Milton 400 - Paradise Lost: Book 3

(N.B. These recordings were made during a live reading in late 2008 and are not professional quality. We've done what we can to clean them up, but please just bear in mind how old they are and how new we were!)This event was held on Thursday 23 October 2008 from around 9 am-9 pm, in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English, Cambridge10.55 am, Book IIIRead by: Helen CooperBook III Summary by: Ewan Bleiman (2008)This is a book dealing with a lot of tricky theological concepts, as God the Father sees Satan on his way towards Eden and foresees his success in provoking the Fall of mankind. God insists on the free will of man to fall, but also acknowledges that man will be tricked and will not fall through conscious malice as Satan did. There are plenty of questions here about whether Man was created predestined to fall, which relate back to similar issues regarding the fall of the angels. The Son offers himself as a ransom for the salvation of man from eternal death, and is celebrated in Heaven.Meanwhile, Satan makes his way to the gates of Heaven. From there he flies to the Sun and, disguised as a lowly angel full of the wonder of God and desirous to gaze on his works, seeks directions towards the home of Man from Uriel, the angel stationed there. Satan, at last, finds himself on the edge of Paradise.