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You gotta read this one.
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Paradise Lost can be a difficult read. Personally, I could never get round to comitting myself to the book, but this reading really brings it to life, and is well worth spending the time and money. Milton creates many wonderous and fantastical images and characters. Satan is shown as a tragic hero, tormented by the innocence of Adam and Eve, and prompted to revenge. Milton actually uses his characters to play 'devil's advocate' (literally!) by asking many paradoxical questions of the biblical story. Considering this book was first printed at the height of the witchcraft paranoia of the seventeenth century, it's amazing he managed to get away with it.
Full of allegory and layers of meaning, this is a CD set you can enjoy again and again.
Anyway, despite the date of publication (1962) which leaves the commentary a little outdated, in that it doesn't really address Stanley Fish or Joseph Wittreich or some other big Milton scholars' recent contributions to the subject, this edition is great, for beginning milton readers and more advanced alike. The introduction and footnotes are among the most complete available anywhere with good references to hebrew, classical, and other motifs within the poem. It addresses the ptolemic vs. copernican debate (sun round earth or earth round sun) and Milton's astronomy in some depth in the introduction, maybe beyond what will be interesting until you've finished the poem.
A timeless edition, I would say, which is why its still popular after 40 years, much better than the penguin classic edition.
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Gregory's observations are organised into explanations of seven laws (hence the title):
The Law of the Lesson
The Law of the Language
The Law of the Teacher
The Law of the Teaching Process
The Law of the Learner
The Law of the Learning Process
The Law of Review
His key insight is that knowledge is not a commodity that can be transferred from mind to mind in the way that a physical object is transferred from hand to hand. Thus teaching is fundamentally a conversation, and the object of the teacher is not to directly transmit knowledge. Rather, the teacher's goal is to excite the student to self discovery and to direct him or her in that process of discovery. The teacher should only resort to direct communication of the material when it is necessary to quickly provide context for the main lesson to be learned.
The stress upon review done properly is equally important. For Gregory, review is not successful if the teacher merely elicits a verbatim recitation of the lesson imparted. Review should be structured in a way that requires the student to have internalised the lesson and be able to apply it experientially.
Even though the book is thin, Gregory gives many practical tips for making teaching work and many of examples of what doesn't work. In fact, the thinness is a virtue. One can easily read a chapter in a very short sitting, but then spend the rest of one's day evaluating one's own teaching by his standards and pondering what changes could be made to improve one's teaching.
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This edition has a vast array of extremely helpful footnotes (have a Bible at hand for all those cross-references) and it has large margins for taking plenty of notes of your own. More than half of the book is a collection of various literature, excerpts and explanations that are also quite helpful.
Certainly, there is no doubt that Paradise Lost is an excellent work, but the Norton Critical edition is invaluable for any average person (like me) who wants to truly appreciate it. I highly recommend this.
A few years ago I made two fortunate decisions. I elected to read Milton's Paradise Lost and I bought the Norton Critical Edition (edited by Scott Elledge). I read and reread Paradise Lost over a period of three months as well as the 300 pages of the Norton critical commentary. I was stunned by the beauty and power of Milton. Why had I waited so long to even approach such a literary masterpiece?
Make no mistake. I had been right in several ways. Paradise Lost is difficult, it is long, and full appreciation requires an understanding of the historical and religious context. But Paradise Lost is a remarkable achievement. It explores questions regarding man and God that are as relevant today as in the 17th century. And the genius of Milton has never been surpassed.
I found the Norton footnotes extremely helpful - definitions for rare or archaic words and expressions, explanations of the historical context, and links to the critical commentary section. The footnotes are at the page bottom, making them readily accessible.
The Norton biographical, historical, and literary commentaries were fascinating in their own right. I may well as spent as many hours reading commentary as with Paradise Lost itself.
John Milton led a remarkable life. His enthusiastic euology on Shakespeare was included in the second folio edition of Shakespeare in 1632. This was Milton's first public appearance as an author! While traveling as a young man he "found and visited" the great Galileo, old and blind, a house prisoner of the Inquisition for his astronomical heresy. Years later Milton, a close supporter of Cromwell, barely escaped the scaffold at the Restoration and was at risk for some period afterwards. Many considered Milton no more than an outcast, now old and blind himself, a republican and regicide who had escaped death by too much clemency. Within a few years this aging blind outcast created one of the masterpieces of the English language.
