Hi, this is Don King, editor of the collected poems of C.S. Lewis, a critical edition,

and you're listening to Pints with Jack.

The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a courtscrew to a cathedral

is to know what it is, what it was intended to do, and how it is meant to be used.

After that has been discovered, the temperance reformer may decide that the courts crew was

made for a bad purpose, and the communists may think the same about the cathedral.

But such questions come later.

The first thing is to understand the object before you.

As long as you think that the courts crew was meant for opening tins or the cathedral for entertaining tourists, you can say nothing to the purpose about them.

The first thing the reader needs to know about Paradise Lost is what Milton meant it to be.

This is Pints with Jack, season 6, Episode 34. Jack's Bookshelf, John Milton.

After Hours with Graham Donaldson.

Welcome everyone. Here on Pites with Jack, we're reading our way through the works of C.S. Lewis.

This month, we're working

through Jack's bookshelf, looking at the authors and the books which shaped the life and

writing of C.S. Lewis. In the last episode, we considered Shakespeare, and today we move on to

John Milton. And today, I'm joined by a returning guest, Graham Donaldson.

Graham Donaldson has been sneaking literature into the minds of his students since 2011.

He watches Project Runway with his wife Amanda, wears kimonos.

She insists they're called Yakutas, or summer kimonos at home.

Still a Canadian at heart, Graham watches hockey when he isn't reading. And he is the co-host of the wonderful podcast, Classical Stuff You Should Know. Graham Donaldson, welcome to Pints

for Jack again. Hey, thanks for having me. This is great. And I just want to clarify that it's

...