[Milton-L] ParadiseLostDaily

[Nancy Charlton]

The list didn't recognize my invitation because my gmail address 
wasn't subscribed. I subscribed it, and am now awaiting approval for 
it. I quickly changed my mind about making this a moderated list: I 
don't need another job! If anything awful is posted, I'll simply take 
it down. I also changed the joining process easier by choosing the 
option "Anyone can join."

The email, then, is 
<mailto:paradiselostdaily at googlegroups.com>paradiselostdaily at googlegroups.com

The URL: http://groups.google.com/group/paradiselostdaily?hl=en

Nancy


At 05:01 PM 1/1/2008 -0800, you wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Some time ago I conceived the notion of making a Paradise Lost 
>calendar: one book per month, the number of lines divided by number 
>of days and adjusted for sense for each day, together with relevant 
>art, notes, quotations from other sources. To do this the way I 
>envisioned it would have made a 8" x 11" book about 800 pages long, 
>requiring a derrick to lift, and costing a fortune in permissions, 
>royalties and production costs. It would have to sell for at least 
>$100 a pop. All around totally unfeasible. But gorgeous!
>
>However, I did go so far as to break down each book into daily 
>passages--some longer, some shorter, and few at the mathematical 
>average number of lines. I had this on a humongous spreadsheet that 
>seems to have disappeared off my computer; printed out it was five 
>feet long. I was going to offer this file to the members of this 
>list, but when I realized it was missing and I've have to 
>reconstruct it, I had another idea. Why not put it on the internet?
>
>Then, why not set up to share ideas and comments on this daily 
>reading? So, yesterday I set up a new Google discussion group, 
>ParadiseLostDaily.
>
>The list will shortly receive a blanket invitation to join, together 
>with instructions on how to do so. I envision this as being less 
>scholarly than Milton-L, more directed to the general reader, and 
>stressing how utterly enjoyable PL can be. However, I'm taking steps 
>to exclude students from trying to freeload homework. I haven't 
>finished preparing all this yet, but it IS online. Eventually I hope 
>for it to become a rich "stone soup" of individuals' responses to 
>the daily passages, and contributions of pictures, sound bites etc. 
>Google Groups allow that. (Actually, I may have been predisposed to 
>use Google rather than Yahoo because a month or so ago I was setting 
>up a blog and the sample text was the opening lines of Book   III. 
>Pretty neat!)
>
>I hope you'll pass this along to family, friends and students. The 
>spreadsheet isn't copyrighted, as anyone trying to divvy up the poem 
>would come up with similar results. So use it in classes, discussion 
>groups, individual study as appropriate.
>
>I look forward to next New Year's Eve, when if not at midnight at 
>least on that day, we'll have celebrated JM's quadricentennial year 
>most appropriately and go into 2009 "with solitary steps and slow."
>
>Thank you all, and a merry Happy New Year!
>
>Nancy Charlton
>Portland, Oregon
>
>P.S. I don't think I ever properly thanked you all for your help 
>last January with the 10-minute Milton, and I know I never posted a 
>report on what I did. If anyone's still interested, I ran across my 
>notes and will be glad to post a report now that I have more time.
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