90-) English Liter4ature
Jhon Milton
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Once
Paradise Lost was published, Milton's stature as epic poet was immediately
recognised . He cast a formidable shadow over English poetry in the 18th and
19th centuries; he was often judged equal or superior to all other English
poets, including Shakespeare. Very early on, though, he was championed by
Whigs, and decried by Tories: with the regicide Edmund Ludlow he was claimed as
an early Whig, while the High Tory Anglican minister Luke Milbourne lumped
Milton in with other "Agents of Darkness" such as John Knox, George
Buchanan, Richard Baxter, Algernon Sidney and John Locke.[104] The political
ideas of Milton, Locke, Sidney, and James Harrington strongly influenced the
Radical Whigs, whose ideology in turn was central to the American Revolution.
Modern scholars of Milton's life, politics, and work are known as Miltonists:
"his work is the subject of a very large amount of academic
scholarship".
In
2008, John Milton Passage, a short passage by Bread Street into St Mary-le-Bow
Churchyard in London, was unveiled.
Early
reception of the poetry
John
Dryden, an early enthusiast, in 1677 began the trend of describing Milton as
the poet of the sublime.[108] Dryden's The State of Innocence and the Fall of
Man: an Opera (1677) is evidence of an immediate cultural influence. In 1695,
Patrick Hume became the first editor of Paradise Lost, providing an extensive
apparatus of annotation and commentary, particularly chasing down allusions.
In
1732, the classical scholar Richard Bentley offered a corrected version of
Paradise Lost. Bentley was considered presumptuous and was attacked in the
following year by Zachary Pearce. Christopher Ricks judges that, as critic,
Bentley was both acute and wrong-headed, and "incorrigibly
eccentric"; William Empson also finds Pearce to be more sympathetic to
Bentley's underlying line of thought than is warranted.
There
was an early, partial translation of Paradise Lost into German by Theodore Haak
and based on that a standard verse translation by Ernest Gottlieb von Berge. A
subsequent prose translation by Johann Jakob Bodmer was very popular; it
influenced Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. The German-language Milton tradition
returned to England in the person of the artist Henry Fuseli.
Many
Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century revered and commented on Milton's
poetry and non-poetical works. In addition to John Dryden, among them were
Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Thomas Newton, and Samuel Johnson. For example,
in The Spectator, Joseph Addison wrote extensive notes, annotations, and
interpretations of certain passages of Paradise Lost. Jonathan Richardson,
senior, and Jonathan Richardson, the younger, co-wrote a book of criticism. In
1749, Thomas Newton published an extensive edition of Milton's poetical works
with annotations provided by himself, Dryden, Pope, Addison, the Richardsons
(father and son) and others. Newton's edition of Milton was a culmination of
the honour bestowed upon Milton by early Enlightenment thinkers; it may also
have been prompted by Richard Bentley's infamous edition, described above.
Samuel Johnson wrote numerous essays on Paradise Lost, and Milton was included
in his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–1781). In The Age of Louis
XIV, Voltaire said "Milton remains the glory and the wonder (l'admiration)
of England."
Blake
William
Blake considered Milton the major English poet. Blake placed Edmund Spenser as
Milton's precursor, and saw himself as Milton's poetical son. In his Milton: A
Poem in Two Books, Blake uses Milton as a character.
Romantic
theory
Edmund
Burke was a theorist of the sublime, and he regarded Milton's description of
Hell as exemplary of sublimity as an aesthetic concept. For Burke, it was to
set alongside mountain-tops, a storm at sea, and infinity. In The Beautiful and
the Sublime, he wrote: "No person seems better to have understood the
secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may use the
expression, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity
than Milton."
The
Romantic poets valued his exploration of blank verse, but for the most part
rejected his religiosity. William Wordsworth began his sonnet "London,
1802" with "Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour" and
modelled The Prelude, his own blank verse epic, on Paradise Lost. John Keats
found the yoke of Milton's style uncongenial; he exclaimed that "Miltonic
verse cannot be written but in an artful or rather artist's humour." Keats
felt that Paradise Lost was a "beautiful and grand curiosity", but
his own unfinished attempt at epic poetry, Hyperion, was unsatisfactory to the
author because, amongst other things, it had too many "Miltonic
inversions". In The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
note that Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is, in the view of many critics,
"one of the key 'Romantic' readings of Paradise Lost."
