17th-Century Poetry II
John Milton
and
John Dryden
- son
of a wealthy notary
- St. Paul's School
- Cambridge University
- 1638 European tour
- conversion to Puritanism Æ opposition to Catholics and
Stuarts
- foreign language secretary to Oliver Cromwell
- 1652 blindness
- persecution after the restoration Æ withdraws from
politics
- 1667 Paradise Lost; followed by Paradise Regained
and Samson Agonistes (1671); other works: e.g.
"Lycidas", "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso."
- dies London November 12, 1674.
On his Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoke, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
[c. 1652; publ. 1673]
Paradise Lost (1667)
BOOK I.
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of CHAOS:
Text: every year since 1652 could be the beginning of Milton's work on PL. Certain only that it was
published in 1667, must have been complete by 1665: second edition in 1674; original books VII
and X divided into two books each.
Structure of Paradise Lost
(following R.J. Beck)
Book 1 (hell; rebel angels):
• Story of the rebel angels
Book 2 (hell; rebel angels):
• council of the rebel angels; Satan's
escape; meeting with Sin and
Death.
Book 3 (heaven; God and son; Satan
on his way to the universe):
• God’s speech on man's freedom to
choose between good and evil;
philosophical considerations of free
will and predestination; man's freelychosen disobedience fore-shadowed;
Son accepted by God as the ransom
for mankind. Satan finds his way into
the universe and proceeds to earth
Book 4 (earth/paradise; Satan;
Adam and Eve):
• marital happiness of Adam and
Eve Æ Satan’s envy; Uriel reports
to Heaven; God sends Gabriel
and an angelic patrol; Satan’s
first attempt to tempt Eve; is
expelled from Eden
Book 5 (Eden; Raphael and
Adam):
• God sends Raphael to warn
Adam; Raphael narrates the story
Book 6 (Eden; Raphael and
Adam):
• Raphael’s
story
continued:
Michael’s and Gabriel’s battle
against Satan. God sends his
Son; Messiah returns with
triumph.
Book 7 (Eden; Raphael
and Adam):
Raphael relates how the
world was first created; God,
after expelling Satan and his
angels, declared his
pleasure to create another
world.
Book 8 (Eden; Raphael
and Adam):
Adam inquires into
astronomy and astrology;
Adam narrates Raphael
what he remembers
Book 9 (Eden; Satan and Eve;
Adam and Eve):
• tragic tone; Satan succeeds
in persuading Eve; Adam
eats to share Eve's fate;
they are blaming each other.
Book 10 (Eden; Christ; Adam
and Eve; Satan and his
followers):
• Book of retribution and
reconciliation. Son comes
down to Eden to pronounce
God's sentence; promise of
ultimate victory over evil.
Adam and Eve reconciled.
Satan returned to hell;
ransforms into the greatest
serpent
Book 11 (Michael and Adam):
• Archangel Michael shows Adam in a
vision a synopsis of Jewish history
down to the redemption of mankind
by Christ
• first part: history up to the Flood
Book 12 (Michael and Adam):
• second part of the story
• Adam reconciled to his fate; Adam
and Eve enter the outside world.
Three important common features of Homer's Odyssey,
Vergil's Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost:
(1) duodecimal system
(2) division of narrative between a quest
theme and a theme of the settling of a
social order (cf. Exodus)
(3) beginning of the action in medias res.
(Horace, Ars Poetica).
Who acts in the poem? With whom can the heroic action
be found?
Definition: "An act is the expression of the energy
of a free and conscious being. consequently all
acts are good. There is no such thing, strictly
speaking, as an evil act; evil or sin implies
deficiency, and implies also the loss or lack of
the power to act. There is a somewhat
unexpected corollary of this: if all acts are good,
then God is the source of all real action." (416)
Who acts?
Adam: "surrendering of the power to act.."
Satan: "concentrated parody of divine action”;
“parody-heroism”;
“destructiveness”
God/ Christ: "only the divine that can really act”;
“act of creation, which becomes an act of
recreation or redemption”; Christ as hero and
ultimate actor
Idea of satan's physical size and picture of him as the personification of evil
(1, 192-220)
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest Mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and
eyen
That sparkling blazed; his other parts
besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and
large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous
size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on
Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the oceanstream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway
foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered
skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixèd anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while
night
Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the ArchFiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake; nor ever
thence
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that
the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he
sought
Evil to others, and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring
forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy,
shewn
On Man by him seduced, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance
poured.
