{"id":119719,"date":"2017-12-22T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=119719"},"modified":"2017-12-22T10:43:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T15:43:54","slug":"john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people \u2026 \u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014Neil Gaiman, American Gods <\/em>(2001)<\/p>\n

Some eccentric designer should craft a manger scene based on John Milton\u2019s first great poem: 1629\u2019s \u201cOn the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity.\u201d There would be many familiar tropes: the \u201cStar-led Wisards haste with odours sweet\u201d who \u201cfrom far upon the Eastern rode\u201d to bring a \u201cpresent to the Infant God.\u201d Surrounding Jesus\u2019s crib would be the \u201cShepherds on the Lawn\u201d gazing upon the infant swaddled by that \u201cwedded Maid, and Virgin Mother.\u201d Of course, there would be the baby Jesus himself, the \u201cHeav\u2019n-born-childe \u2026 in smiling infancy\u201d who \u201cmeanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.\u201d None of those elements would be out of place on the lawn of a suburban church.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s where my hypothetical Miltonic manger would depart from the familiar, because Milton\u2019s Christmas story has an epic metaphysical violence as its theme. For Milton\u2014and Christianity for that matter\u2014Christ was coming to conquer. In Milton\u2019s Advent, Christ vanquished the demonic pagan \u201cgods that were suddenly destroyed in their own shrines.\u201d When the twenty-one-year-old Milton wrote his nativity ode, he was following what Renaissance humanists called the rota Virgilii, <\/em>the wheel of Virgil. This was the idea that poets should pattern the progression of their work after Virgil\u2019s literary triad, beginning their vocation with a pastoral and concluding with an epic. Milton did, of course: his crowning achievement, three decades later, was Paradise Lost<\/em>. For the nativity ode, Milton took the theme of an innocent babe born to redeem the world, just as Virgil explored in his pre-Christian poem \u201cEclogue IV\u201d (which many later thinkers interpreted as a type of prophecy). If Virgil sang of the \u201cgreat cycle of periods born anew\u201d then Milton wished to do the same.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Barbara Lewalski writes that the nativity ode reflected Milton\u2019s \u201cdesire to attempt the highest subject and to take on the role of the bardic Poet-Priest\u201d as Virgil once had. Milton confirmed this intention to his childhood friend Charles Diodati, the son of an exiled Italian Protestant family, and in many ways the great love of the poet\u2019s life. Milton told Diodati that he wrote the poem in its entirety on Christmas Day in 1629. With more than a bit of grandeur, Milton explained to Diodati that \u201cI sing to the peace-bringing God descended from heaven, and the blessed generations covenanted in the sacred books … I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, and of the gods suddenly destroyed.\u201d\u00a0The year 1629 was an auspicious one: England was on the verge of civil war, and Milton would go on to become a propagandist for the parliamentary cause. The civil wars were precipitated by the Puritan\u2019s desire to abolish the superstitious \u201cRomish\u201d practices of the royal Stuarts<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity\u201d grapples with how a Christian was to understand those gods\u2014were they mere fictions invented by the credulous, or beings who had an existential reality? And if the latter, how then were we to classify Apollo, Osiris, and Moloch? The obvious interpretation, and one held by early Church fathers like Tertullian and Saint Clement of Alexandria, was that they were demons who had tricked the ancients into worship. Milton concurred, interpreting them as infernal, although the nativity ode evidences a regretful twinge at their defeat. There is, after all, a risk in rejecting the existence of all the deities save for the one true God, for anti-pagan iconoclasm always threatens to morph into more complete atheism. And so like those theologians before him, Milton preserved the gods as real, even if they were entities to be defeated in a mythological battle.<\/p>\n

A manger scene built from Milton\u2019s poem would have to include the defeat of the pagan gods: a\u201cvoice of weeping\u201d is heard, a \u201cloud lament; \/ From haunted spring and dale\u201d and the \u201cNimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.\u201d A nativity scene\u00a0that only includes the quiet still of a Judean winter night, but not the wicked pagan gods of old choking on their blood or being expunged from their witchy groves by means of fire, is a nativity scene\u00a0that is missing out on pyrotechnic possibilities.<\/p>\n

