William Shakespeare und John Milton im Kontext der englischen Literatur

des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts

Martin KuesterPhilipps-Universität

Marburg

Shakespeare

• Anonymous

ShakespeareSonja Fielitz, William Shakespeare: Eine Einführung in Werk und Wirkung (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 2013): So werden mit schöner Regelmäßigkeit, unterstützt durch die Medien und ihre Sommerlöcher, immer wieder neue ‚Beweise‘ für die immer gleichen Kandidaten, die sich eigentlich hinter ‚William Shakespeare‘ verbergen, ins Feld geführt, oder gänzlich neue Kandidaten in die Diskussion gebracht. Jüngstes, und höchst unrühmliches Zeugnis von Spekulationen wie diesen ist Roland Emmerichs Film Anonymus (2011), eine Machwerk, das bei jedem, der etwas Ahnung von Shakespeare hat, nur Kopfschütteln über so viel Ignoranz und Arroganz hervorrufen kann. (11)

Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Droeshout engraving Chandos portrait(First Folio)

The Globe Theatre

Thomas Kullmann, William Shakespeare: Eine Einführung (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2005): „kulturelles Phänomen“ (9):

He was not of an age, but for all time! Als 1623, sieben Jahre nach dem Tod William Shakespeares, die erste Gesamtausgabe seiner Dramen erschien, schrieb Shakespeares Dramatikerkollege Ben Jonson diesen Vers in sein der Ausgabe vorangestelltes Widmungsgedicht. Er drückte damit seine Begeisterung über einen Zeitgenossen aus, dessen dramatisches Werk auf eine so große Resonanz beim Publikum gestoßen war, daß es der Überlieferung an die Nachwelt in einem großformatigen Band, der sogenannten Folio-Ausgabe, für wert befunden wurde. Nicht einmal Jonson dürfte jedoch geahnt haben, in welchem Maße sich seine Aussage bewahrheiten würde: Fast vierhundert Jahre nach seinem Tod ist der Dramatiker aus Stratford im öffentlichen Bewußtsein präsenter als jemals zuvor. Auf Bühnen rund um den Globus ist Shakespeare der beliebteste Dramatiker, Filmfassungen seiner Dramen erreichen ein Millionenpublikum, im Schulunterricht englischsprachiger Länder ist er Pflichtlektüre, im universitären Englischstudium nimmt er einen zentralen Platz ein.

Thomas Kullmann über Shakespeare

• Seit dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert wird Shakespeare auch außerhalb Großbritanniens zu einer wesentlichen literarischen Größe, zunächst in Deutschland und Frankreich, später in süd- und osteuropäischen Ländern, und heute ist Shakespeare aus dem kulturellen Geschehen etwa Indiens und Japans gleichfalls nicht mehr wegzudenken.

Harold Bloom über ShakespeareThe Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (London: Macmillan, 1995)

• Shakespeare: typischer Vertreter des „aristokratischen Zeitalters“

• “Center of the Canon” Actors in Elizabethan England were,

by statute, akin to beggars and similar lowlife, which doubtless pained Shakespeare, who worked hard to go back to Stratford as a gentleman. Except for that desire, we know next to nothing about Shakespeare’s social outlook, except what can be gleaned from the plays, where all the information is ambiguous. (45)

Stratford upon Avon

Royal Shakespeare Company

Shakespeare‘s birthplace

Struktur des Werks

• Dramen: Tragödien, Komödien, Historien, Romanzen

• Sonette und Versdichtung

• http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

• http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/canon.htm

Hamlet ist Deutschland

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. (Hamlet III.1)

Hamlet-Inszenierung Marburg 2003

Das Staatstheater Kassel hat sich unter der Intendanz von Christoph Nix spezialisiert auf die Schlachtung klassischer Stücke... Mit "Stella" und "Hamlet" wurden dem Marburger Publikum gleich zwei Kostproben geboten, die sich beide als reichlich unbekömmlich erwiesen.Zum "Hamlet" war die Marburger Stadthalle ausverkauft. Die Fama, die der Kasseler Inszenierung vorausging und die im Programmheft der Theatertage noch bestärkt wurde, etwa mit einem Pressezitat aus der Neuen Westfälischen ("Regisseur Armin Petras zündet ein Trash-Feuerwerk..."), mochte dazu beigetragen haben, auffallend viele junge Leute anzulocken. Dem Beifall nach zu urteilen, kam das Publikum auf seine Kosten. Aber was da eigentlich zu sehen war, läßt sich gar nicht so einfach sagen.

