Christ the happy victor

John Milton: Milton’s birthday galas miss the point | Matt Ristuccia

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There is double irony in this year's worldwide celebration of John Milton's 400th birthday on Dec. 9. Consider New York City and the first irony. Despite the hoopla of three major exhibits, one of which opened in September with a Grand Paradise Lost Costume Ball, most of what Milton lived for is disliked in Manhattan.

Milton was foremost a Puritan. He believed his life, like Paradise Lost (his ingenious epic of biblical creation, fall, and redemption), should "justify the ways of God to men." He was also a small "r" republican with a belief that representative government demanded piety: He rejected "fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed."

Milton was a poet, but not one of short lyrics. His poetry overflows with sublime beauty, rich cadences, and profound thought, so much so that Princeton English professor Nigel Smith considers him "better than Shakespeare." But to read Milton is to read Paradise Lost, which clocks in at over 10,000 lines.