 |
<< Back to Articles
IS JOHN MILTON A "MUST READ"?
(An Essay with Examples)
Scott Souza
~~~~~
Time may come, when men
With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare:
And from these corporeal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and wing'd, ascend
Ethereal ...
(Paradise Lost, Book V, LL. 493-499)
~~~~~
Why You May Want to Read Milton
You may develop a desire to experience a piece of history you have only heard about. Perhaps you will grow tired of summaries and second-hand accounts and want to see the Ding an sich (The thing in itself). Or you may want to see consummate poetry, consummate writing, and consummate imagination from a master. Or you may want to catch the flavor of a by-gone era.
Why You Will Read Milton
One way or another you will "read" Milton every time you come across his borrowed thoughts or phrases. Do you believe that it is "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven"? So said Satan, Milton, and many another who decried or else approved the notion. Do you believe that your mind can make "a heaven of hell" or "a hell of heaven"? Milton said it first. Perhaps you know someone who can "make the worse appear the better reason." Have you ever known a time when "All hell broke loose"? Have you ever been comforted in a time of helplessness by the words, "They also serve who only stand and wait."? Or perhaps you did not find that idea comforting; perhaps you consider it "a living death". All of these are Milton's phrases. You will run across his ideas out there in daily life, and the more of Milton you read the more of them you will find.
(Quotes from: Paradise Lost, Book I, Line 263; ibid., Line 254ff; ibid., Book II, Lines 110-111; ibid., Book IV, Line 918; On His Blindness; Samson Agonistes, Book I, Line 100)
Why You Must Read Milton
If you aspire to FULLY explore the liberal arts you must include Milton in your reading. If you aspire to garner as many great thoughts as you can, you must include Milton. If you aspire to read a full complement of great poetry you must include Milton.
~~~~~
SELECTIONS
[To the Muse and Spirit]
I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like sat'st brooking on the vast abyss,
And madest it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
(Paradise Lost, Book I, LL. 12-26)
~~~~~
[Of Satan]
Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
I adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded though immortal: ...
(Paradise Lost, Book I, LL. 44-53)
~~~~~
[Satan Speaks]
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide;
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
[Paradise Lost, Book IV, LL. 73-78]
~~~~~
[Adam After the Fall]
How shall I behold the face
Henceforth of God or angel, erst with joy
And rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shape
Will dazzle now this earthly, with their blaze
Insufferably bright. Oh, might I here
In solitude live savage, in some glade
Obscured; where highest woods, impenetrable
To star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad
And brown as evening! Cover me, ye pines!
Ye cedars, with innumerable boughs
Hide me, where I may never see them more!
(Paradise Lost, Book IX, LL. 1080-1090)
~~~~~
[Adam's Comments on his Vision of Noah]
Far less I now lament for one whole world
Of wicked sons destroy'd, than I rejoice
For one man found so perfect, and so just,
That God vouchsafes to raise another world
From him, and all his anger to forget.
(Paradise Lost, Book XI, LL. 974-978)
~~~~~
[Christ Regains Paradise in the Wilderness]
Him long of old
Thou didst debel, and down from heaven cast
With all his army: now thou hast avenged
Supplanted Adam, and, by vanquishing
Temptation, hat regain'd lost Paradise,
And frustrated the conquest fraudulent.
He never more henceforth will dare set foot
In paradise to tempt; his snares are broke:
For though that seat of earthly bliss be fail'd,
A fairer Paradise is founded now
For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou,
A Saviour, art come to re-install, where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be,
Of tempter and temptation without fear.
(Paradise Regained, Book IV, LL. 604-617)
~~~~~
[Samson's Triumph]
Come, come, no time for lamentation now,
Nor much more cause; Samson hath quit himself
Like Samson, and heroickly hath finish'd
A life heroick; on his enemies
Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor
Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel
Honour hath left, and freedom, let them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion;
To himself and father's house eternal fame;
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was fear'd,
But favouring and assisting to the end.
(Samson Agonistes, LL. 1708-1720)
~~~~~
For an extensive online collection of Milton's works visit
www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/
|
|
|
|
