Record Number: 32382

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

(1) 'This week's new purchase consisted of Milton's "Paradise Lost" — in the same edition as my Mandeville.... Don't you love the Leopard witches? How you will love Milton some day!' (2) 'I don't think I should advise Milton: while there are lots of things in him you would love - the descriptions of Satan's flight down through the stars, on the other hand his classical allusions, his rather crooked style of English, and his long speeches might be tedious. Besides it is written in blank verse (without rhymes) and people who are beginning to read poetry don't usually care for that.' (3) '[I] have read over the 1st Book of Paradise Lost again. I think I shall go through the whole poem this term.' (4) 'I am now through the first two Books of Paradise L. and really love Milton better every time I come back to him.' (5) 'I have finished "Paradise Lost" again, enjoying it even more than before.... He is as voluptuous as Keats, as romantic as Morris, as grand as Wagner, as weird as Poe, and a better lover of nature than even the Brontes.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 18 Jul 1916 and 6 Mar 1917

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Clive Staples Lewis

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

29 Nov 1898

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Student

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

Northern Ireland

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Milton

Title:

Paradise Lost

Genre:

Poetry, Astrology / alchemy / occult, Biblical epic, adapting the conventions of Homer and Virgil

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32382

Source:

Print

Author:

C. S. Lewis

Editor:

Walter Hooper

Title:

C. S. Lewis Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

1

Page:

214-5, 220, 269, 274, 290

Additional Comments:

(1) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, [18] July 1916 (2) From a letter to the same, 25 July 1916 (3) From a letter to the same, 28 January 1917 (4) From a letter to the same, 7 February 1917 (5) From a letter to the same, 6 March 1917 'Leopard witches': Paradise Lost, Book 2, line 662 'I don't think I should advise Milton': Lewis had been encouraging Greeves to try reading poetry.

Citation:

C. S. Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 214-5, 220, 269, 274, 290, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32382, accessed: 21 December 2024

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Additional Comments:

In his letter of 6 March 1917 Lewis says that he has 'finished "Paradise Lost" again'. I cannot find any definite reference to the earlier experience, but there are brief, impromptu quotations from the poem in a letter to Greeves (22 May 1916, v.1, p.183) and to his father (23 June 1916, v.1, p.199). Much earlier, in a letter to Greeves (17 November 1914, v.1, p.94), he says that Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" 'is really the English national epic, for Paradise Lost is a purely literary poem, while it is the essence of an epic to be genuine folk-lore.' I cannot identify the edition which Lewis bought. The Mandeville described by Hooper in a footnote (p.214) was published by Macmillan in 1900, but the British Library catalogue shows no such edition for Paradise Lost.