I can recommend Joseph Piercy’s book,
The Story of English. At 180-odd pages, he has kept his historical overview short enough to stay interesting throughout, and either he or his publishers have given it the enticing subtitle: “How an Obscure Dialect Became the World’s Most-Spoken Language.” From Celts to Romans to a section titled "The Great Vowel Shift" it looks at how English developed and spread, ending up with the language seen on MB: lol, gr8 and milf.
Among the must-mention literature (Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.) John Milton turns up. As I'm sure we all know
, he wrote in Early Modern English, in the 1650s:
Quote:
John Milton: King of the Metal Heads
Although undoubtedly a huge influence on the Romantic movement, and particularly the work of poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelly and William Blake, one area of popular culture where Milton’s work has found a surprising resonance is with purveyors of heavy rock music. Over a dozen different heavy metal bands from various parts of the world have written songs inspired by Paradise Lost, including the British band, Cradle of Filth, whose concept album, Damnation and a Day is inspired by Milton’s epic poem.
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Here are the two opening tracks of Damnation and a Day, an album with an hour and a quarter running time, so CoF can’t be faulted for effort, which, to judge from the second video is true of their live performances too:-
My opinion: Heavy metal is too noisy and insistent for my liking, so I was pleasantly surprised by the first part of "A Bruise Apon The Silent Moon" - that is until I realized that it was building into a piece of OTT musical drama which I also didn’t like. On the next track we have the barrage of guitars that I expected from this genre, together with the routinely “evil” voice that goes with. Nothing here that encourages me to continue listening, so no analysis of how their lyrics relate to the original poem, I'm afraid.
In fairness to the band I should mention that this is rated (allmusic.com) as one of their weaker albums – although actually, they seem to have quite a few weaker albums. Sorry guys!