PARADISE LOST.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1234, 16 September 1911, Page 9

PARADISE LOST.

Tho following communication to tho Manchester Guardian" from one who has been rereading the second Ireok of -Paradise Lost" illustrates one o! tho advantages of "reading with a pencil":— "Tho point-, however, is that my pencil mcl'lciii;;s give the book a cortain autobiographic value, and enable mo to trace cere in tho growth of my power of literary appreciation; I read it first as a schoolboy task on a Sunday afternoon, and the only -thing in it which made an impression npon mo was tno description of, Satan ..badly .bosued in tho Vrude consistence' of Ciiaos, which, how-i-ver, 1 reiiieinbered not under the similivado of. a gryphon pursuing an Arimaspi.in, but under that of a,irqunded mallard partly splashing with its feet, .partly heating with its wings, the surface of a cortain estuary.. -I was not quite insensible to poetry then,; but could appreciate 'lenliyson, and was at- the-beginning of a craze for Shelley, but with regard to Hilton was not much better than those 'excellent persons' to whom Mr. Arnold ltennett allndes, who, 'if they wero confronted with the alternative of reading "Paradise Lost" and loing round 'i'ra-

falgar Square- at noonday on their knees in sackcloth, would choose the ordeal of public ridicule.' Tho truth is, that poom is not to bo approached directly from life and nature, but through a pretty protracted disciplino 'in literature, and I havo my suspicions concerning that backwoodsman who, acknowledging his consignment of books, bogged for more, especially 'the more recent works of Mr. William Shakespeare and ?ilr. John Milton.'

"To a second reading some, years after I brought a mind crammed with Greek and Latin and mucli preoccupied with effects of technique, and it was then that tho immense splendour of tho poem burst upon me. It was a literary .sensation of tho first intensity. Each paragraph -was like ono of- the trees in Aladdin's gardon-the leave* wcro jewels and the fruits precious stones. The innumerable folicities of diction, tho tragic or ' picturesque value of individual lines, tho ever-varied rhythms, and tho superb masonry of the naragraphs were elements in the cxperiente which made the reading a memorable event. Tho Latinhms, top, curiously, tickled me—the appositeness in their context of such words as 'voluminous," "inured," "globo" in the sense of escort, and, not least, the word "incensed" in the great siniilo

On tho other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Untcrrified and liko a comet burned, That fires the length of Opiuchus huge . In the Arctic sky, P.nd from his horrid huir Shakes pestilence and war.

Such similes, which, after the manner of Homer, Milton fires off like skyrockets along the courro of his poem, were another pleasure. Addison says of them that they sometimes end in an idea other than that in which they began. Probably he means only that they aro exceedingly elaborate. They do not, at any rate, ramble, and the only one in this book that passes on the thought does so with deliberate intention. It describes the applause that greeted Mammon's speech. Hβ scarce had finished when such murmur' filled The assembly as when bollow rocks retain Tho sound of blustering winds, which . all night'lon's ■ ~, ' \ Had roused the sea, now with hoarse • Cf.denco lull Sea-faring men o'erwatched, whose bark • by chance, Or pinnace, anchors in the craggy bay After the tempest.

Hero the attention, fixed at first unon the noiso of tho caverns, passes to the peaceful picture of the anchored bark with tho express purpose of suggesting the feeling of relief which falls unon an assembly which, after long debate, concludes upon a unanimous resolution. Such figures of speech however, are mere incidents and throw into' relief Mio full adequacy of that rich and flexible poetic dialect which Milton had fashioned for himself, to body forth conceptions which never before had been expressed in human speech. I remembbr thinking at the time that the following passage was as much an achievement in its way as squaring the circle would be:—

Who shall tempt with wandering feet Tho dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss, And through the palpable obscure- find out . His uncouth way, or spread his aery . flight, Upborno with 'indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, era he arrive Tho happy isle?

"This second reading had yielded so much that when ths other day I reached forth my hand for my old Milton I did not expect in tho ;econd book to receive more than the weakened renewal of former impressions. More awaited me, however, and notably two passagss, because of their human suggestiveness, awoke new vernations. One was that which tolls liovr tho minstrel angels, whilo their fellows set forth on voyages of exploration or organised Olympic games or in Typhoean rage tore up rocks and lulls, retired to a secluded valley, and sang to the music of their harps their own heroic deeds and hapless fall. One could quoteparallels to them both among ordinary men and poets. The other was far more striking. It was ths colloquy at the gates of He'll between Satan and Death. In the early part of the book we are introduced to the towering pride of Satan, a pride- which not eyon, tho most majestic of his host .dare challenge, 1 ar.d"thsf ! hero a mere mass of shapeless glconV should address him in language of withering contempt and pour utter contumely upon him mates upon the reader a drastic impression c-f the very strongest sort. I novr think the lines b.-ffinning 'Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he?' the sovereign passage of the book. "I am not writing a , , full. criticism of the second, book «f 'Paradise Lost' or I should have, touched upon certain things in it which do not appeal to me, and which-I do not think that some later fourth reading will reveal to have been -.nnrcceaniMd beauties.',-! have put myself into tho confessional on the subject of my literary taste, and my conclusion |is that I. have lost in my reading of Milton by having held too strongly by tho doctrine ef the paramountcy of technique. Had it. not been for that I should have felt tho force of the dramatic colloquy at the second reading, and not'have mi?s--e<l it in the magnificence of the conception of the 6hapel«s Shape. In my day, however, we were nil enamoured of fine craftsmanship. A poem was a poem by reason of its art, not of its subject or its human interest. . Stevfinson was preaching the gospel of technique and practising it in prose, and Swinburne not less so in verse.. And—well, I am not sure that I would have things to have been otherwise. Certainly, if I had approached the second wading with broader views of literature -I should have derived ple-asuro from a larger number of elements of poetic beauty, and the- pleasure therefore would have been richer and more varied, but would it have been so intense, and at any later period of my life would my appreciation of technique have boen so warm ?"