Poetry Break: "The Odyssey"

Paradife Loft?

Milton lisped? Who knew?

(Image from Wikipedia)

On the Milton List yesterday, I asked the scholars there a question about Milton's theodicy:

As everyone knows, Milton gives this reason for composing Paradise Lost:

That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men. [PL 1.24-26]

(Luxon, Thomas H., ed. The Milton Reading Room, October, 2008.)

Why does Milton want to justify God's ways to men?

My question is still getting replies, including one by Michael Bauman:

I suspect he wants to justify God's ways because those ways were sometimes under attack. They still are, so the apologetic enterprise continues. Because the attacks will likely never end, the defense has not been made for the last time -- though I doubt that God's defenders will elect to do it again in an epic format, especially in the age of shrunken text messages.

To which Jameela Lares responded:

Haiku, anyone?

I decided to take her up on the challenge:

The Odyssey

Sufficient to'v stood,
though so free, all down to fall:
o felix culpa!

That's my attempt at haiku theodicy. Others are free to try . . . but might also fall into poetic disrepute.

By the way, there's a daily haiku posted at the appropriately named DailyHaiku.