In the shadows near our hypothetical suburban church\u2019s shrubs, there could be \u201cApollo from his shrine,\u201d evicted with \u201chollow shriek the steep of Delphos.\u201d Imagine a plaster model of beautiful, hard-bodied, blond Apollo, with his crown of sunrays, cowering in fear as he looks yonder to the mewling infant. A little to the left of that there could be a group of Roman gods and death spirits who \u201cmoan with midnight plaint \u2026 A drear, and dying sound.\u201d Even more exciting, there would be the bestial creatures commonly worshiped on the Mediterranean\u2019s southern shore. Our Egyptian favorites would be to the southwest of the manger, maybe near the road in front of my imagined church, so that motorists could make out the display of green-skinned Osiris in \u201cMemphian Grove\u201d alongside \u201cIsis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis.\u201d What Christmas couldn\u2019t be improved by the inclusion of the jackal-faced god of the dead?<\/p>\n

And of course there would be those ancient Canaanite gods like Baalim and \u201cmooned Ashtaroth\u201d with her lunar crown, the ram-headed Hammon, and the perennially resurrected Phoenician fertility and agriculture god Thammuz. Where would our manger be without that most grotesque of deities, the bull-headed Moloch whose \u201cburning Idol all of blackest hue\u201d once immolated children in pagan sacrifice from Carthage to the Levant? I envision a smaller (though still impressive) version of the mechanical models of Moloch the Carthaginians designed\u2014they contained a mechanism so that their own children \u201crolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.\u201d Appropriate, since one of the points of the nativity is that no more infants need be sacrificed to false gods, once this infant God\u2019s birth had ensured the defeat of this demonic pantheon.<\/p>\n

I do take a perverse joy in the thought of some pageant featuring Anubis being violently expelled from his Nile temples, but my purpose is more serious than my rhetoric. The nativity ode is more than just Milton\u2019s first great lyric in English (he\u2019d written accomplished Latin verse before), and it\u2019s more than just a precursor to Paradise Lost<\/em>. Rather, what Milton presents is a strange meditation on the paradox of the implicit violence at the center of Advent. Milton makes the defeated deities of yore his muses, seeing a profundity in their eclipse. It\u2019s not just the downfall of polytheism that attracts him, but Christmas\u2019s intrinsically apocalyptic gloss: the rising of a new Son is signaled by the fading embers of the dying sun. Plutarch recorded that the sailor Thamus heard the cry \u201cThe great god Pan is dead!\u201d echo across the water; as a Christian Milton hears that as a cry of victory, but as a classicist he hears it as mourning.<\/p>\n

There is an ironic melancholy in this victory, a guilty and anxious sadness at the deaths of these old gods. \u201cOn the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity\u201d is homophonic with \u201cmourning,\u201d for committed Puritan though he may be, Milton is also a humanist, and he grieves the passing of the classical world. The poem reminds me of our generation\u2019s Miltonic fantasy: Neil Gaiman\u2019s American Gods. <\/em>In Gaiman\u2019s novel, the character Shadow laments that \u201cthe old gods are ignored … Either you\u2019ve been forgotten, or you’re scared you\u2019re going to be rendered obsolete.\u201d But as with the nativity ode, this isn\u2019t quite right. The form itself shows that the old gods can never truly be forgotten. Milton\u2019s biographer Anna Beer writes that \u201cthe excluded pagan gods remain within the poem, with a question mark over their complete obliteration from Milton\u2019s poetic imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bard may have written that \u201cthe oracles are dumm,\u201d but he of all people suspected that, if you strained your ears, you might still be able to hear an echo of that old prophecy. After all, the early Christians built their shrines atop pagan groves, used their symbols, and commandeered their narratives. Reformation tried to expunge such details, as during the years of Interregnum when the Puritans would ban Christmas because of its Saturnalian associations, when they rejected the compromises of Interpretatio Christiana<\/em> that had allowed those old gods to hide in the yule log and the Christmas tree, in our folk customs, in the very names of the week. For if the gods are real, then their erasure from paganism to Christianity, or from Catholicism to Protestantism, can never be totally accomplished. The poet, and perhaps the infant\u2019s, victory is partial\u2014at least for now.<\/p>\n

