Paradise in Prose

In the article, "Paradise Lost in Prose" (link: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/paradise-lost-in-prose/) it is revealed that a new version of "Paradise Lost" is being translated into a more modern dialect of English. This is something that many a night I would have loved to have a more simplified version of "Paradise Lost" that would have explained to story of Satan, Adam, Eve, and the fall in words that I understood however there are many concerns that I have to agree with.
The idea that, "ordinary readers, now “require mediation to read ‘Paradise Lost’ with full appreciation.”"(Fish,Stanley. "Paradise Lost in Prose") is something I know from personal experience would make getting through the long poem filled with seventeenth century language a bit easier. This does in fact seem to be a valid argument to me however there are also concerns that a more simplified version of Milton's epic poem would defer from the original message and even more so the intended effect of the poem. According to Stanley Fish, in the updated version of "Paradise Lost", "Absent are both the tone of scornful wonder the epic voice directs at the erring sinners and the undercutting of that scorn by the dance of vowels and consonants" (Fish,Stanley. "Paradise Lost in Prose"). Here Fish voices the concerns that if there were to be a way to cop out of working through the original version of "Paradise Lost" then most would lose out on the key grammatical, vocabulary, and tonal aspects that Milton had intended for the poem.
For me personally, I felt as though I did however have the mediation that the author of this translated version of "Paradise Lost" suggested modern readers have while still reading the original text. Each class as we would discuss the section that we had read more and more passages were beginning to make sense to me and I was able to comprehend them easier. I also believe that the commonplace books helped to do this as well. The different opinions and interpretations that my classmates had helped me to further my understanding and well as the connections that they provided to outside sources and interpretations. I do have to say though that I would have liked to have had a further mediation while I was reading the book so that I could be able to make more sense of the book as I read it instead of after the fact. That is why I think it would be a good idea to have this translated version as the new author intends it, as a side-by-side version. I think by having a more modernized text directly next to the original text would allow readers to still take in the "Milton Affect" while being able to comprehend the message and take away from the book a more complete message.

What do you think? If there were a supplemental translation would it ruin the Milton experience or would it be more helpful in the end??

Em