PL 56-134: God foresees the Fall
Erasmus: "Who will be able to bring himself to
love God with all heart when he created
hell seething with eternal torments in
order to punish his own misdeeds in his
victims as though he took delight in human
torments?" (De libro arbitrio, 1524)
Luther: "This is the highest degree of faith, to
belief him merciful when he saves so few
and damns so many, and to believe him
righteous when by his own will he makes
us necessarily damnable." (De servo
arbitrio, 1525)
PL 56-134: God foresees the Fall
Free will and predestination:
God can change what he foresees (by a miracle e.g.).
God must foresee that he is going to alter it.
Æ circular argument
Æ conclusions:
(1) God is not omnipotent,or
(2) man has no free will.
"Predestination is the ugly side of the belief in the
omnipotence of God." (19)
For Milton man is free and responsible of his deeds.
Is Satan a conservative or
revolutionary?
John Donne: Satan
revolutionary
=
the
first
innovator/
a
vs.
John Milton (1608-74): Satan = a conservative or
reactionary
Is Satan a conservative or
revolutionary?
Satan in Paradise Lost (1667):
... new Laws thou see'st impos'd;
New Laws from him who reigns, new minds may raise
In us who serve, new Counsels, to debate
What doubtful may ensue.... (V, 679-82)
That we were form'd then say'st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferr'd
From Father to his Son? strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learnt: who saw
When this creation was? remember'st thou
Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now. (V, 853-59)
The Age of Dryden
John Dryden (1631-1700)
most conspicuous literary personality between
1660 and 1700
poet and dramatist
heroic drama (e.g. The Indian Queen, Tyrannic
Love, The Conquest of Granada)
mixtures of heroic tragedy and contemporary
comedy (e.g. Marriage à la Mode)
1668 poet laureate; poetry on topics of the day
John Dryden – poetical works
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Astraea Redux, 1660
Annus Mirabilis, The Year of Wonders,
1666 publ. 1667
Occasional Poems: coronation, military
victories, death, political crisis
since 1668 Poet Laureate
since 1670 Royal Historiographer.
1660 – Restoration of the Monarch
"29 [May] This day came in his Majestie Charles the 2d to London after a
sad, & long Exile, and Calamitous Suffering both of the King & Church:
being 17 yeares: This was also his Birthday, and with a Triumph of
above 20000 horse & foote, brandishing their swords and shouting
with unexpressable joy: The wayes straw'd with flowers, the bells
ringing, the streetes hung with Tapissry, fountaines running with wine:
The Major, Aldermen, all the Companies in their liveries, Chaines of
Gold, banners; Lords & nobles, Cloth of Silver, gold & vellvet every
body clad in, the windos & balconies all set with Ladys, Trumpets,
Musick, & myriads of people flocking. . . . I stood in the strand, &
beheld it, & blessed God: And all this without one drop of bloud, & by
that very army, which rebell'd against him: but it was the Lords doing,
et mirabile in oculis nostris: for such a Restauration was never seene
in the mention of any history, antient or modern, since the returne of
the Babylonian Captivity, nor so joyfull a day, & so bright, ever seene
in this nation: this hapning when to expect or effect it, was past all
humane policy."
(John Evelyn)
John Dryden: Astrea Redux, lines 250ff
(1660)
Your power to justice doth submit your cause,
Your goodness only is above the laws;
Whose rigid letter, while pronounced by you,
Is softer made. So winds that tempests brew,
When through Arabian groves they take their flight,
Made wanton with rich odours, lose their spite.
And as those lees, that trouble it, refine
The agitated soul of generous wine;
So tears of joy, for your returning spilt,
Work out, and expiate our former guilt.
Methinks I see those crowds on Dover's strand,
Who, in their haste to welcome you to land,
Choked up the beach with their still growing store,
And made a wilder torrent on the shore:
While, spurr'd with eager thoughts of past delight,
Those, who had seen you, court a second sight;
Preventing still your steps, and making haste
To meet you often wheresoe'er you past.
How shall I speak of that triumphant day,
When you renew'd the expiring pomp of May![28]
(A month that owns an interest in your name:
You and the flowers are its peculiar claim.)
That star[29] that at your birth shone out so bright,
It stain'd the duller sun's meridian light,
Did once again its potent fires renew, 290
Guiding our eyes to find and worship you.
And now Time's whiter series is begun,
Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run:
Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly,
Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky.
Our nation with united interest blest,
Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest.
Abroad your empire shall no limits know,
But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow.
Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command,
Besiege the petty monarchs of the land
1666 The Great Fire
from John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis ["The Year of Wonders" - 1666]
[lines 1169-1216, "London Reborn"]
Me-thinks already, from this chymic flame
I see a city of more precious mold:
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name
With silver paved, and all divine with gold.
Already, laboring with a mighty fate,
She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow
And seems to have renewed her charter's date,
Which Heaven will to the death of time allow.
More great than human, now, and more August,
New deified she from her fires does rise:
Her widening streets on new foundations trust,
And, opening, into larger parts she flies.
