Welcome to Spotlight.
I’m Anne Muir.
And I’m Colin Lowther.
Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
“Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our
woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat.”
Today we look at the life and work of John Milton.
John Milton wrote one of the most famous poems in the English language.
Many experts consider him to be the most important English poet after William Shakespeare.
John Milton was born in 1608.
He lived through a very difficult period of English history.
Members of the government rebelled against the king and cut off his head!
Milton worked for the government and for a time his life was in danger.
He also had many troubles in his private life.
His first two wives died.
And he became blind when he was only 43 years old.
But he continued writing until he died at the age of 65.
Milton had weak eyes even as a child.
But he loved to learn and he spent much of his time reading and studying.
In his working life, he wrote important letters for the government.
He also translated letters and documents going to and coming from foreign governments.
Milton spoke seven languages and could write poetry in four of them.
But it would be wrong to imagine that he spent all his time studying and working.
Milton had a great sense of humour and he enjoyed having many friends.
He had a good singing voice too.
And he played music on the organ very well.
But he often worked late into the night.
And so in time, years of reading damaged his weak eyes.
At the age of 43, he became completely blind.
This did not stop him working for the government or from writing poetry.
He prepared in his mind what he wanted to say.
Then a helper wrote it down for him.
This was the method he used to write his most famous poem.
Milton got up at four o’clock every morning.
He prepared 50 lines of his poem in his mind.
His helper came at 11 o’clock and wrote the lines down for him.
The poem is called ‘Paradise Lost’.
We read the beginning of Paradise Lost at the start of this program.
Most English speaking people have heard of Paradise Lost, but very few have read it.
One reason for this is that it is a very long poem!
It is divided into 12 books.
Altogether, there are more than 10,500 lines!
Another reason is that the poem uses some words that are no longer part of normal English
speech.
It is not easy for people to understand it today.
Milton was born in London and lived most of his life there.
But in 1665 there was a terrible disease in London.
About 75,000 people died from the disease.
Milton and his family moved away from London to a village in the country.
Milton finished writing Paradise Lost while he was living in the village.
Now, people travel from all over the world to see the house where he stayed.
It still looks the same as it did almost 400 years ago.
Today the house is full of his books and papers.
It is the perfect place to study his work and to see paintings of Milton.
The disease in London stopped spreading when a great fire broke out.
The fire was the worst in the whole history of London.
It burned a large part of the city.
But it stopped the disease and the Milton family moved back to London.
The great poem, Paradise Lost, was published the year after Milton returned to London.
It tells the story of a perfect world and how it came to be ruined.
There was no disease, hunger, pain or death in this world.
And there were only two people: Adam and Eve.
They lived in a beautiful garden where they looked after the plants and animals.
God had made just one rule for their lives.
They were not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve were very happy.
But, best of all, they were friends with God.
But the poem does not begin by describing the paradise where Adam and Eve lived.
It starts with Satan.
It tells how he rebelled against God and how God banned him from heaven.
Satan was very angry.
He looked for ways to ruin the perfect world God had made.
Satan discovered Adam and Eve living in the garden.
He persuaded Eve to disobey that one rule that God had made.
Eve persuaded Adam to do the same.
This caused them to lose the special friendship they had with God.
It also opened the door for sin to enter their perfect world.
The punishment for this act was death.
But the Son of God felt very sad for them.
He offered to die in their place.
God accepted his offer.
God let Adam and Eve live but he sent them away from the beautiful garden.
Their lives became difficult.
Sin brought with it disease, hunger and pain.
Adam and Eve knew they had let all these bad things into the world.
They knew that every person living after them would suffer because of what they had done.
The poem ends at the time when Adam and Eve left the garden.
But it is not a completely sad ending.
Before they left, an angel told Adam what would happen in the future.
The Son of God would come to earth.
He would be called Jesus.
He would be born as a human being so that he could die.
He would suffer the punishment of death instead of Adam and Eve.
But the angel said that after Jesus was killed he would rise again to life.
His sacrifice would make it possible for Adam and Eve and all people on earth to be friends
with God again.
John Milton was a Christian.
He said his reason for writing Paradise Lost was ‘to explain the ways of God to man’.
The main idea for his poem came from the Bible.
It tells what Christians believe about God and the results of sin.
‘Paradise Lost’ ends with what Christians believe is good news.
Jesus took the punishment for sin in his own body.
People everywhere can be friends with God again because of what Jesus did.
The writer of this program was Joy Smith.
The producer was Michio Ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom.
You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net.
This program is called, ‘John Milton: Writing of Paradise’.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.
Goodbye.
You can read the whole text of Paradise Lost at Dartmouth College’s website.