[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by Shaun J. Russell

That's actually a completely different collection...which is completely fine, of course, but the 1645 Poems specifically have the poems (and two masques) in a particular order, likely curated by Milton himself (or in consultation with bookseller Humphrey Moseley). If you're just reading his poems as poems, any collection is fine...but if you want to see them as Milton first published them, you really can't beat the 1645 Poems via the edited/reprinted edition I noted above.

I think this is a better ebook version: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1745

Comparing the ToCs, it seems to have the 1645 poems in order, followed by the 1673 edition additions and then... everything else. I just wish the producers hadn't put all of the poems in italics!

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by N.

If nobody outside of maybe a handful of people know you even existed and wrote, then what justification did you have for even existing?

I just got back from singing at a funeral in a packed church, for a friend I made ten years ago in the San Diego Master Chorale. (He had sung with us and also had been our Board president.) About 20 members of the Chorale volunteered to form a small choir to provide the service music for the ceremony.

Today I learned that the deceased had been the captain of a nuclear submarine before retiring from the Navy, earning a master's degree at Harvard, and then having a successful second career in industry as an engineer. His wife, four children, 15 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren, and those of us who had known him from the Chorale or various church or volunteer activities agreed that he was a very lively, fun, sweet, humble person, who always put service to others before his own ego. (Although a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Sam had been a longtime member and supporter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was also an avid environmentalist. And he often went out of his way to help random homeless people get fed and cleaned up)

I hadn't known anything about Sam's illustrious pre-retirement career before hearing the eulogies by his sister, daughter, and a retired admiral. Sam never mentioned that stuff. I just knew he was a great singer and a very eager volunteer. If we needed someone to help clean up after a post-concert reception, Sam usually signed up and then did a stellar job at whatever menial task he'd taken on.

I looked out at all the people smiling fondly through their tears at his funeral, and thought, "That was a life well lived." He wasn't famous, but he meant an awful lot to those of us who knew him, and presumably also to those who had met him only briefly when he came to their aid in a time of need.

Funny, but no one mentioned in their eulogies what a shame it was that, since Sam wasn't as good of a poet as Shakespeare, he'd had no justification for even existing. So either their priorities are badly out of whack, or yours could use some adjustment, N.

[Edited to say that I don't mean that last comment as a zinger. I'm serious. The notion that the only way to justify one's existence is by attaining the impossible goal of becoming the Greatest of All Time at something is pretty damn depressing. And I also reject the notion that there is something wrong with enjoying poems that weren't written by the Greatest English-Speaking Poet of All Time. If you are determined not to enjoy anything else but Shakespeare, that's your choice, but I'm not going to let you tell me I can't.]