Before, she like some shepherdess did show,
Who sat to bathe her by a river's side:
Not answering to her fame, but rude and low,
Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride.
Now, like a Maiden Queen, she will behold,
From her high turrets, hourly suitors come:
The East with incense, and the West with gold,
Will stand, like suppliants, to receive her doom.
The silver Thames, her own domestic flood
Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train;
And often wind (as of his mistress proud)
With longing eyes to meet her face again.
The wealthy Tagus, and the wealthier Rhine
The glory of their towns no more shall boast
And Seine,that would with Belgian rivers join
Shall find her luster stained, and traffic lost.
The venturous merchant, who designed more far,
And touches on our hospitable shore,
Charmed with the splendor of this northern star,
Shall here unlade him, and depart no more.
Our powerful navy shall I no longer meet,
The wealth of France or Holland to invade;
The beauty of this Town, without a fleet,
From all the world shall vindicate her trade.
And while this famed emporium we prepare
The British ocean shall such triumphs boast,
That those who now disdain our trade to share,
Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.
Already we have conquered half the war,
And the less dangerous part is left behind:
Our trouble now is but to make them dare,
And not so great to vanquish as to find.
Thus to the eastern wealth through storms we go,
But now, the Cape once doubled,fear no more:
A constant trade-wind will securely blow
And gently lay us on the spicy shore.
Absalom and Achitophel
Historical context and Form
problem: successor to Charles II
1) James, Duke of York: Catholic
2) Duke of Monmouth: more acceptable
"Popish Plot”, forwarded by e.g. Titus Oates
Æ public hysteria; Earl of Shaftesbury, the Duke of Buckingham, and other Whigs
conspire against the Duke of York.
public opinion = anti-Catholic and anti-French
Dryden tries to side with Charles II and James II without harming the Duke of
Monmouth.
1685 Monmouth’s rebellion against James II defeated in the battle of Sedgemoor.
Form:
heroic couplets, no enjambements. Rhymed iambic pentametre.
Narrator:
Epic, omniscient narrator, long speeches presented by the story‘s characters.
narrator comments on the events.
John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel (1681):
Tradition and Sources
•
Typological Narrrative:
Biblical names from the Book of Samuel:
David (Charles II), Absalom, the son of David (Monmouth),
Achitophel, David's counsellor (Shaftesbury),
Jesusites (Catholics)
Jews (English Protestants)
Egypt (France)
Pharaoh (Louis XIV)
Israel (England)
Jerusalem (London)
Sanhedrin, supreme council and court of justice among the Jews (Parliament)
Saul (Cromwell)
Zimri, Book of the Kings (Buckingham)
Corah, a Hebrew of principal account conspired against Moses (Titus Oates) [see
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 4 - Chapter 2]
Charles II - David
•
In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd
When nature prompted, and no law
denied
Promiscuous use of concubine and
bride;
Then Israel's monarch after heaven's
own heart,
His vigorous warmth did variously
impart
To wives and slaves; and wide as his
command,
Scatter'd his Maker's image thro' the
land
Duke of Monmouth - Absalom
Of all this numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absolon
....
Early in foreign fields he won renown
With kings and states allied to Israel's
crown:
In peace the thoughts of war he could
remove,
And seem'd as he were only born for love.
Earl of Shaftesbury - Achitophel
•
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked
counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place,
In pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of
disgrace;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
Titus Oates - Corah
Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and
loud,
Sure signs he neither choleric was nor proud;
His long chin prov’d his wit; his saintlike grace
A church vermilion, and a Moses’ face,
His memory, miraculously great,
Could plots, exceeding man’s belief, repeat;
Which therefore cannot be accounted lies,
For human wit could never such devise.
Some future truths are mingled in his book:
But where the witness fail’d, the prophet
spoke;
Some things like visionary flights appear;
The spirit caught him up, the lord knows
where…
Eberhard Späth: „Die Enthüllungen von Titus Oates: Fiktion als Mittel der Politik,“ in: Uwe Böker
und Christoph Houswitschka (Hgg.). Literatur, Kriminalität und Rechtskultur im 17. und 18.
Jahrhundert. Tagung am 17. und 18. Juni 1994 an der Technischen Universität Dresden. Essen: Blaue
Eule, 1996, pp. 241-261.
Lines 43/44: "Life can never be sincerely blest: / Heaven
punishes the bad, and proves the best"
Lines 134ff.: "This Plot, which fail'd for want of common
Sense, Had yet a deep and dangerous Consequence;
For, as when raging Fevers boyl the Blood, The
standing Lake soon floats into a Flood; And every
hostile Humour, which before Slept quiet in its
Channels, bubble's over: So several Factions from this
first Ferment, Work up to Foam, and threat the
Government".