[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 61 KB, 480x270, nigger.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9197429 No.9197429 [Reply] [Original]

Retarded question but whatever.

Roughly how long should it take someone to read Milton's Paradise Lost and actually understand it? Audiobooks (which in my experience are too slow) peg it around 10 hours which seems suspiciously short to me.

Is it the kind of text that takes 10x as long to actually understand as it does to read, or is it's difficulty overblown?

>> No.9197457

>>9197429
6 hours

>> No.9197464

It's a poem so it's not hugely long, but it has archaic text at times (and also it assumes the reader has some basic familiarity with christianity).

>Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
>Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl,
>When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep
>Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.

So in terms of difficulty it's not Finnegans Wake but neither is it Harry Potter.

>> No.9197468

5 hours

>> No.9197508

>>9197429
3 hours 50 minutes

>> No.9197539

2 hours

>> No.9197547

>>9197429
However long it takes.

I'm currently reading it for the first time. The ideas are manageable, but it's most challenging aspect, for me, is the style as this anon >>9197464 pointed out.

>> No.9197584

Took me a couple sittings to get used to the prose. But you can fly through it once you're used to it. Some scenes do drag on, but it's definitely worth it to tough out the whole thing.

>> No.9199109

i probably spent about 30min-1hr a book, trying to really mull it over as i went along