Latest Posts by onlycarrion - Page 5
árbol print pieces by paloma wool
loving the current generation of spam account names
Rachel Weisz photographed by yulia gorbachenko, 2023Â
Carol Christian Poell Female Object Tanned Arthrosic Elbow & Hands Kangaroo Leather Jacket via inkclothing
art by Acky Bright
Where would you suggest someone begins looking in order to fully understand the scope and breadth of Milton's Paradise Lost? I've started pursuing the bible, and some classical texts (Ovid, Virgil, Homer & Hesiod), but I feel like I'm still missing the mark with it. It is such a beautiful and rich text, and I would love to be able to enjoy it fully, so any help pointing me in the right direction would be very greatly appreciated.
yeah Paradise Lost is a strange thing (strange and unorthodox even in its day) and it takes some time and work—you’re not going to grasp all of it immediately.Â
first, you need to understand Milton’s politics: this is the era of the English Civil War (see Braddick’s God’s Fury, England’s Fire (ebook) or Purkiss’, The English Civil War: A People’s History), and Milton is a public writer with powerful republican convictions, knee-deep in pamphlet wars and controversy. when Milton begins to write PL, it’s nine years after an English king was executed by his subjects, and a Commonwealth declared. Milton agrees to support that “republic”, even though the rule of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, contradicts his beliefs. but the republic collapses—in 1660, the son of the executed king is restored to the throne, and Milton goes into hiding. readers have endlessly debated what kind of shadow this casts over PL—whether God is a tyrant and Satan a republican revolutionary (e.g. Bryson’s The Tyranny of Heaven), or God the only legitimate monarch there could ever be and Satan a pretender to His throne (Achinstein’s Literature and Dissent).
also, Milton’s theology is strange and nuanced, sometimes unorthodox and heretical, and indivisible from his politics. the vitality of freedom, free will and thought and action, goes through all his work—the chapter on Milton’s theodicy in the Cambridge Companion to Milton (pdf) is good on this. (it’s helpful to have Genesis of the KJV open side-by-side with it, because Milton is constantly echoing/adapting/transforming its words and verses).
as for the poetry itself—on the page it can look daunting, because Milton’s compound sentences seem to reach on forever, but it’s written in very clear iambic pentameter, blank verse—the same stuff as Shakespeare—and the five-beat rhythm goes through its lines like a blood-beat, it’s wonderful spoken aloud (like this, Satan’s speech from Book I). you want a good edition with comprehensive footnotes (like the Norton Critical Edition or Longman Annotated), and you have to take it slowly—it’s beautiful beautiful poetry, but it’s so dense, it’s doing so much all at once. pay attention to the texture of it, the alliterative and consonant and assonant sounds (because those are also joining characters and ideas together).Â
there’s a gigantic critical tradition, and you can wade into that as much or as little as you like. the “Satanic” controversy is something you’ll have to wrestle with by book IX (to me, Romantic views of Satan as tragic hero are bad and should feel bad because they fall for what Milton was doing with the devil hook line and sinker and don’t know it). you could look at Kolbrener’s Milton’s Warring Angels, Rumrich’s MIlton Unbound, Fish’s Surprised By Sin, Raymond’s Milton’s Angels, Martin’s Milton and Gender and The Ruins of Allegory, Purkiss’ Literature, Gender and Politics During the English Civil War, Leonard’s Naming in Paradise. darkness visible is also a brilliant resource.Â
An “initiation well,” used in magical rites, which was excavated at the Quinta da Regaleira estate in Sintra, Portugal. Â
Christale Copaver by Filip Koludrovic for HUBE Magazine Issue 1
frot till you dock
basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body. that’s basically fine.
if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out.Â
unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.
girl help. I got high and read the cruel and self-centered opinions of the imperial core's middle class, now I feel hopeless about the state of the world where once I was simply apathetic to said middle-classes insignificant understanding of the world and I don't know how to achieve peace of mind
puyi was the last qing emperor of china. as a child he would regularly have his servants flogged and shoot at them with a BB gun. as an adult he continued this cruelty and ran the japanese puppet state of manchukuo, presiding over countless war crimes. when he was imprisoned by the CCP, he was confronted with people he'd hurt: his concubines, the victims of japanese massacres, people who had worked and starved in manchukuo's factories. he realsed what he'd done--overwhelmed with guilt, he considered suicide.
after nine years in prison, he was released. he led an ordinary life as a street sweeper. he was apologetic to waiters in restaurants--they reminded him too much of having servants. he took care to be the last person on the bus. he acted in plays as a hobby. he was happily married to a hospital nurse, who said of her husband: 'When I was having even a slight case of flu, he was so worried I would die, that he refused to sleep at night and sat by my bedside until dawn so he could attend to my needs'
there's no amount of cruelty that cannot be unlearned. there is no level of self-centredness or brutality that cannot be recovered from. the people with these cruel opinions--maybe they'll die like that. but they have within them somebody kind and gentle. the possibility for such a person exists within everybody, without exception. so don't be hopeless when you see cruelty. just steel your heart and tell yourself that not only are there good people--but that cruel people can one day be good. that there is hope for every human being and so there is hope for the world
this ask polly comment..
Mira Bellwether, author of Fucking Trans Women, died today. The world is poorer for her absence.
kyla mccallum
tundras are soooo pretty aand beautiful to look at smears of best ever colors on flat and muted greens and yellows.... hard agree with los campesinos like yes take a body to tundra for real......
lately ive been looking into marian apparitions and its so crazy that theres some entity all over the world claiming to be the virgin mary telling people to self harm and sacrifice for her and like the catholic church recognizes this as mary like theres no way thats not a fucking demonÂ
Amy Fine Collins, Quil Lemons, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, Daphne Seybold, LaQuan Smith, Mel Ottenberg and Camilla Lowther by Nick Sethi for W Mag Vol. 5 2022
finally i understand Females by Andrea Long Chu
“Feminine penis” all penis is feminine. Having a dick makes you girly, it’s fag behavior
mira bellwether is the author of the incredible zine Fucking Trans Women and has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I will be running a fundraiser as soon as i get details sorted out, but please donate to her gofundme here: