A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
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through the medium <strong>of</strong> the secular epic, with its battles and councils and<br />
all the forms <strong>of</strong> physical life, is <strong>of</strong> course rationally paradoxical. It was<br />
early pointed out that in spite <strong>of</strong> himself Milton has in some sense made<br />
Satan the hero <strong>of</strong> the poem--a reader can scarcely fail to sympathize with<br />
the fallen archangel in his unconquerable Puritan-like resistance to the<br />
arbitrary decrees <strong>of</strong> Milton's despotic Deity. Further, Milton's personal,<br />
<strong>English</strong>, and Puritan prejudices sometimes intrude in various ways. But all<br />
these things are on the surface. In sustained imaginative grandeur <strong>of</strong><br />
conception, expression, and imagery 'Paradise Lost' yields to no human<br />
work, and the majestic and varied movement <strong>of</strong> the blank verse, here first<br />
employed in a really great non-dramatic <strong>English</strong> poem, is as magnificent as<br />
anything else in literature. It cannot be said that the later books always<br />
sustain the greatness <strong>of</strong> the first two; but the pr<strong>of</strong>usely scattered<br />
passages <strong>of</strong> sensuous description, at least, such as those <strong>of</strong> the Garden <strong>of</strong><br />
Eden and <strong>of</strong> the beauty <strong>of</strong> Eve, are in their own way equally fine. Stately<br />
and more familiar passages alike show that however much his experience had<br />
done to harden Milton's Puritanism, his youthful Renaissance love <strong>of</strong> beauty<br />
for beauty's sake had lost none <strong>of</strong> its strength, though <strong>of</strong> course it could<br />
no longer be expressed with youthful lightness <strong>of</strong> fancy and melody. The<br />
poem is a magnificent example <strong>of</strong> classical art, in the best Greek spirit,<br />
united with glowing romantic feeling. Lastly, the value <strong>of</strong> Milton's<br />
scholarship should by no means be overlooked. All his poetry, from the<br />
'Nativity Ode' onward, is like a rich mosaic <strong>of</strong> gems borrowed from a great<br />
range <strong>of</strong> classical and modern authors, and in 'Paradise Lost' the allusions<br />
to literature and history give half <strong>of</strong> the romantic charm and very much <strong>of</strong><br />
the dignity. The poem could have been written only by one who combined in a<br />
very high degree intellectual power, poetic feeling, religious idealism,<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ound scholarship and knowledge <strong>of</strong> literature, and also experienced<br />
knowledge <strong>of</strong> the actual world <strong>of</strong> men.<br />
'Paradise Lost' was published in 1677. It was followed in 1671 by 'Paradise<br />
Regained,' only one-third as long and much less important; and by 'Samson<br />
Agonistes' (Samson in his Death Struggle). In the latter Milton puts the<br />
story <strong>of</strong> the fallen hero's last days into the majestic form <strong>of</strong> a Greek<br />
drama, imparting to it the passionate but l<strong>of</strong>ty feeling evoked by the close<br />
similarity <strong>of</strong> Samson's situation to his own. This was his last work, and he<br />
died in 1674. Whatever his faults, the moral, intellectual and poetic<br />
greatness <strong>of</strong> his nature sets him apart as in a sense the grandest figure in<br />
<strong>English</strong> literature.<br />
JOHN BUNYAN. Seventeenth century Puritanism was to find a supreme spokesman<br />
in prose fiction as well as in poetry; John Milton and John Bunyan,<br />
standing at widely different angles <strong>of</strong> experience, make one <strong>of</strong> the most<br />
interesting complementary pairs in all literature. By the mere chronology<br />
<strong>of</strong> his works, Bunyan belongs in our next period, but in his case mere<br />
chronology must be disregarded.<br />
Bunyan was born in 1628 at the village <strong>of</strong> Elstow, just outside <strong>of</strong> Bedford,<br />
in central England. After very slight schooling and some practice at his<br />
father's trade <strong>of</strong> tinker, he was in 1644 drafted for two years and a half<br />
into garrison service in the Parliamentary army. Released from this<br />
occupation, he married a poor but excellent wife and worked at his trade;<br />
but the important experiences <strong>of</strong> his life were the religious ones. Endowed<br />
by nature with great moral sensitiveness, he was nevertheless a person <strong>of</strong><br />
violent impulses and had early fallen into pr<strong>of</strong>anity and laxity <strong>of</strong> conduct,<br />
which he later described with great exaggeration as a condition <strong>of</strong><br />
abandoned wickedness. But from childhood his abnormally active dramatic<br />
imagination had tormented him with dreams and fears <strong>of</strong> devils and<br />
hell-fire, and now he entered on a long and agonizing struggle between his