Lecture 11 | Losing Paradise (Book XI) | Paradise Lost in Slow Motion

Join the live lectures, book clubs, and poetry community at 🏫 https://versedcommunity.mn.co/ The transgression of Book 9 led us to the condemnation of Book 10; Now we come at last to Paradise Lost—Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden. All consolation in earthly things are taken away and the first human beings are made to stand without support. Paradise Lost might be read as one long elegy—a poem of loss and lament that moves at last to a great exchange. Paradise Lost participates in a social and psychological practice of understanding loss—it emerges from a felt experience of loss and works towards the consolation of that loss. In Book 11, the loss reaches an unbearable weight. In Book 12, the consolation is provided in full. In Book 11, we find the psychological exploration of states of grief and mourning.