Paradise Lost might be the most influential poem written in English. For three and half centuries, readers across the world - especially those seeking revolutions in their own time - have found inspiration in its visions of freedom. In return, they have given Milton-s epic new life. Drawing on his own experiences of teaching literature in prisons, Orlando Reade focuses on twelve unexpected readers - from Malcolm X to Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt to Thomas Jefferson - whose lives and works have shaped our world. He shows the many different, surprising and often contradictory ways in which Milton-s poem has been read across centuries and continents. Boldly original, lively and far-reaching, What in Me Is Dark is the story of how a work of literature born in the ashes of a failed revolution became an indelible part of the modern imagination. Reade guides us through the epic, exploring how Milton came to write its dark and dazzling poetry, and offering a new account of its radical, ever-e