Ein Theaterabend "nach Shakespeare": Der kam auch vor, meist angestrengt und flach rezitiert wie in einem Fahrstuhl, in dem die Luft knapp wird. Der schwerverdauliche Braten Shakespeare/Müller war dick eingelegt in selbstgemachtes Aspik von billigen Gags und mehr oder weniger gekonnter Pop-Persiflage. Eine zeitgemäße Inszenierung sollte das sein, in ihrer irritierenden Bilderflut Theater für die Gegenwart und zugleich ein Spiegel unserer atemlosen Weltstunde, die wir mit bitterer Melancholie die Postmoderne nennen.

Regisseur Petras notiert im Programmheft: "Die Quantität und Schnelligkeit der Bilder scheint ein(!) Verlust an Qualität und Historizität zu bedeuten, dennoch bedeutet diese Geschwindigkeit zunächst einmal nichts anderes als: jetzt, guten Tag, heute." Also denn: Hamlet heute, hervorgezogen aus der Tiefkühltruhe der Weltliteratur, neu angerichtet auf dem Teller der nimmersatten Spaßgesellschaft.

Den anderen Regieeinfall gab es nur im Programmheft zu entdecken, in Versen von Ferdinand Freiligrath aus dem Jahr 1844:Deutschland ist Hamlet!Ernst und stummIn seinen Toren jede NachtGeht die begrabne Freiheit um,Und winkt den Männern auf der Wacht.

Dazu tritt eine Ausführung von G. G. Gervinus aus dem Jahr 1849, in der es unter anderem heißt: "Hamlet ist Deutschland. Und dieser Ausspruch ist in der That kein geistreiches Spiel mit Worten oder verworrenen Vorstellungen. [...] Ganz so wie Hamlet verloren wir die Freude an unserer Existenz und flüchteten aus dem realen Leben in das Reich der Ideale; wir schadeten dem sicheren Tacte des instinctiven Lebens durch allzuviele Geistesübung und Reflexion und der gewissen Erkenntniß des Wirklichen durch Grillen und Phantasien." Der Vergleich der damaligen deutschen Seelenlage mit der Gestalt Hamlets mag nur beim ersten Hören gewagt erscheinen, er ist eindrücklich und treffend.

Erich Auerbach „Der müde Prinz“ (über den jungen Henry V in der Historie Henry IV, Part II) in Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur (Bern: Francke, 1946, 7. Aufl. 1982):

SCENE II. London. Another street.Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS PRINCE HENRY : Before God, I am exceeding weary.POINS : Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.PRINCE HENRY: Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?POINS: Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.PRINCE HENRY : Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! or to know thy face tomorrow! or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast, viz. these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for use! (2 Henry IV, 2.2)