Later
legacy
The
Victorian age witnessed a continuation of Milton's influence. Thomas Carlyle
declared him the "moral king of English literature," while George
Eliot and Thomas Hardy were particularly inspired by Milton's poetry and
biography. Hostile 20th-century criticism by T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound did not
reduce Milton's stature. F. R. Leavis, in The Common Pursuit, responded to the
points made by Eliot, in particular the claim that "the study of Milton
could be of no help: it was only a hindrance", by arguing, "As if it
were a matter of deciding not to study Milton! The problem, rather, was to
escape from an influence that was so difficult to escape from because it was
unrecognized, belonging, as it did, to the climate of the habitual and
'natural'." Harold Bloom, in The Anxiety of Influence, wrote that
"Milton is the central problem in any theory and history of poetic
influence in English [...]".
Milton's
Areopagitica is still cited as relevant to the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution. A quotation from Areopagitica—"A good book is the
precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to
a life beyond life"—is displayed in many public libraries, including the
New York Public Library.
The
title of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is derived from a
quotation, "His dark materials to create more worlds", line 915 of
Book II in Paradise Lost. Pullman was concerned to produce a version of
Milton's poem accessible to teenagers, and has spoken of Milton as "our
greatest public poet".
Titles
of a number of other well-known literary works are also derived from Milton's
writings. Examples include Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, Aldous Huxley's
Eyeless in Gaza, Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, and William Golding's
Darkness Visible.
T.
S. Eliot believed that "of no other poet is it so difficult to consider
the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions
... making unlawful entry".
Literary
legacy
Milton's
use of blank verse, in addition to his stylistic innovations (such as
grandiloquence of voice and vision, peculiar diction and phraseology)
influenced later poets. At the time, poetic blank verse was considered distinct
from its use in verse drama, and Paradise Lost was taken as a unique exemplar.
Said Isaac Watts in 1734, "Mr. Milton is esteemed the parent and author of
blank verse among us". "Miltonic verse" might be synonymous for
a century with blank verse as poetry, a new poetic terrain independent from
both the drama and the heroic couplet.
Lack
of rhyme was sometimes taken as Milton's defining innovation. He himself
considered the rhymeless quality of Paradise Lost to be an extension of his own
personal liberty:
This
neglect then of Rhime ... is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in
English, of ancient liberty recover'd to heroic Poem from the troublesom and
modern bondage of Rimeing.
This
pursuit of freedom was largely a reaction against conservative values
entrenched within the rigid heroic couplet. Within a dominant culture that
stressed elegance and finish, he granted primacy to freedom, breadth and
imaginative suggestiveness, eventually developed into the romantic vision of
sublime terror. Reaction to Milton's poetic worldview included, grudgingly,
acknowledgement of the poet's resemblance to classical writers (Greek and Roman
poetry being unrhymed). Blank verse came to be a recognised medium for
religious works and for translations of the classics. Unrhymed lyrics like
Collins' Ode to Evening (in the meter of Milton's translation of Horace's Ode
to Pyrrha) were not uncommon after 1740.
A
second aspect of Milton's blank verse was the use of unconventional rhythm:
His
blank-verse paragraph, and his audacious and victorious attempt to combine
blank and rhymed verse with paragraphic effect in Lycidas, lay down
indestructible models and patterns of English verse-rhythm, as distinguished
from the narrower and more strait-laced forms of English metre.
