Milton

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Title: Milton
Author: Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
Release Date: June 4, 2007 [eBook #21677]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MILTON
by
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
Author of?'Style,' 'Wordsworth,' &c.
Tenth Impression
London?Edward Arnold?41 & 43 Maddox Street, Bond Street, W.?1915
TO?R. A. M. STEVENSON?WHOSE RADIANT AND SOARING INTELLIGENCE?ENLIGHTENED AND GUIDED ME?DURING THE YEARS OF OUR LOST COMPANIONSHIP?THIS UNAVAILING TRIBUTE OF?MEMORY AND LOVE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
"Sciences of conceit"; the difficulties and imperfections of literary
criticism; illustrated in the case of Shakespeare; and of Milton; the character and temper of Milton; intensity, simplicity, egotism; his estimate of himself 1
CHAPTER I?John Milton
His birth, and death; his education; early life in London; ships and
shipping; adventurers and players; Milton and the Elizabethan drama; the poetic masters of his youth; state of the Church of England; Baxter's testimony; growing unrest; Milton's early poems; the intrusion of politics; the farewell to mirth; the Restoration, and Milton's attitude; the lost paradise of the early poems; Milton's Puritanism; his melancholy; the political and public preoccupations of the later poems; the drama of Milton's life; his egotism explained; an illustration from _Lycidas_; the lost cause; the ultimate triumph 12
CHAPTER II?The Prose Works
Poets and politics; practical aim of Milton's prose writings; the
reforms advocated by him, with one exception, unachieved; critical mourners over Milton's political writings; the mourners comforted; Milton's classification of his prose tracts; the occasional nature of these tracts; allusions in the early prose works to the story of Samson, and to the theme of _Paradise Lost_; Milton's personal and public motives; his persuasive vein; his political idealism; Johnson's account of his political opinions; the citizen of an antique city; Milton's attitude towards medi?val romance, and towards the medi?val Church; his worship of liberty; and of greatness; his belief in human capacity and virtue; Milton and Cromwell; Milton's clear logic; his tenacity; his scurrility, and its excuse; his fierce and fantastic wit; reappearance of these qualities in _Paradise Lost_; the style of his prose works analysed and illustrated; his rich vocabulary; his use of Saxon; the making of an epic poet 39
CHAPTER III?Paradise Lost: The Scheme
Vastness of the theme; scenical opportunities; the poetry independent
of the creed; Milton's choice of subject; King Arthur; _Paradise Lost_; attractions of the theme: primitive religion, natural beauty, dramatic interest; difficulties of the theme, and forbidden topics; how Milton overcomes these difficulties by his episodes, his similes, and the tradition that he adopts concerning the fallen angels; the cosmography of _Paradise Lost_; its chronology; some difficulties and inconsistencies; Milton's spiritual beings, their physical embodiment; the poem no treasury of wisdom, but a world-drama; its inhumanity, and artificial elevation; the effect of Milton's simpler figures drawn from rural life; De Quincey's explanation of this effect; another explanation; the homelessness of Eden; the enchanted palace and its engineer; the tyranny of Milton's imagination; its effect on his diction 81
CHAPTER IV?Paradise Lost: The Actors. The Later Poems
Milton's argumentative end; its bearing on the scenes in Heaven; his
political bias, and materialism; Milton's Deity; his Satan; the minor devils; Adam; Eve; personal memories; Adam's eulogy of Eve, criticised by Raphael; Milton's philosophy of love and beauty; the opinions of Raphael, of Satan, and of Mrs. Millamant; the comparative merits of Adam and Eve; Milton's great epic effects; his unity and large decorum; morning and evening; architectural effects; the close of _Paradise Lost_; Addison and Bentley; _Paradise Regained;_ the choice of subject; Milton's favourite theme--temptation; other possible subjects; the Harrying of Hell; _Samson Agonistes;_ the riddle of life. 126
CHAPTER V?The Style of Milton: Metre and Diction
Difficulties of literary genealogy; the ledger school of criticism;
Milton's strength and originality; his choice of a sacred subject; earlier attempts in England and France; Boileau's opinion; Milton's choice of metre an innovation; the little influence on Milton of Spenser, and of Donne; Milton a pupil of the dramatists; the history of dramatic blank verse; Milton's handling of the measure; the "elements of musical delight"; Tennyson's blank verse; Milton's metrical licenses; the Choruses of _Samson Agonistes_; Milton's diction a close-wrought mosaic; compared with the diffuser diction of Spenser; conciseness of Virgil, Dryden, Pope, Milton; Homer's repetitions; repetitions and "turns of words and thoughts" rare in Milton; double meanings of words; Milton's puns; extenuating circumstances; his mixed metaphors and violent syntax, due to compression; Milton's poetical style a dangerous model; the spontaneity and license of his prose 170
CHAPTER VI?The Style of Milton; and its Influence on English Poetry
The relation of