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Milton as a Historian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
One of the most puzzling of literary problems is the fact that John Milton, though unquestionably one of the world's great poets, spent the prime of his life in writing chiefly prose. By 1640 he had written some poems which the world has not willingly let die. But with the exception of a few sonnets (many of which are occasional poetry or mere society verse) he wrote hardly any poetry from 1640 to 1658—that is, roughly, between the ages of thirty and fifty. A careful reading of his History of Britain, however, sheds some light on this situation and reveals an important trait of Milton's which is seldom fully recognized. Coming to the History of Britain with no preconceived notion of Milton's character or purpose, one is increasingly impressed with the idea that for Milton the writing of poetry was unusually difficult, and that his mind tended more naturally to prose criticism. (I hope soon to publish a study of Milton's satire which will support this view.) To say that Milton was no poet or that poetry can be defined only as the product of un trammeled fancy is ridiculous; it is a bent, a matter of degree rather than of kind. But there is some justification for thinking of Milton as a reluctant poet.
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References
1 Second Defence, Prose Works, i 256.—All references in these notes are to the Bohn edition.
2 Reason of Church Government, P. W., ii, 480.
3 Ibid., ii, 481.
4 P. W., ii, 53.
5 Apology for Smectymnuus, P. W., iii, 96.
6 Second Defence, P. W., i, 254.
7 On Education, P. W., iii, 473.
8 History of Britain, P. W., v, 165.
9 Thus there is within Milton's own mind something of the “ Battle of the Books” which Professor Edwin Greenlaw pointed out among the Elizabethan historians; see his Studies in Spenser's Historical Allegory (Baltimore, 1932), Chap. i.
10 Quoted in Laura E. Lockwood's introduction to Milton's Of Education, Areopagitica, The Commonwealth (Boston, 1911), lxxii.—The italics are mine.
11 Ibid., lxxv.—Italics mine.
12 Ibid., lxxvi.
13 Ibid., xxxvi.
14 P. W., v, 164.
15 P. W., v, 169.
16 P. W., v, 173.
17 P. W., v, 184. I have corrected the Bohn misprint reigon to region.
18 Compare his eulogy of Greek literature in the letter to the Athenian Philaras, January, 1652 (P. W., iii, 504).
19 P. W., v, 202.
20 P. W., v, 243.
21 “Mansus,” ll. 80–83 (Moody's translation).
22 P. W., v, 255.
23 P. W., v, 258–259.
24 P. W., v, 258.
25 P. W., v, 259.
26 P. W., v, 275, 294.
27 P. W., v, 301.
28 P. F., v, 336.
29 P. W., v, 295–296.
30 P. W., v, 315.
31 P. W., v, 324.
32 P. W., v, 306.
33 P. W., v, 197.
34 P. W., v, 202.
35 P. W., v, 243.
36 P. W., v, 274.
37 P. F. Jones, “Milton and the Epic Subject from British History,” PMLA, xlii (1927), 901 ff.
38 Poems, ed. Moody, p. 69.
39 Ibid., p. 70.
40 John Aubrey, Brief Lives (ed. A. Clark, Oxford, 1898), ii, 67.
41 Tillyard, op. cit., 57.
42 Ibid., 57.
43 Ibid., 72.
44 Even so, it is illuminating to notice how prosaic, how lacking in romantic imagination, Paradise Regained is.
45 P. W., v, 198.
46 P. W., v, 295.
47 P. W., v, 236, 239.
48 P. W., v, 241.
49 P. W., v, 165.
50 “Milton as an Historian,” Proceedings of the British Academy, iii (1907–8), 227–257.
51 E.g., P. W., v, 210, 266, 299.
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