Before
Milton, "the sense of regular rhythm ... had been knocked into the English
head so securely that it was part of their nature". The "Heroick
measure", according to Samuel Johnson, "is pure ... when the accent
rests upon every second syllable through the whole line ... The repetition of
this sound or percussion at equal times, is the most complete harmony of which
a single verse is capable". Caesural pauses, most agreed, were best placed
at the middle and the end of the line. In order to support this symmetry, lines
were most often octo- or deca-syllabic, with no enjambed endings. To this
schema Milton introduced modifications, which included hypermetrical syllables
(trisyllabic feet), inversion or slighting of stresses, and the shifting of
pauses to all parts of the line. Milton deemed these features to be reflective
of "the transcendental union of order and freedom". Admirers remained
hesitant to adopt such departures from traditional metrical schemes: "The
English ... had been writing separate lines for so long that they could not rid
themselves of the habit". Isaac Watts preferred his lines distinct from
each other, as did Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Pemberton, and Scott of Amwell,
whose general opinion it was that Milton's frequent omission of the initial
unaccented foot was "displeasing to a nice ear". It was not until the
late 18th century that poets (beginning with Gray) began to appreciate
"the composition of Milton's harmony ... how he loved to vary his pauses,
his measures, and his feet, which gives that enchanting air of freedom and
wilderness to his versification". By the 20th century, American poet and
critic John Hollander would go so far as to say that Milton "was able, by
plying that most remarkable instrument of English meter ... to invent a new
mode of image-making in English poetry."
Milton's
pursuit of liberty extended into his vocabulary as well. It included many
Latinate neologisms, as well as obsolete words already dropped from popular
usage so completely that their meanings were no longer understood. In 1740,
Francis Peck identified some examples of Milton's "old" words (now
popular). The "Miltonian dialect", as it was called, was emulated by
later poets; Pope used the diction of Paradise Lost in his Homer translation,
while the lyric poetry of Gray and Collins was frequently criticised for their
use of "obsolete words out of Spenser and Milton". The language of
Thomson's finest poems (e.g. The Seasons, The Castle of Indolence) was
self-consciously modelled after the Miltonian dialect, with the same tone and
sensibilities as Paradise Lost. Following to Milton, English poetry from Pope
to John Keats exhibited a steadily increasing attention to the connotative, the
imaginative and poetic, value of words.
Musical
settings
Milton's
ode At a solemn Musick was set for choir and orchestra as Blest Pair of Sirens
by Hubert Parry (1848–1918), and Milton's poem On the Morning of Christ's
Nativity was set as a large-scale choral work by Cyril Rootham (1875–1938).
Milton also wrote the hymn Let us with a gladsome mind, a versification of
Psalm 136. His 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso', with additional material, were
magnificently set by Handel (1740).
Fame
and reputation
Milton’s
fame and reputation derive chiefly from Paradise Lost, which, when first
published in 1667, did not gain wide admiration. Because of Milton’s political
and religious views, only his close friends and associates commended his epic.
Marvell, who assisted Milton when he was Latin secretary during the
interregnum, expressed extraordinary admiration of Paradise Lost in verses at
the outset of the 1674 edition. John Dryden, after having consulted with Milton
and elicited his approval, adapted the epic to heroic couplets, the measure
that characterized much verse in that era. The result was The State of
Innocence and Fall of Man, an operatic adaptation published in 1677, though
never performed. At the end of the 17th century, admiration of Paradise Lost
extended beyond a small circle. Indeed, five editions of the poem appeared
between 1688 and 1698, three of them in English and two in Latin; the 1695
edition in English, with Patrick Hume’s commentary and annotations, is
considered the first scholarly edition.
By
the early 18th century, Paradise Lost had begun to draw more acclaim. Joseph
Addison published a series of essays in The Spectator (1712) in which he ranked
Milton’s epic with the works of Classical antiquity. Because the Neoclassical
movement in poetry, which emphasized heroic couplets, prevailed in this era,
Paradise Lost was perceived as a magnificent exception in its use of blank
verse. And because its genre was that of a biblical epic, Paradise Lost was
granted unique status. Alexander Pope, the quintessential Neoclassical poet,
borrowed heavily from the imagery of Milton’s poem and in The Rape of the Lock
(1712–14) constructed a mock-epic that becomes a genial parody of Paradise
Lost.
