/lit/ - Literature

probably had to do with Milton's stifled classicism. Keep in mind Ezra was basically the original modernist dude and his "make it new" statement.

might've had something to do with his imagistic ideals too

No one has ever read Milton for pleasure.

>>4270037
>Reading Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.

>>4270037

Yet, strangely, when you're Miltonian, you just can't shut up about it. He's oddly polarizing.

>>4270037
This.

Fuck.

>>4270037
milton isn't about pleasure, he's about rocking your g-ddamn world you filthy goy

What's the quote about Englishmen considering Paradise Lost biblical canon? No idea who said it.

>>4270037
I do.

>>4270037
>reading for pleasure

>>4270384
This. The poem's religious.

>>4269996
>make it new
is highly misunderstood. "Make it new" doesn't mean "make new things" it means take the old stuff and make it fresh. Look at his Cantos, his revisions of Chinese poetry, etc. His imagism is arguably just a reaction to classical English nature poetry. In the Station at the Metro, for example, draws from a non-European tradition and form (haiku rather than the pastoral) and then defies both traditions by incorporating the city.
He hates Milton because Milton intentionally repeats the forms and contents of classical poetry, rather than exploiting the resources available to him in his own time and in his own language.

>>4270384

Careful. Language like that can get you banned on /lit/, even if said in jest.

Yes, posters here are that pussy-sensitive.

>>4269996
I thought Ezra Pound loved the old books and just wanted to develop something new from that heritage, that being Modernism.

http://writing.upenn.edu/library/Pound-Ezra_Cantico-del-sole.html

>>4270880
>>4270894

didn't mean to imply Pound was a futurist-type, it's very obvious he most definitely looked to past in art

cause Milton didn't make it new

>>4270887

i'll bet you're that anon who made that butthurt thread about the mod earlier

>>4270880
>This. The poem's religious.
No it isn't. It is a long critique on a corrupt England. Milton stopped going to church after composing Paradise Lost and purposely composes a tyrannical God to demonstrate how full of shit the creation myth is.
It is a very hard read so I can't say I have read much of it, but from the class I am taking, Milton sews in more ideas than most people think.
I like his sonnets though.

>in his own language
This is Pound's main problem with Milton. Milton has the tendency to write his verses in the structure of Latin verses. Meaning that instead of just saying it straight out in English he sort of filters it through a Latin sentence structure. Pound mentions this in his ABCs of Poetry or whatever it is called.

>>4270037
>no one reads milton for pleasure because I was to pleb to understand him.

> Shakespeare
> deep, varied, insightful, sad, can tell a good joke
> Milton
> no jokes allowed! let's all be serious!

Lycidas is his best. Paradise Lost is probably the most overrated piece of literature in the english language.

Kudos to being a proto-Lacanian misogynist, though. That's something I can support.

>>4271156
>implying he isn't right

the censorship on /lit/ is breddy extreme

>>4272223
>No it isn't. It is a long critique on...
>I can't say I have read much of it...
>but from the class I am taking

>srsly?

>>4270037
the fuck. so I picked up Milton out of curiosity but every second whie reading him was pure pleasure

>>4271156
look at the bans page. i admit the published bans of /lit/ aren't as frequent as in other boards, but we also have a very low traffic and at least half the times the reasons for the bans are quite absurd. the guy is an irrational prick

>>4273884
>this author does not use jokes in his work
>that means he's actively against jokes
>i'm a respectable member of /lit/

it's because Pound is a talentless hack

>>4273975
Oh no no no

>>4273986
PROVE ME WRONG

>>4270037
top lel m8.

Next you're going to tell me no one ever read Edmund Spenser for pure pleasure

>>4273884
>he's never read "On a Vacation Exercise!"

>>4272223
>No it isn't. It is a long critique on a corrupt England. Milton stopped going to church after composing Paradise Lost and purposely composes a tyrannical God to demonstrate how full of shit the creation myth is.

Holy fucking shit read the goddamn poem and a maybe a biography before you make such stupid claims.


If anyone wants to read a great critique of the poem, and Satan as a whole, I recommend C.S. Lewis' preface to Paradise Lost. It's brilliant.

>>4273948
> implying you can be considered truly great if you can't compose a single joke

Even Joyce was funny.