The critic James Simpson writes that even as Milton \u201cdestroys the idols of foreign gods \u2026 he is haunted by the possibility that he is himself encouraging idolatry.\u201d That is always the tragic paradox of iconoclasm: in destroying those old shrines we admit their enchanted power. And the dramatic irony of the nativity ode is such that even as the \u201cVirgin blest, \/ Hath laid her Babe to rest\u201d maybe those old gods are also simply sleeping, waiting to be awakened at some future solstice. As we look upon the peaceful victory of the nativity, as we celebrate Christmas erected upon the ruins of pagan traditions, we can see those older, darker gods peeking out at the margins of the manger. Apollo in the shadowy northwest, Moloch by the road, Osiris in the shrubs: dreaming that old gods can always be born again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ed Simon<\/a> is a senior editor at <\/em>The Marginalia Review of Books\u00a0and an expert on Renaissance literature. His first collection, <\/em>America and Other Fictions, will be released by Zero Books in 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cGods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people \u2026 \u201d \u2014Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001) Some eccentric designer should craft a manger scene based on John Milton\u2019s first great poem: 1629\u2019s \u201cOn the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity.\u201d There would be many familiar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2157],"tags":[32332,32328,3261,32329,3340,32326,2914,26831,25988,32327,32331,32330,11680],"class_list":["post-119719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-poetry","tag-american-gods","tag-eclogue-iv","tag-john-milton","tag-moloch","tag-neil-gaiman","tag-on-the-morning-of-christs-nativity","tag-paradise-lost","tag-plutarch","tag-renaissance","tag-rota-virgilii","tag-thamus","tag-the-carthaginians","tag-virgil"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A manger scene built from Milton\u2019s poem would have to include the defeat of the pagan gods\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 22, 2017 \u2013   \u201cGods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people \u2026 \u201d \u2014Neil Gaiman, American\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"563\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ed Simon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ed Simon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ed Simon\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/447d0af539e969e9cd40732e4329b81c\"},\"headline\":\"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\"},\"wordCount\":1658,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"American Gods\",\"Eclogue IV\",\"John Milton\",\"Moloch\",\"Neil Gaiman\",\"On the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity\",\"Paradise Lost\",\"Plutarch\",\"Renaissance\",\"rota Virgilii\",\"Thamus\",\"the Carthaginians\",\"Virgil\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On Poetry\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\",\"name\":\"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"A manger scene built from Milton\u2019s poem would have to include the defeat of the pagan gods\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/447d0af539e969e9cd40732e4329b81c\",\"name\":\"Ed Simon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0098d19dfe102f5e4f8e08883e4f98f3d9e74478e39536259812cc0b86617c39?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0098d19dfe102f5e4f8e08883e4f98f3d9e74478e39536259812cc0b86617c39?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ed Simon\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/esimon\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon","description":"A manger scene built from Milton\u2019s poem would have to include the defeat of the pagan gods","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon","og_description":"December 22, 2017 \u2013   \u201cGods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people \u2026 \u201d \u2014Neil Gaiman, American","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":563,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ed Simon","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ed Simon","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/"},"author":{"name":"Ed Simon","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/447d0af539e969e9cd40732e4329b81c"},"headline":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem","datePublished":"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/"},"wordCount":1658,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg","keywords":["American Gods","Eclogue IV","John Milton","Moloch","Neil Gaiman","On the Morning of Christ\u2019s Nativity","Paradise Lost","Plutarch","Renaissance","rota Virgilii","Thamus","the Carthaginians","Virgil"],"articleSection":["On Poetry"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/","name":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem by Ed Simon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg","datePublished":"2017-12-22T16:00:34+00:00","description":"A manger scene built from Milton\u2019s poem would have to include the defeat of the pagan gods","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christmas-nativity-scene-shepherds-wise-me-and-large-bethlehem-star_rb-uzogme_thumbnail-full01.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/john-miltons-strange-christmas-poem\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"John Milton\u2019s Strange Christmas Poem"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/447d0af539e969e9cd40732e4329b81c","name":"Ed Simon","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0098d19dfe102f5e4f8e08883e4f98f3d9e74478e39536259812cc0b86617c39?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0098d19dfe102f5e4f8e08883e4f98f3d9e74478e39536259812cc0b86617c39?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ed Simon"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/esimon\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119719"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119760,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119719\/revisions\/119760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}