Dies ist eine Unterhaltung zwischen dem Prinzen Heinz, späterem König Heinrich V., und einem der Genossen seines jugendlichen Übermutes. … Die komische Mißbilligung der Tatsache, daß eine Person so hohen Standes von Müdigkeit und Verlangen nach Dünnbier befallen wird, daß sein Geist genötigt ist, von einer so niedrigen Person wie Poins überhaupt Notiz zu nehmen, ja das Inventar seine Kleidungsstücke im Gedächtnis zu behalten, ist eine Persiflage der zu Shakespeares Zeit schon sehr mächtigen Bestrebungen nach strenger Trennung zwischen dem Erhabenen und dem Realistisch-Alltäglichen. Die Bestrebungen dieser Art wurden durch das antike Vorbild inspiriert, besonders durch Seneca, und verbreitet durch die humanistischen Nachahmer des antiken Dramas in Italien, Frankreich und England selbst; aber sie waren noch nicht durchgedrungen. So bedeutend der antike Einfluß auch auf Shakespeare sich auswirkte, zu dieser Stiltrennung hat er ihn nicht verführen können; ihn nicht, und auch andere dramatische Dichter der elisabethanischen Epoche noch nicht; die mittelalterlich-christliche, und zugleich volkstümlich-englische Tradition, die sich dagegen auflehnte, war noch zu stark. In einer weit späteren Zeit, mehr als anderthalb Jahrhunderte nach seinem Tode, wurde Shakespeares Dichtung Ideal und Vorbild all der Bewegungen, die gegen die strenge Stiltrennung des französischen Klassizismus revoltierten. (296-97)

The Tempest (1611): “farewell to the stage”

EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,And what strength I have's mine own,Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,I must be here confined by you,Or sent to Naples. Let me not, [5]Since I have my dukedom gotAnd pardon'd the deceiver, dwellIn this bare island by your spell;But release me from my bandsWith the help of your good hands: [10]

Gentle breath of yours my sailsMust fill, or else my project fails,Which was to please. Now I wantSpirits to enforce, art to enchant,And my ending is despair, [15]Unless I be relieved by prayer,Which pierces so that it assaultsMercy itself and frees all faults.As you from crimes would pardon'd be,Let your indulgence set me free. [20]

Von Shakespeare zu Milton• Harold Bloom: “Milton’s Satan and Shakespeare”

“Of all post-Shakespearean writers it is Milton, rather than Goethe, or Tolstoy or Ibsen, who best exploited the Shakespearean representation of character and its changes, even while working furiously to ward off the Shakespearean shadow. The most Shakespearean of all literary characters after Shakespeare’s own creations is Milton’s Satan, who is the heir of the great hero-villains – Iago, Edmund, Macbeth – and of the darker aspects of Hamlet the counter-Machiavel as well…. Milton and Freud (who greatly esteemed Milton) have in common their mutual debt to Shakespeare and their equally mutual evasion of the debt” (169-70).

Miltons Leben (1608-1674)• http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/• http://johnmilton.org/• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/

Who I am, then, and whence I come, I shall now disclose. I was born in London, of an honorable family. My father was a man of supreme integrity, my mother a woman of purest reputation, celebrated throughout the neighbourhood for her acts of charity. My father destined me in early childhood for the study of literature, for which I had so keen an appetite that from my twelfth year scarcely ever did I leave my studies for my bed before the hour of midnight. This was the first cause of injury to my eyes, whose natural weakness was augmented by frequent headaches.

Defensio secundafür europäisches Publikum

Since none of these defects slackened my assault upon knowledge, my father took care that I should be instructed daily both in school and under other masters at home. When I had thus become proficient in various languages and had tasted by no means superficially the sweetness of philosophy, he sent me to Cambridge, one of our two universities. There, untouched by any reproach, in the good graces of all upright men, for seven years I devoted myself to the traditional disciplines and liberal arts until I had attained the degree of Master, as it is called, cum laude.

Milton über sich selbst in Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano von 1654

A.N. Wilson, Life of John Milton (1983)

There is not much left of Milton’s London. Bread Street, where he was born, and spent his boyhood, was destroyed in the Great Fire; and, having been rebuilt, it survived another 250 years only to be bombarded in the Second World War. Today it is a soulless, windy, straight thoroughfare; less a street than a gap between banks and office-blocks which are tall enough to disguise its proximity, at the one end to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and at the other, to the River Thames. To imagine what it was like in Milton’s boyhood one must look at Vischer’s engravings or read Stow’s Survey of London.

