Cambridge English Audio

This is the original, as-broadcast recording of our reading of Book IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost, featuring an experimental live soundscape created with improvised violin accompaniment.

Because the voice and violin were recorded together rather than on separate tracks, the musical elements are at times prominent and can make the spoken word less clear. We have also made available a remastered version in which much of the accompaniment has been reduced, for listeners who would prefer greater clarity of the reading.

This version preserves the more experimental character of the original broadcast.

Read by: Jeremy Hardingham, with Alice Goodman and Jonathan Styles.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge.

7.45pm, Book XII

Read by: Adrian Poole (Michael), with Stephen Logan (Adam), Emma Leadbetter (Eve), and Jeremy Hardingham

Book XII Summary by Eily-Meg MacQueen (2008)

Michael then explains what else is to come, including the story of Nimrod building the irreligious Babel, and the faithful Abraham who is promised land by God to start a new community and whose work is continued by Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Michael also reassures Adam that Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, will overcome Satan and Death through his own crucifixion and so, comforted about the future, Adam and Eve are led out of Paradise:

They looking back, all the eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate

With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and providence their guide:

They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.
                                               ~XII.641-end.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge.

6.50pm, Book XI

Read by: Sophie Read, with Gavin Alexander, Subha Mukherji, Jane Partner, and Daniel Wakelin

Book XI Summary by Eily-Meg MacQueen (2008)

The Son defends Adam and Eve to God as they have shown remorse for their actions. God accepts their regret, but they still cannot stay in Paradise. He sends Michael, with reinforcements, to make them leave, prompting their grief. Michael then sends Eve to sleep and shows Adam the sins and deaths of his descendents, demonstrating the exceptions of Enoch and Noah who were saved through their virtue.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

5.40pm Book X

Read by Abigail Rokison, with Tamara Astor, Max Barton, Hannah Blaikie, Holly Cracknell, Suzanne Chrystal, Liane Grant, Phoebe Haines, Katherine Jack, Jess Labhart, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Rory Stallibrass, Alex Town, and Jessie Wyld

Book X Summary by Ruth Rushworth

God sends his Son to have just words with Adam and Eve, giving them their sentences - for Eve, pain in childbirth; for Adam, hard toil; and for both (ultimately) death.

Meanwhile in Hell, Sin and Death, feeling Satan's victory, build a bridge across Chaos to ease their passage into the mortal world. Satan returns victorious and relates his tale of success, just moments before he and his followers receive their sentence and are turned into snakes.

At the end of the book, Adam and Eve begin to reconcile with each other and to repent of their actions, offering up supplications to God to spare their offspring. God has promised that the Son will one day redeem man's wrong, but for the minute, things look pretty bleak for Adam and Eve.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge.

4.30pm, Book IX

Read by: Jeremy Hardingham, with Alice Goodman and Jonathan Styles (This alternate version of book IX exists because some listeners found the additional audio difficult to unpick from the reading. In this version, Alice and Jonathan's contributions to the art have been, mostly, muted. Please listen to the 'As Broadcast' version for the full experience. )

Book IX Summary by Ned Allen (2008)

The book opens with a personal prologue and a restatement of the poem's central theme. The poem is said to be, from here on, of the tragic mode. What Milton has to relate is, moreover, epic, and he means to demonstrate how the Fall - a Christian story - is superior to other stories in which legend and myth play a significant part. It is thanks to his celestial (heavenly) muse that he is able to commit his thoughts to paper.

The action starts with Satan, compassing the earth, soliloquizing on his torment. He finds a way to sneak in to Paradise and adopts the guise of the serpent.

As day dawns, Eve suggests that they divide their labours in the garden to work more effectively, unheeded by the distractions of 'smiles' and 'casual discourse' (222-23). Adam admits the sense of Eve's suggestion, and despite voicing at some length his fear for her safety, and the pair debating whether virtue were better left untried, he eventually allows her to go. The narrator declaims against this folly, unable to let the 'event perverse' (405) pass without comment.

