To commemorate John Milton’s 400th birthday on December 9th, faculty at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota, staged a marathon reading of Paradise Lost. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Richard J. DuRocher, a professor of English, organized the late-October event, which found students from his Milton seminar reading alongside college officials. To a group of about thirty, Paula Carlson, a vice president, delivered the opening lines: “Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the World, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,/Sing, Heavenly Muse....”
The epic poem, also read aloud at dozens of other commemorative ceremonies in the U.S. and Great Britain, including Milton’s alma mater, the University of Cambridge, took approximately twelve hours to complete. DuRocher estimated that over the course of the day approximately 200 people attended the quatercentenary celebration.