The afternoon after Bonfire Night, and just a week after Hallowe’en, seems apt for our discussion of poems on the twin topic of Heaven and Hell. The balance tipped towards Hell, but included poems that asserted the reality and the unreality of Heaven and the Sartrian notion that Hell is other people. Among the poems chosen Paradise Lost occurred twice. Extracts from the fall of Lucifer and his first actions and response to the burning lake and its surrounding ‘darkness visible’, followed the building of Pandemonium. This of course reverses the order of these episodes in the poem, and the building of the Satanic palace posed the question of why Milton includes elegant refinements of architectural fashion, such as Doric columns, and symphonies of music, when Hell is the antithesis of all heavenly harmony. Theories were advanced for the literary necessity of including an aesthetic more consistent with Heaven.
Among the other poems chosen were ‘The English Lesson’, by Michael Schmidt; ‘Annabel Lee’ by Edgar Allen Poe; ‘Back in the Playground Blues’ by Adrian Mitchell; ‘The Parable of the Old Man and the Young by Wilfred Owen; Lucifer in Starlight by George Meredith; and ‘All Souls’ by Dana Gioia; and the first part of Richard III's opening speech from Shakespeare's play.
December will be Free Choice again.
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