Satan catches sight of Eve - the 'fairest unsupported flower' (432) - and he is momentarily disarmed. But he gains her attention and begins his fraudulent temptation. Eve marvels at the serpent's human voice and Satan leads her to the tree which he claims gave him the power of speech. She resists when she discovers it is the one forbidden, but Satan commands her to look at him, and to see that the tree has yielded him a 'life more perfect' (689). Astonished by Satan's command of reason, persuaded by his flattery, and in hunger of knowledge and godhead, Eve begins to persuade herself to succumb, and plucks and eats the 'intellectual fruit' (794). She considers keeping it for herself, but decides finally to share all and brings her spouse a sample. Adam is horrified. However, he cannot bear to be separated from Eve, even if this means death, and he reconciles himself to what seems necessary: he completes the 'mortal sin | Original' (1003) by eating the fruit himself.

Adam and Eve later wake to find themselves naked and miserable. They cover themselves, ashamed, and weep at the discord of the post-lapsarian world. The book leaves them arguing and casting blame at one another.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

5.40pm, Book VIII

Read by: Jean Chothia, with Raphael Lyne (Raphael), Subha Mukherji (God), and Jason Scott-Warren (Adam)

Book X Summary by Simon Jackson(2008)

Book VIII continues the conversation between Raphael and Adam. (Eve, present at first, soon leaves her husband and the angel to talk in private, preferring to wait to hear her husband relate the angel's words to her.) Adam initially asks the angel about the nature of the universe and the movements of the planets, but Raphael leaves his questions unanswered, encouraging Adam to turn his attention instead to the earth, and not to the hidden secrets of heaven. Cleared of doubt by the angel's reply, Adam seeks to prolong their conversation, and describes to the angel his experiences since his creation - his birth, his first views of Paradise, his first conversations with God, and finally the creation of Eve. This leads to a discussion of the nature of love. The day is drawing to a close, and Raphael departs, once more encouraging Adam to resist temptation.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

2.55 pm, Book VII

Read by:Daniel Wakelin, with Christopher Burlinson, Hester Lees-Jeffries, Leo Mellor, Subha Mukherji, Sophie Read, Gabriel Roberts, Marcus Tomalin, and Andrew Zurcher

Book VII Summary by: Gabriel Roberts (2008)

In Book VII Raphael continues his revelations to Adam. The book begins with a recapitulation of Milton's appeal for divine inspiration from Book I. Milton's invocation of Urania is directly paralleled with Adam's request for knowledge from Raphael. After warning Adam about the dangers of man's thirst for knowledge, Raphael proceeds to explain how the world was created, after Satan was banished from Heaven. He describes how God announced his intention to create the world, and how Heaven responded with rejoicing. God then initiated the Creation through the Son, his Word. The rest of the book charts the six days of Creation much as it is described by the account in Genesis. The last thing to be created is man. Book VII ends with a heavenly celebration of this last masterpiece of creation.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

1.55 pm, Book VI

Read by: Paul Hartle

Book VI Summary by: David Parry (2008)

Raphael carries on telling the story. Abdiel returns to heaven and finds that the angels are preparing for war. The good and bad angels go into battle. Satan's army is defeated. Night falls, and while Michael and the good angels sleep, Satan and the fallen angels are plotting. In the morning, battle begins again. Satan and his army have invented artillery, which throws the good angels to the ground. The good angels respond by throwing mountains. God then commissions his Son to win the war, which otherwise would be unwinnable by either side, so that the Son will be seen as Messiah, God's chosen king. The Son rides out in his chariot, and the evil angels flee from him and fall over the wall of Heaven into Hell. The Son returns in a parade of victory and is hailed by all the angels of Heaven.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

1:00pm, Book V

Read by: Fred Parker, with Jeremy Hardingham (God), Stephen Logan (Adam), and Jacqueline Tasioulas (Eve)

Book V Summary by Sophie Read (2008)

Book V is a strange mixture of the domestic and the divine. It opens in the intimacy of Adam and Eve's bower at dawn: Eve is in an uneasy sleep, the words Satan has whispered into her ear troubling her with alien notions of impiety and disobedience. Adam wakes his wife, and she tells him her dream. Troubled, he recognises evil, but cannot guess at its source, and his attempt to reason Eve out of her fears is only half-successful.

