I distinctly remember feeling absolute confusion while beginning Paradise Lost. I also remember sitting in my dining room at home the second weekend of school desperately trying to understand Milton's language and compose a "blog post", something I was completely unfamiliar with at the time. As I began to understand Paradise Lost about three or four books into it, I was able to reflect on my original interpretations of the epic poem and understand what actually had happened, something I did not understand while reading the beginning of Paradise Lost.
However, in rereading my original post, surprisingly most of my reactions still remain towards the quote in Book 2, lines 622-624. I still feel that same daunting, depressing feeling after reading, "A universe of death which God by curse / Created evil, for evil only good, / Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds" (2, 6220624). But after an entire semester of reading and analyzing Milton in Paradise Lost, I am able to take another look at this quote. Perhaps it is meant to be read as "...which God by curse created evil / for evil only good, where all life dies..." In other words, maybe Milton is trying to say that God created evil by curse, for evil is only good in a place where all life dies (Hell), also known as a place where death lives.
This relates to our group's ongoing discussion of Heaven and Hell. Evil is considered bad in Heaven, but considered good in Hell. Ipso facto, good in Hell is considered doing bad in Heaven. However, if you do "good" in Hell [evil], then shouldn't that be condemned because you are in Hell for doing bad. Evil should be considered bad in Hell because the goal of the demons in Hell is to do bad...or good for that matter. This seems to be getting too confusing - To sum it all up, good in Heaven is bad in Hell, where good in Hell is bad in Heaven. So which is actually better - to do good in Heaven or to do good in Hell? I guess it depends on who you're talking to...
Kellie M.
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