"Paradise Lost" by John Milton (poetry reading)

You can read the whole poem here, together with study notes, biblical references etc.
http://www.paradiselost.org/novel.html

There are more audible readings here at librivox.
http://librivox.org/paradise-lost-by-john-milton/

Anyway - here's Johnny. John Milton was called "The Lady of Christ's" meaning Christ's College, he being a dainty dish, like the Paris Hilton of his day, and stuff. This remark is not intended to imply that he was homosexule. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton

Lucifer was an archangel, once God's Best Friend, chosen after a somewhat bitchy reality TV series from several qualified angels. He represented the Morning Star, a Heavenly Newspaper, also Intellectualism and Enlightenment which are Good Things, surely. He and God went bowling together, wore matching sweaters, swapped eternity rings, texted one another twenty times daily, created New Worlds and generally raised Hell - er, not literally the latter, you understand, it's a figure of speech.

According to the Mormons Lucifer was the brother of Jesus. I don't know how or why, you'll have to ask them. I guess God had been married before...come to think of it, there's no record of him marrying Mary so Jesus was a b.... damn ... that thunder sounded close.

God told me that he's visited our planet once, met a nice Jewish girl but she was married, nevertheless one thing led to another, now people still believe the kid was his, they're always talking about it but they can't prove a thing. What was that dazzling flash? Why is my hair on fire?

This is Paradise Lost, that you've probably heard about, but I only did the first 50 lines. It's a sad and involved story but it all turns out well in the end, however not before some exciting moments and plot twists before the customary torture scenes, final obligatory car chase and flaming crash into the abyss.

The "one restraint" was of course not to eat the Forbidden Fruit, which, incidentally, was not called an apple in the Bible. Personally, I think it was a banana, they're very tempting.

"Paradise Lost" 1866 engraving by Gustave Doré showing Lucifer and his Host of Rebel Angels being cast into Bottomless Perdition, which doesn't sound like much fun and "penal fire" is just plain spiteful and gives me the Flaming Willies. Ouch.

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[wildwildwest1414]

And there after,Lucifer proclaimed ''Tis better to rule in Hell then Serve in Heaven''...

[SpokenVerse]

@wildwildwest1414 Thank you for commenting.

There are two different versions.

(The originals were all capital letters.)

"Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n."

In the other the last line is:

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."

The difference is "than" instead of "then"

[aphidreiter]

Professor, can you give us the meter in the first line. Can you also let me know the correct term where a poet places a short line after an iambic line eg "With vain attempt." Thanks.

[SpokenVerse]

It's iambic pentameters throughout. Deliberately shortening a line for effect is called catalexis (noun) or catalectic (adjective). "With vain attempt" isn't really shortened though because "Him the almighty power" is in the same line. I just chose to make a pagebreak at the end of the sentence - and in other places too. Methinks I do profess too much.

[Babs44sun]

@ClockworkBoomerang Fundementalist christians think this great piece of literature is devil worship

[ClockworkBoomerang]

Great reading and great description :) why so many dislikes??

[bluzercic]

you have great voice for reading. tnx for this interpretation

[harliette]

I know most of you will not care for the film to be out by a year ot two yet no production could do it justice except my efforts :D♥

[Manny1222]

You're description is EPIC! Gave me the lols.

[anime00manga]

Love the description. Very witty.

[michaellasroy]

I like the description ^^

[TatsuaMayaSuou]

That descripition was wonderful. I will have to share that with my english class!

[TheBurningWolf]

LOL the description!

[yokyu2lea]

hmmm, a banana? Lol !