Of that Forbidden Tree, whofe Brought Death into the World, With lofs of Eden, till one greater Man That Shepherd,who firft taught the chofen Seed, Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd A Above FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF MILTON'S POEM (Reproduced from an original copy of the first edition (1667) in the Boston Public Library.) "my celestial patroness, who deigns And dictates to me slumb'ring, or inspires The great Puritan was indeed filled with the spirit of his faith, and his mind was stored with unusual treasures of knowledge from which he drew, almost unconscious of their wealth. His style, always dignified and stately, even in the minor poems, now rose to loftier heights. His great creation is the character of Satan. The most impressive portions of the poem are found in the first two books. Especially effective in the descriptive passages are the phrasings by which the poet suggests the vagueness and vastness of his scenes. "Who shall tempt with wand'ring feet And through the palpable obscure find out Over the vast abrupt. 112 Following the order of its plan, the epic proceeds with the account of the fallen angels, their infernal council, and Satan's journey to the new-created earth. The first pair are described in Eden. Raphael, the archangel, is sent and instructs them concerning the revolt of Satan and his hosts; he recounts the story of creation, and finally departs. The narrative of man's fall then follows, and the expulsion of the pair from Paradise. As has been stated, Milton's success is greatest in the earlier part of his work; the human characters are far less impressive than those that move amid the awful gloom of the earlier scenes. When the poet enters celestial regions and attempts to present Deity itself, he has passed the bounds of human ability, and 1 Book IX. 11. 21-24. 2 Book II. 11. 404-408. fixed the limits of his own dramatic success. But there is no other poem like Paradise Lost. Its sublimity of vision, its height of imaginative creation, its solemn grandeur of great harmonies, have never been equaled in English verse. Paradise Regained was written in 1666 in response to a suggestion that the poet should present this Last side of man's religious experience; and the Poems. latter poem stands as a pendant to the earlier. In the story of the temptation of our Lord the poet finds the material of a new epic, and now sings: "Recover'd Paradise to all mankind, By one man's firm obedience fully try'd Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness." The last important composition, Samson Agonistes, appeared in 1671. This picture of the struggling champion of Israel, beset and afflicted by mocking enemies, gains a new significance when we remember Milton's blindness and the political environment of his closing years. The poem of Samson is cast on the lines of the ancient Greek drama and is characterized by classic stateliness and austerity of style. out. Milton was not left lonely in his last years. Friends attended him, and foreigners in England sought him One writer 1 of the time declares that "he was visited by the learned much more than he did desire." One who saw him thus describes the poet as sitting in an elbow-chair in his chamber, dressed neatly in black; pale, but not cadaverous; his hands and fingers gouty, and with chalk-stones. He used also to sit at the door of his house in Bunhill Fields, wrapped in a gray coarse cloth coat, to enjoy the fresh air; and sometimes 1 Aubrey. here, sometimes in his room, he received his guests. Milton died November 8, 1674, and was buried in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. These two exquisite Suggestions poems should be studied together. Each is the for Study. pendant of the other, and the parallelism is very close. They are descriptive poems, pictures of nature and of incident as they are seen by the poet under two varying moods. L' Allegro is the man in lively mood; Il Penseroso, the man thoughtful, contemplative. Milton does not use the word "melancholy" precisely in the sense in which we now use that term. In the study of these poems first note the many ways in which the parallelism is perfected. Compare the invocations of both poems, also their conclusions. What characters in Il Penseroso correspond to Euphrosyne (line 12), Venus (line 14), Bacchus (line 16), Jest and Jollity (line 26), Sport (line 31), Laughter (line 32), Liberty (line 36)? Now follow in their course respectively the incidents described: on the one hand those that mark the progress of the day, on the other those that attend the passing of the night. Compare these two pictures, the happy social scenes of country life, bright with sunshine, cheery with companionship, and blessed with contented toil, and the calm solitude of the night, bathed in the full moon's splendor, the peaceful quiet made more impressive by the mellow notes of the nightingale, the distant chiming of the curfew bell, or the drowsy calling of the hours by the watchman's muffled voice. Point out the correspondences in L' Allegro, lines 130-150, and Il Penseroso, lines 97-120. It should be understood that in neither poem does the author follow strictly an immediate succession of incidents continuous and unbroken. For example, in the first poem it is now the song of the lark and the crowing of the cock by which he is awakened; and then it is the sound of hounds and horn; again the whistle of the SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 193 ploughman and the milkmaid's song usher in the day. And so in the other poem if the even-song of Philomel be not forthcoming, the poet walks in the shadow and the moonlight, " For if the air will not permit," sits beside the glowing embers, or lights his lamp to pore over Plato or Eschylus, the Greek dramatists or Chaucer, as he feels inclined. And yet the passage of time is also clearly suggested. From your study of the poems can you say which mood is most honored of Milton or which is the more characteristic of him? In a detailed study of these poems it will be necessary to understand the allusions, classical and otherwise. In L' Allegro what is the significance of introducing Cerberus (line 2)? why Stygian (line 3)? Cimmerian (line 10)? In Il Penseroso why is Morpheus mentioned (line 10)? Prince Memnon's sister (line 10) is Hemera; the "starred Ethiope queen "is Cassiopeia; the Sea Nymphs are the Nereids: a classical dictionary will explain the force of the allusion here. Proceed thus with later allusions in the poems. ee The metre of these two poems is simple. The first ten verses which form the introduction in each follow the rhyme order a -bb-a с - dd e; afterward the verses rhyme in couplets. In the first ten lines, too, we have verses of three accents alternating with those of five; subsequently the verses are all of four accents. The type form is as in verse 11:. "But cóme, thou Góddess, fáir and frée." Milton varies the placing of the accent with an artist's skill that relieves the composition of all monotony. While it is right to read such poetry as this without thought of the mere mechanics of its structure, it is not right to pass over such consummate composition without some appreciation of its technique. Therefore notice the dropping of the first syllable of the normal verse in verse 13: Find other illustrations of this arrangement. Notice another variation, the use of double or feminine rhymes in lines |