This is why he's continually placing the imaginative origin of the poem back to the very dawn of time, perhaps even back before if you can imagine such a time -- before the very dawn of time.

这就是为什么弥尔顿总是试图把想象中的这首诗的起源,推至时间开始的时候，甚至更早,-如果你们能想象这样一个时间--在时间开始之前。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

So if the landscape invites him to grow as an imaginative person, the social world he lives in, this episode signals to us immediately, will never live up to that imagination.

假如生活氛围使他,成为一个充满想像力的人，那么他所处的社会就是这一时期，这会让我们马上感到，那种想象永不可能成真。

耶鲁公开课 - 1945年后的美国小说课程节选