They then begin the business of the day, hymning their praises of God. Their song restores their disturbed spirits, and they set about the task of disciplining the all-but-excessive bounty of Eden. God, watching Adam and Eve at work, instructs the angel Raphael to pay them a visit. He is to talk to them of their enemy, Satan, and warn against his lies and trickery - in case, after they've fallen, Adam and Eve should complain that ignorance of evil left them vulnerable to its allure.

Raphael arrives in Eden and Adam almost mistakes his celestial splendour for the sun coming up again. Angel and man sit down to eat together, and Raphael relates the cautionary story of the rebel angels' fall from Heaven. Raphael tells Adam how God summoned his host to hear a divine decree: the Son, Christ, has been begotten, and appointed vicegerent above all of the angels. They celebrate, but there is a disaffected angel among them: the archangel now known as Satan feels jealousy and wounded pride, and determines on insurrection. Satan masses a huge following of sympathisers under pretence of gathering the angels to worship their new ruler. Instead, he makes an eloquent speech protesting against 'prostration vile' to God and now his Son, rejecting servitude and questioning their right to rule. His persuasive rhetoric convinces most of his hearers, but there is one angel who refuses to be swayed. Abdiel denounces Satan as a blasphemous ingrate, and asserts God's supremacy as creator. Alone untempted, he predicts the rebel angels' destruction, and leaves their camp.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

11:40 am, Book IV

Read by: Eric Griffiths

Book IV Summary by:Jon Laurence (2008)

Now standing on Mount Niphates in full view of Eden, Satan is struck by doubt over what he is about to do. He reflects upon his ambition, the folly of his rebellion, and the despair that he has sunk into. However, believing that repentance is impossible, he confirms himself more deeply in evil than before. The fear and anger in his face betray his disguise to Uriel who is watching from afar.

Satan leaps over the bounds of Paradise in the shape of a cormorant, and sits in the Tree of Life, from which he can see the entire garden. Satan catches sight of Adam and Eve for the first time, witnessing their freedom from shame and Eve's absolute devotion to Adam. The sight of their innocence and their harmony with all other creatures in the garden provokes further reflection from Satan on the prospect of their joy turning to despair. Despite his consciousness of the abhorrence of his actions, he speaks of his compulsion to act and excuses himself.

He overhears Adam say that the only condition of their living in Paradise is that they do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge lest they bring death into the world. Eve confirms this and tells the story of her entry into the world and her meeting Adam. Witnessing this, Satan thinks of his own pain and torment, and questions God's prohibition. He reflects on the basis of Adam and Eve's happiness whilst resolving to tempt them to eat from the Tree.

As the sun sets, Uriel flies to Gabriel to warn him that an evil spirit has managed to gain entry to Paradise. Adam and Eve take to their bower to rest. They praise the night and then engage in loving sexual congress, entirely free from shame in their unfallen state. The angels search the garden and find Satan squatting next to Eve, attempting to implant corrupting visions in her imagination. When touched with a spear, Satan returns to his original shape. At first he resists, but then he flees.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

10.55 am, Book III

Read by: Helen Cooper

Book III Summary by: Ewan Bleiman (2008)

This is a book dealing with a lot of tricky theological concepts, as God the Father sees Satan on his way towards Eden and foresees his success in provoking the Fall of mankind. God insists on the free will of man to fall, but also acknowledges that man will be tricked and will not fall through conscious malice as Satan did. There are plenty of questions here about whether Man was created predestined to fall, which relate back to similar issues regarding the fall of the angels. The Son offers himself as a ransom for the salvation of man from eternal death, and is celebrated in Heaven.

