For Further
Reading: a student-authored site at Cambridge University, Darkness Visible
A little
more on Milton’s
Satan
Some links
to Joseph Addison’s essays (1712) on Paradise
Lost in The Spectator (1) (2)
John Dryden
“Epigram on Milton” (1688)
Three Poets, in three distant Ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The First in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The Next in Majesty; in both the Last.
The force of Nature could no farther go:
To make a third she joined the former two.
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Voltaire, Candide
(1759)
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did
not think that author a great man.
"Who?" said Pococurante sharply; "that
barbarian who writes a tedious commentary in ten books of rumbling verse, on
the first chapter of Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who
disfigures the creation, by making the Messiah take a pair of compasses from
Heaven's armory to plan the world; whereas Moses represented the Deity as producing
the whole universe by his fiat? Can I think you have any esteem for a writer
who has spoiled Tasso's Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes
into a toad, and at others into a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over
again a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school-divine; and who, by
an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto's comic invention of firearms,
represents the devils and angels cannonading each other in Heaven? Neither I
nor any other Italian can possibly take pleasure in such melancholy reveries;
but the marriage of Sin and Death, and snakes issuing from the womb of the
former, are enough to make any person sick that is not lost to all sense of
delicacy. This obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable poem met with the neglect
it deserved at its first publication; and I only treat the author now as he was
treated in his own country by his contemporaries."
. . . .
“What a superior man!” murmured Candide. “What a genius this Pococurante is! Nothing
can please him.”
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Samuel
Johnson, “Life of Milton” (1779)
The highest praise of genius is original invention.
Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epick
poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and
amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of
poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents,
the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise and enchain
attention. But of all the borrowers from Homer Milton is perhaps the least
indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own
abilities and disdainful of help or hindrance; he did not refuse admission to
the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his
contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his
writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified or favour gained, no exchange of praise nor
solicitation of support. His great works were performed under discountenance
and in blindness, but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for
whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroick
poems, only because it is not the first.
The plan of Paradise Lost has this
inconvenience, that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The
man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can
ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can be engaged, beholds
no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himself; he
has, therefore, little natural curiosity or sympathy. . . . .But original deficience
cannot be supplied. The want of human interest is always felt. Paradise
Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and
forgets to take up again. None ever
wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a
pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and
look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions.
*** *** *** ***
William
Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93)
Those
who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and
the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes
passive till it is only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason
is call'd Messiah.
And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is
call'd the Devil or Satan and his children are call'd Sin & Death.
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties.
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast
out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven
of what he stole from the Abyss.
This
is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the comforter or
Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being
no other than he who dwells in flaming fire.
Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.
But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the five senses,
& the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!
Note: The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and
at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the
Devils party without knowing it.
*** *** *** ***
Shelley, from “A Defence
of Poetry” (1821)
Nothing
can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed
in “Paradise Lost.” It is a mistake to suppose that he could ever have been
intended for the popular personification of evil. .
. . Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far
superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose which he has
conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in
the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon
his enemy, not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a
perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to
deserve new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this
shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral
virtue to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a direct moral
purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton’s genius.
*** *** *** ***
Wordsworth,
from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
(1798)
Taking
up the subject, then, upon general grounds, let me ask, what is meant by the
word Poet? What is a Poet? to whom does he address
himself? and what language is to be expected from him?—He is a man speaking to
men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm
and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more
comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased
with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in
the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions
and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually
impelled to create them where he does not find them. To these qualities he has
added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if
they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are
indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet
(especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and
delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events, than
anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are
accustomed to feel in themselves:— whence, and from practice, he has acquired a
greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and
especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the
structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.
*** *** ***
I
have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it
takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity:
the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred
to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced,
and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition
generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on. . .
*** *** *** ***
Mary
Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), Ch. 15
"One night during my
accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I collected
my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a
leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some books. I
eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the
books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at the
cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost,
a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the
Sorrows of Werter.
The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually
studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were
employed in their ordinary occupations.
"I can hardly describe to you
the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity
of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more
frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection….
"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it,
as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true
history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an
omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often
referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like
Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but
his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth
from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the
especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire
knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and
alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for
often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of
envy rose within me.
*
* * *
* *
sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by
reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and
lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic
countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream; no Eve
soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam's
supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in
the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.
Ch. 10
“…I am thy creature, and I will be
even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy
part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be
not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice,
and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy
creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss,
from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery
made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."
"Begone!
I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are
enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a
fight, in which one must fall."
*** *** *** ***
Mark Twain, “Address at the Dinner
of the Nineteenth Century Club” speech, 1900
“Professor Winchester also said something about there being no
modern epics like Paradise Lost. I guess he’s right. He talked as if he
was pretty familiar with that piece of literary work, and nobody would suppose
that he never had read it. I don’t believe any of you have ever read Paradise
Lost, and you don’t want to. That’s something that you just want to take on
trust. It’s a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his
definition of a classic—something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.”
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