actual rating: 3.5

[collapses onto the floor] I have literally been trying to read this book on and off for the past 17 years and I finally did it!! Although really most of the credit goes to Anthony Olivera because I listened to the whole thing with his podcast The Devil's Party where he reads the whole poem and explains what it is actually happening section by section. I'm also relieved to know that Milton made it borderline incomprehensible on purpose and that I am not in fact as stupid as I thought I was ;) Giving it a technical 3.5 and rounding up to 4 because I'll be real I was mostly here for Satan so a lot of the stuff in the later half of the poem was not super interesting to me but overall it is a very interesting work and I really enjoyed listening to Olivera's analysis of it and getting a lot of historical context for things I would have otherwise missed. If you've been trying to read this and struggling I would definitely recommend checking out his work.