The pleasure of poetry: Phillip Pullman on 'Paradise Lost'

Philip Pullman on the Pleasure of reading 'Paradise Lost'.


https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-sound-and-the-story-exploring-the-world-of-paradise-lost

Seems to me a level headed appraisal of what makes this poem great.

His comments about English teachers and poetry are sadly accurate. In their defence most are following the requirements of a syllabus which mandates the approach and seems to be written either by people who think a poem is a complicated way of passing on a 'message' or the poem is a form of carrier which, if not exposed and neutralsied by 'analysis' will infect defenceless students with  dangerous ideological viruses.

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-sound-and-the-story-exploring-the-world-of-paradise-lost