This was an act of compulsion, and the poet had to be forced to press this lyric out of himself.

这是一个强迫性的行为,诗人被迫绞尽脑汁写出这首诗来。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Act for them, to them. Don't act as if they are just some bunch of Philistines out there who can't appreciate your art.

为他们表演，想他们表演，不要把它们当做俗气的人,所以不能欣赏你们的艺术。

耶鲁公开课 - 1945年后的美国小说课程节选

It's a measure of Milton's ambition and his intellectual courage that enables him to set out to justify a God who can inflict upon his creatures such a seemingly arbitrary act of licensing.

就是弥尔顿的雄心和他智慧的勇气,让他去证实上帝是能强加给他创造的世界,这样看起来专横的控制的行为。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

You may think you've gotten away with something, but every act of social exploitation, every act of moral corruption, pollutes the sanctuary more and more until such time as God is driven out entirely and human society is devoured by its own viciousness and death-dealing.

犯了罪的人也许认为自己侥幸逃过一劫，然而他对所作的每一个行为，每一次的道德堕落，都会越来越玷污圣所,知道有一天上帝完全弃圣所而去,人类社会充斥着我们自身的邪恶和毁灭行为。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选