Back-to-back C.S. Lewis books and back-to-back 4/10 ratings. I finished reading this yesterday. It was actually a really quick read, especially for a literary criticism type book that I usually slog through. So maybe I should give it bonus points for that. It's just I didn't particularly enjoy anything much about this book. I was hoping for a more specific breakdown of particular passages and themes, but the whole first half was about epic poetry in general and talking about Homer and Beowulf and books I've never read. So that was a disappointment. And then I was hoping for a few better Christian related insights but ended up not seeing eye to eye on a lot of his interpretations. The idea that Eve was attempting murder by wanting to get Adam to eat the fruit too was a bit of a stretch I thought. I was disappointed in his interpretation of Eve and her motivations.
I thought Milton's book was pretty darn close to restored gospel principles and just expected C.S. to be right there as well with his interpretations, but it just wasn't meant to be. My favorite chapter was actually early on before he got into the Paradise Lost analysis portion of the book. It was a chapter of him arguing against someone who said only poetics could criticize poetry. It had some classic C.S. Lewis burns by his unrelenting logic.
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