How to Read Paradise Lost in 7 Podcasts

My podcast, Open Book, has the tagline “Read like an English professor.” Launched in 2020, it’s me introducing listeners to whatever I’m reading and teaching. Most of the coverage is classic novels like Northanger Abbey or Don Quixote, or introductions to poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. One season I just read long poems aloud, like Alan Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

But some of episodes are best heard in series, because they’re covering one long text. The consummate example is John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1660, 1674), whose 12 books I cover in 7 episodes. As follows:

How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 1. Covers how to read Milton’s language; his Christian subject and epic genre; and what happens in Book 1 of 12.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Books 2-3. Considers first how Milton, the blind poet, describes indescribable things; then resumes the story with the debate in Hell; and then addresses a conversation between God and his Son, to ask how God can know what will happen without causing it to happen, and how God and Milton give characters traits suited to their circumstances.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 4. In which Satan arrives at the Garden of Eden; Milton describes the garden and its human and animal inhabitants; and the good angels discover Satan trying to influence Eve, whispering in her ear while she dreams.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Books 5-6. Covers events preceding the start of the poem’s story: the War in Heaven, in which Satan leads a rebellion against God, before the Son defeats him and drives the rebels down to Hell.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Books 7-8. In which Adam and Raphael exchange stories — of the creation of the universe, and of human beings — and Adam learns what subjects and questions God wants us to stop thinking about.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 9. The climax of Milton’s epic poem, in which Satan — spoiler alert — convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.
How to Read John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Books 10-12. The grand finale of Milton’s epic: in which we learn the consequences of the fall for Adam and Eve — but also for Satan, Sin, Death, the Son of God, and every human being from the Garden of Eden to the Last Judgement.