Voltaire
lavishly praised Paradise Lost in 1727 when writing of epic poetry.
Translations of Milton’s epic into French, German, and Italian appeared before
mid-century. Joseph Warton in 1756 cited Milton’s splendid topographical
settings, especially Eden in Paradise Lost, and praised the flights of sublime
imagination that elevated readers into heaven and near the throne of God. In
doing so, Warton emphasized two of the poem’s characteristics—Milton’s
celebration of nature and his unbridled imagination—that would later be highly
valued by English Romantic authors. But by the end of the 18th century,
Milton’s reputation had suffered because of Samuel Johnson, whose critical
biography in The Lives of the Poets (1779–81), while praising the sublimity of
Paradise Lost, disfavoured Milton’s images from nature, which Johnson
attributed not to direct experience but to derivations from books.
During
the early 19th century, Milton became popular among a number of major Romantic
authors, such as William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, who in
Paradise Lost perceived Satan as a heroic rebel opposing established traditions
and God as a tyrant. Appropriating elements of Milton’s biography and of his
works, these authors created a historical and literary context for their own
revolutionary ideas. Shelley’s Prometheus in Prometheus Unbound (1820), for
instance, is modeled after Milton’s Satan. By the end of the 19th century and
into the early 20th century, however, Milton had yet again fallen into
disfavour. The most influential voice lessening Milton’s reputation was that of
T.S. Eliot, whose aesthetic interests gravitated toward the Metaphysical poets,
certain Renaissance dramatists, and other contemporaries of Milton. Eliot
complained that Milton’s epic verse lacked earnest feeling, was “stiff and
tortuous,” and was so inflexible that it discouraged imitation.
Yet
another shift in Milton’s reputation occurred in the late 20th century, when
the author, while still appreciated for his literary and aesthetic achievements
in verse, came to be viewed as a chronicler—even in his poems—of the tensions,
conflicts, and upheavals of 17th-century England. At the same time, however,
scholars often portrayed Milton variously as a forebear of present-day
sensitivities and sensibilities and as an exponent of regressive views. In
Paradise Lost, for instance, the conjugal relationship between Adam and
Eve—both before and after the Fall—is strictly hierarchical, with the husband
as overseer of the wife. But this representation of marriage, considered an
expression of Milton’s regressive views, contrasts with The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce, where Milton contends that the basis of marriage is
compatibility. If the partners are no longer compatible, he argues, the
marriage is in effect dissolved. Though such a liberal view of divorce was
unacceptable in Milton’s era, it struck a more responsive chord in those
countries where at the turn of the 21st century marriage was understood as a
voluntary union between equals. By situating Milton’s work within the social,
political, and religious currents of his era, scholars, nevertheless,
demonstrated the enduring value and modern-day relevance of his works.
Works
Poetry
and drama
1629:
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity , 1630: On Shakespeare , 1631: On Arriving
at the Age of Twenty-Three , 1632: L'Allegro , 1632: Il Penseroso
1634:
A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, commonly known as Comus (a masque) , 1637:
Lycidas , 1645: Poems of Mr John Milton, Both English and Latin , 1652: When I
Consider How My Light is Spent (Commonly referred to as "On his
blindness", though Milton did not use this title)[a]
1655:
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont , 1667: Paradise Lost , 1671: Paradise
Regained , 1671: Samson Agonistes , 1673: Poems, &c, Upon Several Occasions
, Arcades: a masque. (date is unknown). , On his Deceased wife, To The
Nightingale, On reaching the Age of twenty four.
Prose
Of
Reformation (1641) , Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641) , Animadversions (1641) , The
Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty (1642)
Apology
for Smectymnuus (1642) , Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
Judgement
of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce (1644) , Of Education (1644)
Areopagitica
(1644) , Tetrachordon (1645) , Colasterion (1645) . The Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates (1649) , Eikonoklastes (1649) , Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
[First Defence] (1651) , Defensio Secunda [Second Defence] (1654),
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