PARADISE REGAINED

PARADISE REGAINED is concerned with the devil's temptation of Christ in the wilderness. It's a substantial subject; nonetheless, the work is often seen by critics as a coda to Milton's masterwork, PARADISE LOST. Anton Lesser, a longtime member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, takes us inside Milton's seventeenth-century blank verse with remarkable clarity and emotion. One can almost hear Milton grappling with the English Civil War, the Reformation, and his personal quest to express Christ's divinity through heightened yet comparatively modest phrases. Lesser's voice is completely at one with Milton's subject matter, meter, and language. After three centuries, this work is much more accessible than one might think. B.P. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 06/ JAN 07]