Into to Lit, episode 12: Last class on Paradise Lost: The real unreality of our lives

Abandoning Paradise Lost today, with some more consideration of our love for the unreal -- fictional characters in comedy and tragedy, and how the very fact that they're fictional contributes to their effect.  We don't need to worry about what happens after "happily ever after" ("that is called Fiction" --Oscar Wilde), we can feel sadder about their losses, which are more total.  Adam's commitment to marriage.  The fall in PL is not the fall into sex, because they already have sex, but the fall into marriage, into the limits of love and sex.  That's what's tragic.  Partly that it doesn't end with the fall (into sex, into death), but keeps going on, into the real unreality of our lives.  Eve's greatness after the fall.  Adam's running to meet her.  Their expulsion.