Paradise Lost

Come round and enjoy the fire. It's rather cold out and today I'll be heading off to the final for one of my favorite classes, my Study of John Milton. I've got a lovely home made soup for you as well. Ham bone base, various beans, mushrooms and a couple onions. It is delicious!

One of the things my professor for this class does is every couple three years she puts on a public reading of Paradise Lost. I participated. Read the part of the Son of God. Yeah I know, there are so many jokes about my ego that could be made from this that it's ridiculous. Anyways it was a 12 hour display that I took part in for the WHOLE DAY. I listened and read Paradise Lost for 12 hours. By the time it was over I was ready for a nap. For three days. However I can honestly say it was one of the most incredible experiences I've participated in.

So a funny thing happened during it, which reminded me why I LOVE Futurama. As has been pointed out the show is a bastion of science and technology jokes yet the show also makes quite a few literature based jokes. So here is one of them.

At the end of book 9, Adam and Eve discuss Adam eating the fruit as Eve has done and Eve attempts to convince Adam not to eat, that perhaps if only she has eaten they can make an act of contrition or perhaps Adam can stay in Eden. So Adam declares to Eve that he will chose to follow her without regret. Later, he goes into this long speech that decries Eve for leading him into temptation and says that he should rue ever making such a choice, and he laments falling to Eve's charms.

So in the final episode of season 2 of Futurama is called The Cryonic Woman. Here Fry discovers his girlfriend from 1999 has frozen herself and he unfreezes her. (BTW the girlfriend is voiced by Sarah Silverman and she has this wonderful line that is also an homage to PL when she demands "Oh Fry why do you continue with your relentless logic!") Anyhow, Fry's girlfriend doesn't fit in the year 3001, so she convinces Fry to freeze themselves again for another 1000 years so they can have a fresh start.

Fry agrees, claiming he makes the decision with no regrets. When they come out of the cryo-chamber to emerge into a blasted wasteland, Fry states: "Honey, I just want you to know I don't regret my decision, but I both rue and lament it." I always chuckled at this line, but it seemed so out of place, as it's far more intelligent that Fry usually is, but he has moments of brilliance so I never thought about it. Until the reading of PL.

So there I am in the audience, behind my Professor. And the gentleman reading Adam says these lines, and I immediately react like I've been kicked in the stomach. I want to burst out laughing. However this is a very serious and tension filled moment in the poem. So there I am behind my professor, hunched over, with both my hands clutched over my mouth and nose, making noises like SNERK and GUFORT, and what not, trying not to roll down the aisle in laughter.

My professor turns around and looks at me, concern on her face, and mouths 'Are you ok?' And I nod vigorously, and open my fingers just wide enough to lean over and whisper, 'Tell ya later.' And go back to stiffling my glumps and fffurrrck noises.

I'm tempted to write a paper on the parallels and go into a huge discussion about the meaning of paradise and man's attempt to regain what he's lost, but I think most people would miss the joke.

So go watch Futurama and find your own literary jokes hidden in the show. It's a hoot!