Milton broke all English tradition by writing Paradise Lost in blank verse. Homer in Greek and Vergil in Latin had used blank verse, but English demanded rhyme. Although others failed to imitate Milton's blank verse (I suspect that none wanted to be compared directly with genius), the praise was without exception. Dryden, a master of rhyme, is attributed with saying, "This man cuts us all out, and the ancients too".
Milton's characterization of Satan, Adam, Eve, the archangels Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel, and even God himself are masterful. The debates and arguments that evolve around free will, obedience, forbidden knowledge, love, evil, and guilt are timeless. And fascinating. And thought provoking.
Paradise Lost will require commitment and patience and thought. The commitment in time is substantial. (I enjoy Samuel Johnson's subtle comment: "None ever wished it longer than it is.") But the return is a personal experience with great literature, one of the masterpieces of the English language. I consider myself fortunate to have made such an investment.
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Volume I covers the model overall
Volume II goes a little more into dealing with incongruent clients, and a linguistic model of representation. [the 4-tuple, R-Operator and C-Operator]
THE GOOD -- [Although] It is not a very quick read... because everything in this book is actually useful. You will not want to rush through this one, and it is a book you will want to go back to. It does a good job covering the Milton Model, the language patterns and non-verbal communication.
This book is not for everybody though...
THE BAD -- Personally, there isn't anything I dislike about this book, but I do realize that some people have different interests and reasons for wanting to learn about hypnosis. First of all, this book is probably not for beginners. If you are, it would take a little longer to finish thoroughly. An book on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) that covers both the Meta-model and the Milton Model (consider "Introducing NLP", by Joseph O'Connor et al. -- it has a green cover) will provide a great introduction/pre-read to this book.
Volume II is nearly incomprehensive to someone who does not have a Ph.D. in linguistics. The authors in Volume II appear incapable of expressing their valuable ideas in simple English, which may be a sign that they really don't understand what they are saying well enough to communicate it to others. Rather than spending your hard-earned money on Volume II, you might read other authors like Steve Gilligan (Therapeutic Trances) who covers the same material in plain English rather than quasi-mathematic formulas and mumbo-jumbo about 4-tuples, etc.
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As Always, Jack is an intimate compilation of Jack Sweeney's correspondence to the beautiful California blond he met at a dance, and subsequently romanced in two whirlwind weeks before shipping off to the South Pacific. Forty-six letters later, Jack is no longer a stranger (not to his daughter, and not to readers of this sentimental memoir). His rare wit, romantic nature and dedication to the navy are notable characteristics, and help to put the puzzle pieces of his personality together. Although the letters are never racy or provocative, there's something indisputably intimate about reading another person's thoughts and feelings.
While ordinary, humdrum events are discussed, Jack also reveals a soft, silly and tender side to his sweetheart. Oddly enough, he's also makes a teasing remark about his correspondence being published in the future -- a strange and wonderful coincidence, I think. Perhaps this explains Ms. Sweeney's decision to publish her father's letters in this lovely keepsake of a novel: Jack's spirit will forever live on within its pages.
A foreword and an afterword by Ms. Sweeney are critical in tying up multitudinous loose ends, however, and explaining the relevance of some of her father's comments. Only Jack's letters are included in this novel, after all, so these vignettes from a nostalgic era (which span from January 13 to July 3, 1946) can be difficult to put into context. As Always, Jack is a both touching, true-to-life love story, and a terrifically poignant tribute to a man who died much too young, but experienced great contentment in those too short years. An example to live by, if ever there was one.
Reviewed by C.L. Jeffries
when he was in the U.S. Navy in the 1940s.
She explains this at the beginnng of the book and the body of the book is filled with his funny and touching letters.
He was such a clever writer and he had beautiful handwriting.
There are plenty of men who probably feel the way he did, but
he could put it in writing. The last letter before he died seemed to be his way of saying 'goodbye'.
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What this man goes through is unbelievable and makes for a heck of a page turner. Great historical/fiction mountain man story.