A Manual Of English Literature PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... of sense, with just the touch of serious thought which marks Milton as a Puritan in all his works. He is still at play, he has not yet discovered all his powers, but he has one quality in these three poems which in his later work he was to lose, the quality of beauty, in the restricted sense of that word, as opposed to grandeur or sublimity. Even poets must pay the price of their gifts, and when Milton in the strength of his poetic manhood applies himself to " Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," his work has no more of this grace and loveliness of his youth when he could still allow himself to "fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world." The sonnets of the period of the Rebellion show the gradual change in Milton's point of view and habits of thought. His mind is more and more engrossed in politics and the stern Hebraistic Puritan religion. In Paradise Lost the change is complete. The Milton who now, after twenty years, turns again wholly to poetry is another man. Paradise Lost gives us in poetic form Milton's conception of the organization of the universe, and his explanation of our sinful state. So extensive has been the influence of the poem, the majestic pageant which it unfolds has taken such hold of the imaginations of the English people, that in the minds of a whole multitude Milton's account of the events of man's creation and fall is confused with that of the Bible itself and has become a part of the traditional ideas of the race. And yet few people, upon a careful examination, would find the poem satisfactory as a system of thought. For all the use that the Christian religion has made of it, Milton's system can hardly be squared with what is ordinarily considered Christian belief. Milton was not a...