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Paradise Lost (Naxos Complete Classics) | 
| Author: John Milton
Creator: Anton Lesser
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks
Category: Book
List Price: £31.50
Buy New: £16.49
You Save: £15.01 (48%)
New (18) Used (2) from £15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 42077
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 9
Discs: 9
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5.4 x 2.1
ISBN: 9626343508
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.4
EAN: 9789626343500
ASIN: 9626343508
Publication Date: November 2005
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Excellent recording November 28, 2008
I specialised in mathematics and the science subjects in the sixth form at school, then read for engineering degree and then trained as a chartered accountant.
I am now forty eight years old but have taken an interest in the arts and humanities subjects ever since finishing my accountancy examinations nearly twenty five years ago. Reading poetry can be difficult as one doesn't always know where to put the stress and intonation.
This excellent recording has made all the difference and I thoroughly recommend it.
Indeed, I have recently enrolled to do the arts and humanities foundation with the Open University and my course begins in February 2009.
worlds and words May 20, 2008
If you're considering buying this, my advice is, don't hesitate (in case Naxos decide one day to withdraw it)! This reading of the poem is simply a minor marvel. What Lesser responds to are all the details of Milton's writing: that intelligence, strangeness, inventiveness, humour, mischief, Milton's way with worlds and words, too. Lesser reads without pomposity or over-weighting the lines. Milton's wonderful, voyaging sentences therefore uncurl like an unexpected landscape before us, so experimentally, with delay and suspense, shifting and adjusting meaning as the sentence rolls on, or suddenly undeceiving us with an unnerving undermining of what we think's going to be said...it's a terrific experience, to hear this. And especially interesting since, for Milton of course, Paradise Lost had to be a spoken-aloud poem (long after he'd gone blind). Anton Lesser's reading is surely definitive, for our generation. Well done to him, and to Naxos.
epic poetry is meant to be heard! February 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is truly a superb recording. To hear the flow of Milton's verse and the full richness of his language - I only recently learned that he contributed more new words to the English language than Shakespeare - is a revelation, and has certainly added to my appreciation of the work. Somehow Paradise Lost is less forbidding, and the epic story it recounts is part of our Western cultural and religious heritage which should not fade into obscurity and inaccessibility. Hopefully Anton Lesser's recording will make Milton's work accessible to more people.
paradise lost read by anton lesser November 19, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Made me appreciate why this poem is the pinnacle of english literature - the musicality of the language. The story unfolds translucently and Anton lesser cannot be faulted for his rendition.
 A lack of gravitas October 11, 2006
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
It is often said that one's first experience of a piece of music is definitive: forever afterwards one finds oneself comparing newer (and often perfectly good) renditions with the pacing and the phrasing of the first. Perhaps this is part of the problem which I experience with Anton Lesser's reading of the epic Paradise Lost. I remember the poem beautifully read by my father, who knew great tracts of it by heart, and whose relaxed baritone voice suited the grand scale of the material infinitely better than Lesser's unremarkable tenor. This poem should be read by those rare actors who can play kings. Lesser makes a mistake when he attempts to put on voices for the various characters. The womanish voice that he adopts when starting Sin's speech reverts, for example, accidentally back into Lesser's normal tones as the speech proceeds. I think overall this is an acceptable performance in that it is better than nothing, but I am looking out for a better recording.
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