Life of Milton

In those days, Bread Street was a narrow row of predominantly wooden houses which ran down the very centre of a hugely overcrowded, fast-expanding Gothic town. In 1500 there had been a population of some 75,000 Londoners. In 1600 there were 220,000. By 1650 the population had swollen to 450,000. One has to think of a town like modern Birmingham or Brussels. Squashed about Bread Street on every side there were tenements and windmills, trees, theatres, brothels, bridges, and alleys; mansions and hovels. And every few yards, a church spire pointed its spindly cross to the sky. Month by month, more and more people flooded into the already overcrowded lanes and roads. For the most part, they were Englishmen from the provinces – like the Miltons themselves – who had come to the city to make their fortunes. Since the accession of James I, there were also more than a few Scots. There were European refugees, too, victims of religious wars, Protestants from France, the Low Countries, and Italy.

Life of Milton

There were more people than the city could adequately feed or house; and there were strict rules against unauthorized or speculative building, so that the old houses burst at the seams. Food was in short supply. Drainage, and anything approximating to lavatories, were woefully inadequate.... There was never enough water. The place stank. (1)

• - Miltons Vater: scrivener, Geldverleiher, Notar, Musiker, Komponist.

• - 1625: King James I → Charles I • - University of Cambridge, Christ's College: "The Lady of Christ’s

College"

At a Vacation Exercise (1628)Hail native language, that by sinews weakDidst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,Driving dumb silence from the portal door,Where he had mutely sat two years before:Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,Than now I use the in my latter task:Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,I know my tongue but little grace can do thee.Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,Believe me I have thither packed the worst:And, if it happen as I did forecast,The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.... Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,Thy service in some graver subject use....

Miltons Ausbildung

• BA Cambridge 1629• MA Cambridge 1632• bis 1638: Selbststudium: "in deep retreats, far

from the city's uproar": Hammersmith und Horton

• 1638: tour of the continent nach Frankreich und Italien

• Paris: Treffen mit Hugo Grotius, führender protestantischer Intellektueller

• - in Italien: evtl. Treffen mit Galileo Galilei

The Reason of Church Government (1642)Lastly, I should not choose this manner of writing wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account it, but of my left hand. ...... I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end (that were a toilsome vanity), but to be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world; whose fortune hath hitherto been that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics.

Blindness: Sonnet 16When I consider how my light is spent,Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,And that one talent which is death to hide,Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide,Doth God exact day-labour, light denied,I fondly ask; but patience to preventThat murmur, soon replies, God doth not needEither man's work or his own gifts, who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his stateIs kingly. Thousands at his bidding speedAnd post o'er land and ocean without rest:They also serve who only stand and wait.

Lycidas (1637)In this monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height. Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once moreYe myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,And with forc'd fingers rudeShatter your leaves before the mellowing year. For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Lycidas II

For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;Together both, ere the high lawns appear'dUnder the opening eyelids of the morn,We drove afield, and both together heardWhat time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,Oft till the star that rose at ev'ning bright Toward heav'n's descent had slop'd his westering wheel.Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,Temper'd to th'oaten flute;Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with clov'n heel,From the glad sound would not be absent long;And old Damaetas lov'd to hear our song.

But O the heavy change now thou art gone,Now thou art gone, and never must return!Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,And all their echoes mourn.The willows and the hazel copses greenShall now no more be seenFanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.As killing as the canker to the rose,Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wearWhen first the white thorn blows:Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. Bruch oder EinschnittLast came, and last did go,The Pilot of the Galilean lake;Two massy keys he bore of metals twain(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:"How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,Enow of such as for their bellies' sakeCreep and intrude, and climb into the fold?Of other care they little reck'ning makeThan how to scramble at the shearers' feastAnd shove away the worthy bidden guest.Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to holdA sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the leastThat to the faithful herdman's art belongs!What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;And when they list their lean and flashy songsGrate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,But, swoll'n with wind and the rank mist they draw,Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;Besides what the grim wolf with privy pawDaily devours apace, and nothing said,But that two-handed engine at the doorStands ready to smite once, and smite no more"

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor;So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,And yet anon repairs his drooping heaAnd tricks his beams, and with new spangledoreFlames in the forehead of the morning sky:So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted highThrough the dear might of him that walk'd the waves;Where, other groves and other streams along,With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.There entertain him all the Saints above,In solemn troops, and sweet societies,That sing, and singing in their glory move,And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more:Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,In thy large recompense, and shalt be goodTo all that wander in that perilous flood.

