[Milton-L] Paradise Lost -- Parallel Prosody Edition

[Carl Bellinger]

> .Another problem with Bible
>>   translations is that in making a general decision
>>   about style, mode, or the kind of translation they
>>   want to be (as "dynamic equivalence"), they fail to
>>   represent stylistic difference among biblical
>>   books.

    A similar problem arises when Paradise Lost is used as a source of 
exemplary 10-syllable lines when assessing generally the nature and defining 
limits of English prosody. Mammon's prosody is not Belial's, Adam's is not 
the same after as before the Fall. In the context of the whole poem the 
swaying iambs in Adam's first post-Fall speeches make the most brutal 
sadness I know in English verse; sometimes I can hardly tolerate reading 
them. And yet if you were assembling a primer on "iambic pentameter" 
technique and wanting to use PL as a source, this would be one of the 
easiest places to go to find your exemplary iambs line after line after 
line.

-Carl