Paradise Lost has so much potential for me...but Olde English sucks balls

[Dari]

I really, really want to read this book. Is there a modern version? I cannot take the Olde English. It's like another language.

 

[Sea Moose]

I really, really want to read this book. Is there a modern version? I cannot take the Olde English. It's like another language.

HEar Ye hEaR yE !
I befOre E exCePt aFTer c?



yes old english is pure gay

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I really, really want to read this book. Is there a modern version? I cannot take the Olde English. It's like another language.

Thanks for the laugh! LOL

 

[Jeff7]

HEar Ye hEaR yE !
I befOre E exCePt aFTer c?



yes old english is pure gay

Yeah, that's for ʃure.

 

[bobsmith1492]

If you can read it it isn't old English, heck, probably not even middle english.

 

[acheron]

Paradise Lost is written in modern English. If it were in Old English, you couldn't read it.

Compare the first ten-ish lines of Beowulf (Old English):

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!

Canterbury Tales (Middle English):

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye

Paradise Lost (modern English):

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse,that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Paradise Lost is written in modern English. If it were in Old English, you couldn't read it.

Compare the first ten-ish lines of Beowulf (Old English):



Canterbury Tales (Middle English):



Paradise Lost (modern English):

This

 

[IceBergSLiM]

what the fuck ever. its still incomprehensible. If people posted like that here....they would be ridiculed mercilessly.

 

[destrekor]

Old Modern English, perhaps?

There is definitely a large gap between Middle English and 20th/21st Century English. Everyone knows this.

 

[acheron]

Old Modern English, perhaps?

There is definitely a large gap between Middle English and 20th/21st Century English. Everyone knows this.

Well, yes, obviously. But it's not a different language, while Old English and Middle English are. It's just a different style of writing.

 

[nerp]

Wow. You can't get your head around the style used in Paradise Lost? Well, sounds like you need to work yourself towards it. Some Harry Potter might be more at your skill level.

 

[rivan]

Modern English?

 

[destrekor]

Well, yes, obviously. But it's not a different language, while Old English and Middle English are. It's just a different style of writing.

I wouldn't quite consider Middle English to be a different language. It's English, with entirely old vocab.
Old Modern English, as I shall call it, of which Paradise Lost seems to fit into quite well, seems to take the grammar from Middle English and use new vocab. Words are always changing in a language, gaining new meaning, new words to fit meaning more effectively, etc.

Modern English is a very simplified version of Middle and Old Modern, a lot of case structure and vocab associated with the cases has been either completely reworked or dropped in favor of more simplified, multi-purpose vocab, the pronouns being the most easily witnessed example.

 

[Crono]

I don't know what you were expecting, but most epics require some deciphering, especially the older they are. If it has potential for you, just find resources that help explain it and work your way through it. Take notes in your own words if you need to, then go back and read over until you understand most or all of it.

 

[nerp]

Fine literature, like fine art or wine, is complex and requires a trained eye or tongue to fully appreciate. Reading Paradise Lost is not to be approached like watching Ernest Saved Christmas.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Wow. You can't get your head around the style used in Paradise Lost? Well, sounds like you need to work yourself towards it. Some Harry Potter might be more at your skill level.

You're a really great person.

 

[TecHNooB]

Fine literature, like fine art or wine, is complex and requires a trained eye or tongue to fully appreciate. Reading Paradise Lost is not to be approached like watching Ernest Saved Christmas.

I guess I've been doing it all wrong.

 

[nerp]

You're a really great person.

I'm all for tolerance and acceptance. For example, I don't start threads with subjects that announce I'm racist, like other people. Nor do I blame every societial ill on Mexicans, like many do here. But if you're whining that Paradise Lost is too hard and that it needs to be dumbed down, yes, I'm going to make fun of you.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I'm all for tolerance and acceptance. For example, I don't start threads with subjects that announce I'm racist, like other people. Nor do I blame every societial ill on Mexicans, like many do here. But if you're whining that Paradise Lost is too hard and that it needs to be dumbed down, yes, I'm going to make fun of you.

Word. I mean...forsooth!