Lycidas - Ende

Thus sang the uncouth swain to th'oaks and rills,While the still morn went out with sandals gray;He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,With eager thought warbling his Doric lay;And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,And now was dropp'd into the western bay;At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

Martin Evans zu „Lycidas“

• Evans: In Milton's mouth ... the final line announces his departure from the pastoral world and all it stands for. At last he has broken out of the sterile, repetitious cycle in which he was trapped in the opening lines. "Yet once more" has given way to "no more" and finally to "fresh woods and pastures new."

Miltons frühe Prosa im Rückblick der Second Defence (1654)• Milton: “Latin Secretary” Oliver Cromwells Since, moreover, I had so practised myself from youth that I was above all

things unable to disregard the laws of God and man, and since I had asked myself whether I should be of any use if I now failed my country (or rather the church and so many of my brothers who were exposing themselves to danger for the sake of the Gospel) I decided, although at that time occupied with certain other matters, to devote to this conflict all my talents and all my active powers.

First, therefore, I addressed to a certain friend two books on the reformation of the English church. ...

Since, then, I observed that there are, in all, three varieties of liberty without which civilized life is scarcely possible, namely ecclesiastical liberty, domestic or personal liberty, and civil liberty, and since I had already written about the first, while I saw that the magistrates were vigorously attending to the third, I took as my province the remaining one, the second or domestic kind.

Themen in Miltons Prosa

• Reformation, 1641-42 • Divorce, 1643-45• Education, 1644• Free Speech,1644: Areopagitica• Revolution, 1649• Logic• Grammar• Christian Doctrine

"some graver subject”: Paradise LostOf man's first disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe,With loss of Eden, till one greater manRestore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing heavenly Muse, that on the secret topOf Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspireThat shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,In the beginning how the heavens and earthRose out of chaos: or if Sion hill 10Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowedFast by the oracle of God; I thenceInvoke thy aid to my adventurous song,That with not middle flight intends to soarAbove the Aonian mount, while it pursues 15Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

Paradise Lost

And chiefly thou O Spirit, that dost preferBefore all temples the upright heart and pure,Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the firstWast present, and with might wings outspread 20Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyssAnd madest it pregnant: what in me is darkIllumine, what is low raise and support;That to the highth of this great argumentI may assert eternal providence, 25And justify the ways of God to men.

David Kearns, How to Study Milton:

Paradise Lost tells the story of the fall of man. According to Biblical accounts of creation, God first made man and woman as perfect creatures. God had forbidden the man and woman, called Adam and Eve, to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Eve was persuaded to eat this fruit by a serpent and she then persuaded Adam to do likewise. As a result, they were expelled from the garden in Eden which God had created as a paradise for them, and became mortal creatures, subject to death. Traditionally, the serpent in the garden is identified with the figure of Satan, who led a force of angels in a failed rebellion against God in Heaven. Satan and his allies were punished by being sent to Hell, created for them as a place of endless torture and misery. From Hell, Satan plotted his revenge against God, which he achieved by bringing about the downfall of Adam and Eve. (1-2)

Milton's poem begins immediately after the defeat of the rebel angels, describing their situation and their plotting of revenge in the first three Books. In the fourth Book, Satan arrives in Eden and we are introduced to Adam and Eve. The next four Books are concerned with an account by the archangel Raphael of the war in Heaven and God's subsequent creation of the world, stressing the danger Adam may have to face from Satan. Adam also describes his fist meeting with Eve. In Books IX and X Milton recounts the central story of the fall of Adam and Eve as well as telling of their subsequent repentance. The final two Books are a prophetic account, given by the archangel Michael, of the effects that the Fall will have on the history of the human race, and in particular the way in which they will be redeemed by God's son, Jesus. (2)

This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into hell ... (Argument to Book I)

