The term “summer reading”’often means lighter fare—romances, mysteries, thrillers. But I usually read at least one substantive work of literature each summer. This year’s project, which I’m just beginning, is Paradise Lost, one of the greatest poetic works. It tells the story of the Fall of Man in the form of an epic poem—along the lines of the Odyssey or the Iliad. It’s gonna be hard work, but I can already tell it’s magnificent. I’ll post occasional quotations, and here’s the first:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself, Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.”
I didn’t expect to come across such perfect human insight right at the start of the poem. And oh by the way, the speaker of those lines is (wait for it) Satan.
Anyone else reading any serious literature these days?
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