Lecture Literary criticism - Lecture 12: Paradise regained
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PARADISE REGAINED
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Of “paradise regained” the general judgment seems to be right,that is in
many parts elegant and everywhere instructive.
It was not to be supposed that the writer of “Paradise Lost” could ever
write without great effusions of fancy and exalted precepts of wisdom.
The basis of “Paradise regained” is narrow a dialogue without action
can never please like a union of the narrative and dramatic powers.
Had this poem been written not by Milton but by some imitator it would
have claimed and received universal praise.
SAMSON AGONISTS
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Was published with “Paradise Regained”
Unlike “Paradise Regained” it received a lot of admiration.
Milton’s bias for classics against French and English theatre.
It is the name of Milton because of which a drama can be praised in
which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence
neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe.
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In this tragedy are many particular beauties many just sentiments and
striking lines but it wants the power of attracting the attention which a
well connected plan procedures.
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Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing,he knew human
nature only in gross.
He knew what the books could teach but he had mingled little with the
world and was deficient in the knowledge and experience must confer.
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Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of
Diction that bears no resemblance to any past writers.
So unlearned reader when opens his book finds himself surprised with
a new language.
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Addison says “Our language sank under him”.
He uses English with a foreign idiom which in his prose is condemined
but the power and beauty of his poetry is so that criticism sinks in
admiration.
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Milton’s style was modified by his subject.
“He wrote no language”.
Butler called it “Babylonish Dialect”
Made by exalted genius and extensive learning.
We find grace in its deformity as it provides so much learning and
pleasure.
From his book alone “The Art of English poetry” may be learned.
FROM COWLEY
METAPHYSICAL POETS
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Wit like all other things has its changes and fashions and at different
times take different forms.
About the beginning of 19th century there appeared a race of writer that
may be termed in Metaphysical poets.
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The metaphysical poets are men of learning and to show their learning
was their whole endeavor.
Unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme instead of writing poetry they
only wrote verses.
The modulation of whom was so imperfect that they were only found to
be verses by counting the syllables.
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As Aristotle has called poetry an immitative act,these writers will lose
their right to be called poets.
They seem to have imitated nothing they neither copied nature nor
life,neither painted the forms of matter,nor represented the operation of
intellect.
They may be called wits as Dryden also confesses the Donne was
superior to him in wit.
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Wit defined by Pope” that which has been often thought but was never
before so well expressed”
They endeavored to be singular in their thoughts and were careless of
their diction.
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Johnson however disagrees with this definition.He thinks Pope has
depressed it below its natural dignity and reduced it from strength of
thought to happiness of language.
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The thoughts of metaphysical poets in are often new but seldom
natural.
They are not obvious but they are not just wither.
And a reader wonders why were they even formed.
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Wit in their case may be called discordia concors.A combination of
dissimilar images or discovery of occult resemblance in things
apparently unlike.
The most heterogeneous ideas are yolked together by violence.
Nature and art are ran socked for
ideas,allusions,comparisons,illustrations
They instruct and surprise ,but it comes at a high cost.
The reader admires them but is seldom pleased.
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They were not successful in moving or representing affection.
As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising
they have no regard to that uniformity of sentiment.
They do not care what they should have said or done.
They are beholders of human nature.
They are beings looking upon good and evil.
Impassive and at leisure.
As deities making remarks on the actions of men and on vicissitudes of
life without interest and without emotion.
Their courtship has no fondness their lamentation had no sorrow.
Their wish was to say what has never been said before.
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These writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of
greatness for greater things cannot have escaped former observation.
Their attempts were always analytic.They broke every image into
fragments and could no more represent by their selender conceits,the
prospects of nature or the scenes of life,then a sun beam dissect with a
prison.
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What they wanted of the sublime they endeavored to supply by
hyperbole;their amplifications had no limits,they left not only reason but
fancy behind them and produced combinations of confused
magnificence that not only could not be credited but could not be
imagined.
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Yet great labor is never lost,if they frequently threw,their wit upon false
conceits,they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth,if their
conceits were far fetched they were often with the carriage.