The War in Heaven

Forthwith (behold the excellence, the powerWhich God hath in his mighty Angels plac'd)Thir Arms away they threw, and to the Hills(For Earth hath this variety from Heav'n 640Of pleasure situate in Hill and Dale)Light as the Lightning glimpse they ran, they flew,From thir foundations loosning to and froThey pluckt the seated Hills with all thir load,Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggie tops 645Up lifting bore them in thir hands: Amaze,Be sure, and terrour seis'd the rebel Host,When coming towards them so dread they sawThe bottom of the Mountains upward turn'd…

Thus measuring things in Heav'n by things on EarthAt thy request, and that thou maist bewareBy what is past, to thee I have reveal'd895What might have else to human Race bin hid;The discord which befel, and Warr in Heav'nAmong th' Angelic Powers, and the deep fallOf those too high aspiring, who rebelldWith Satan, hee who envies now thy state, 900Who now is plotting how he may seduceThee also from obedience, that with himBereavd of happiness thou maist partakeHis punishment, Eternal miserie;Which would be all his solace and revenge, 905As a despite don against the most High,Thee once to gaine Companion of his woe.But list'n not to his Temptations, warneThy weaker; let it profit thee to have heardBy terrible Example the reward 910Of disobedience; firm they might have stood,Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress.

Der Sündenfall"thy seed shall bruise / The serpent's head" (PL X.1031-32). In either hand the hastning Angel caughtOur lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern GateLed them direct, and down the Cliff as fastTo the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd.They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheldOf Paradise, so late thir happie seat,Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the GateWith dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;The World was all before them, where to chooseThir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

Paradise Regained

Anekdote: Thomas Ellwood

When I came home, and set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem which he entitled, 'Paradise Lost'. After I had, with the best attention read it through, I made him another visit, and returned him his book, with due acknowledgment of the favour he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked me how I liked it and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him, and after some discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, 'Thou hast said much here of "Paradise Lost", but what hast thou to say of "Paradise Found"?' He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse; then brake off that discourse and fell upon another subject. (Wilson 228-229)

Paradise Regained

I who e're while the happy Garden sung,By one mans disobedience lost, now singRecover'd Paradise to all mankind,By one mans firm obedience fully tri'dThrough all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd In all his wiles, defeated and repuls't,And Eden rais'd in the wast Wilderness. (1.1-7)

Versuchung in der WüsteBut if thou be the Son of God, CommandThat out of these hard stones be made thee bread;So shalt thou save thyself and us relieveWith Food, whereof we wretched seldom taste. (342-346) Is it not written

(For I discern thee other than thou seem'st)Man lives not by bread only, but each wordProceeding from the mouth of God... (PR I.347-50)

To whom thus Jesus: Also it is written,

Tempt not the Lord thy God, he said and stood.But Satan smitten with amazement fell... (PR IV.560-62)

Margaret Kean in A Companion to Milton

Reading PR requires constant and consistent attention…. Given such stable Gospel testimonies, one might expect the poetic narrative to adhere to established parameters. However, defamiliarization is a necessary strategy in Milton's poem as he strives to reinvest his telling of events with the full impact of a revolutionary moment, restoring a sense both of bafflement and of exhilaration to the reading experience. (429)

Wolfgang Weiß zu Paradise Regained

Leben und Werk dieses humanistischen poeta doctus und strengen Puritaners, der seit dem 18. Jahrhundert zusammen mit Shakespeare als eine der großen Dichtergestalten der englischen Welt verehrt wird, sind von den höchst gegensätzlichen geistigen und politischen Strömungen des 17. Jahrhunderts geprägt. Als traditionsbewußter Dichter steht Milton am Ende der englischen Renaissance; als engagierter politischer Schriftsteller, der für die individuelle Freiheit gegen jede religiöse oder staatliche Bevormundung stritt, wird er zu einem frühen Herold der liberalen Staatstheorie der Neuzeit. (Die englische Literatur, ed. Bernhard Fabian [München: dtv, 1991] Bd. 2: 282)

Thank you!