Paratext
This section is the first piece of text the reader sees. Written by Elijah Fenton, this section serves as an introduction to the epic poem and an introduction of the poem’s author John Milton. The section begins with the birth of “our Author,” John Milton in London in 1608 and ends with his death in 1674. The section primarily acts as a eulogy, providing information on John Milton’s academic career, his romantic endeavors, the publication of Paradise Lost and other subsequent books (what Fenton describes as Milton’s “divine work”), his looks, and a lamentation on the effects of author’s passing. The inclusion of a section about Milton suggests that the idea of authorship at the time of this edition’s publication (1820) was important to its readers. By making this introduction the first thing a reader sees, the text is shown to be less of a piece of art and more a product of Milton. By using words like “our” in reference to Milton, Fenton is able to give the readers power over both Milton and his text.
This poem by Andrew Marvell appears after the section on John Milton’s life and right before the first book. The poem reconstructs the transformation of Marvell’s original distrust of the text to pure reverence after his first read through of Paradise Lost. The poem ends with a compliment to the poem’s use of blank verse. Interestingly, this poem acts like a modern day review written at the beginning of a book or on its back cover, which is made to encourage the reader to read the text. By selecting a contemporary of John Milton, the editors of this edition allow its nineteenth century readers a get inside the mind of a Renaissance reader. In the Renaissance, Milton was still seen as a “mighty Poet” with a capital P, so the epic poem, and its root in Biblical Mythology were also well received, giving a possible indication on the importance of religion in Milton’s England.
This brief passage of text entitled “Argument” is located on the back of the title page for the first book of Paradise Lost. The passage serves as a summary of the events of book 1, starting with God casting Satan and his followers out of heaven and ending with the rise of Satan’s palace. Each book contains an Argument section before the start of the actual text. The inclusion of these summaries, suggests that readers have changed and now a distance exists between the reader and the original seventeenth century text. The inclusion of these summaries suggest also the possibility of a larger scope of readership. These summaries show the nineteenth century readers what they should be looking for in terms of plot and themes.
The page has printed marginalia on both sides, but no hand written notes. On the top left page the word “Athens” is printed next to the line “We know that town is but with fishers fraught.” Two lines down the word “Greece” accompanies the lines “That spring of knowledge to which Italy owes all her arts and civility.” This marginalia focuses less on interpretation of ideology and instead states facts or reference material. In other places within the book printed marginalia acts as a place for translation or clarification of the definition of words within the Psalms. What makes this marginalia so interesting is that the title page suggests this is a book of many revisions, but the revisions are factual ones instead of ideological ones. The marginalia not only makes reading easier through translation and clarification but also adds a level of credibility by giving real geographical names to places or settings within the psalms.
A Brief and Most Easy Introduction to the Astrological Judgement of the Stars by Claude Dariot, translated by Fabian Wither, is a book on astrology, using the alignment and, at times, the physics of the stars to correlate those positions and movements to the everyday activities and expectations of 1500s society. This is a particularly interesting item due to its intense marginalia. Though it is not present on every page, there are detailed notes on some pages’ margins or on empty pages, including an elaborate, personal astrological chart for the reader. Not only that, but the book itself is interesting because the book contains two texts: Dariot’s and that of G.C., a gentleman of London who augments and elaborates on Dariot’s work in addition to producing his own section at the end on the Mathematics of astrology, with no recognition or credit to Dariot’s work which precedes it. There are also many essays on Dariot’s part that use the stars to justify certain expectations of early modern society. This exhibits a theme of Authorship and Readership, as who is really the author—Dariot in Latin, Wither as the translator, or G.C. in his augmentation (or all three)? Then again, is the reader writing the marginalia only a reader, or has he himself become an author or even an augmenter, despite it being used for (presumably) personal use? The lines of authorship and readership are tricky when looking at marginalia, translation, and publishing another work with Dariot’s.