took from reading it was very rare, especially when I read epic poems. He told me that for him the experience of reading the text was painful, and he did not enjoy, despite admitting that he did like Milton in the abstract, and that the work was structurally interesting. I was surprised and impressed by his honesty. The truth is that up until that point I had to always convince myself that it was okay for me to dislike something that is supposedly "good" and have been revered by other scholars in my life and in history. I'm learning now to be honest; if I like something I like it; if I don't, it doesn't mean that I am foolish. If anybody thinks I am foolish then I will probably thing the same about them, because no work of art is meant to be like by everyone. I appreciate the "great" works that I have recently read (Proust's "Swann's Way," Nabokov's "Lolita," Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," to name a few) even though I didn't enjoy reading them.

Back to Milton, I thought "Paradise Lost" was a great work. It held my attention, and I liked the way the words rolled on my tongue. The story was intriguing, the characters well developed, and Milton a great dramatist. He doesn't change the story from the Bible--one of the work's great qualities--but merely dramatizing and enhancing it. I think your feeling about it may have to do with your attachment or detachment to Christianity; as for me, an ex-Catholic, currently somewhat agnostic, completely free from attachment to any organized religion, I fell in love with it completely.