Meanwhile, Satan makes his way to the gates of Heaven. From there he flies to the Sun and, disguised as a lowly angel full of the wonder of God and desirous to gaze on his works, seeks directions towards the home of Man from Uriel, the angel stationed there. Satan, at last, finds himself on the edge of Paradise.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

9:50 am, Book II

Read by: Drew Milne

Book II summary by Nicholas Zeng (2008)

Satan sits on a throne and talks about how, being united in misery, the devils can, and should, be in complete and democratic agreement. He asks the assembly what they should do to fight and frustrate the will of God.

Moloch counsels open war. There is nothing to lose, he says, the most that God can do to them is to destroy them utterly and end their agony. Belial criticises this for being motivated by despair and the hope of destruction. He further states that there is no way they can defeat the invulnerable and all-knowing God. He fears the consequences - being utterly destroyed, or worse, having greater agony inflicted on them. It is their duty to suffer; they should be content and hope that in time they will get used to the flames, or that God might decide to save fuel and turn down the heat.

Mammon develops this idea of inaction, advising that they should forge their own kingdom in hell and enjoy their freedom from subjection to God. A cheer arises from the devils, who don't quite wish to go to war again and have their behinds handed to them on a platter.

Beelzebub mocks both the possibilities of peace and of war, and puts things in stark perspective - hell is a prison, not a new world of joy and tree-planting. He speaks, though the idea was given him by Satan, of a prophesied New World of Man, and counsels shifting operations to this battleground. The proposal meets with assent and a brave adventurer who fears nothing is called for.

There is silence. Satan eventually steps up. He tells the rest to make themselves comfortable and do some home improvement, while he goes exploring.

Satan reaches the gates of Hell, guarded by Sin and Death. Death threatens Satan with his spear and Satan raises his; the opportunity arises for a great movie moment but unfortunately, Milton wasn't into movies, being rather blind. Sin prevents the fight by revealing Satan to be her father, and also the father of her child, Death. (Work out for yourself how that is possible!) There is a touching family reunion, as Sin and Satan catch up on what their son has been doing in the meantime - incest, rape, attempted cannibalism, in short, if you believe Freud, all the things that children would love to do but never quite get around to, on account of excessive schoolwork.

Although commanded by God never to unlock the gates, Sin is convinced by Satan to do so, and she lets him out.

The first thing Satan sees is the ocean of Chaos, where the elements or 'dark materials' of God's Creation reside. Satan meets Chaos himself who directs him towards Earth. The book ends with Satan seeing Heaven, and Earth hanging from Heaven like a pendent on a golden chain. He moves towards Earth with revenge in his heart, and here the book closes; a cliff-hanger if ever there was one.

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)

This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge

9 am, Book I

Read by: Gavin Alexander, with ‘Liquid fire’ by Issam Kourbaj

Book I Summary, by Beth Sims (2008) on the Darkness Visible web site, created for Milton's 400th Birthday.

Book I of Paradise Lost introduces Milton's intention to write a great epic of lasting literary importance about the biblical story of the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve's expulsion from Paradise, and the consequences of eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. It also tells the reader, briefly, about the rebellion of some of the angels and their subsequent expulsion from heaven.

It then gets to the heart of the action, presenting the reader with an image of Satan and the host of newly fallen angels, writhing in confusion, prostrate on a burning lake in Hell. They eventually start to rise and Milton describes the ranks of Satan's army and his rousing speech to them, which describes a prophecy of man and a new world. We are told about the fallen angels as individual, militaristic figures and their response to their leader. Satan speaks compellingly. He is charismatic and uses powerful rhetoric. We begin to build up a sympathetic picture of an appealing Satan: Satan as an anti-hero. The close of Book I sees the building of the palace Pandæmonium and the preparations for a council of Hell.