milton's paradise lostby a. w. verity

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Milton's Paradise Lost by A. W. Verity Review by: G. E. Hadow The Modern Language Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr., 1911), pp. 259-260 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3713412 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 07:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:56:30 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Milton's Paradise Lost by A. W. VerityReview by: G. E. HadowThe Modern Language Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr., 1911), pp. 259-260Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3713412 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 07:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Modern Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:56:30 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Reviews 259

cut in a different place. The rest depend on the assumption that Shakespeare's part of the play was complete in itself, and has all survived,-an assumption which we have no right to make.

The other chief point concerns Alcibiades. Mr Wright thinks that the banishment scene was inserted, to give Alcibiades a motive for warring upon Athens, by the interpolator, who missed the point; and that what we want is 'that Timon's claim on Alcibiades and Timon's service to the thankless state be more conspicuous.' His first point is true enough; but he does not quite succeed in showing that no reason is needed for the action of Alcibiades besides his affection for Timon. The comparison with Fortinbras is not a very good one: Alcibiades is much more central. And in making out his case Mr Wright is led to exaggerate the closeness of the connexion between Timon and Alcibiades which is indicated in the play.

In many ways the last part of the book is the best, where the relations between Shakespeare and the second hand are summed up, the present state of the play accounted for, and the real requirements of the plot suggested. The general lines of all this, as Mr Wright puts them, seem to be correct.

The author writes well and clearly. A certain number of the details, as has been suggested, are unsatisfactory, and the assumptions are often too simple. But this is probably the best account of the play that we have. The personality of the second hand is as dark as ever, and as unimportant. How Fleay can have imagined that he detected the feverish and brilliant style of Tourneur, it is impossible to see.

R. C. BROOKE. CAMBRIDGE.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Edited by A. W. VERITY. Cambridge: University Press. 1910. 8vo. lxxii + 750 pp.

Mr Verity's edition of Paradise Lost is a careful and scholarly piece of work. The brief sketch of the poet's life, which forms part of the Introduction, if it adds nothing to our knowledge of the facts, contains more than one happy phrase which draws attention to the relation between Milton's character and training and his poetry. 'The world,' says Mr Verity, 'has known many greater scholars in the technical, limited sense...but few men, if any, who have mastered more things worth mastering in art, letters, and scholarship,' and the distinction is apt and illuminating. Again, in dealing with that long period devoted to political controversy, he has the courage to oppose those who lament these years as irretrievable waste: 'It may fairly be contended that had Milton elected in 1639 to live the scholar's life apart from i' the action of men," Paradise Lost, as we have it, or Samson Agonistes, could never have been written. Knowledge of life and human nature, insight into the problems of men's motives and emotions, grasp of the broader issues of human tragedy, all these were essential to the author of an

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Reviews 259

cut in a different place. The rest depend on the assumption that Shakespeare's part of the play was complete in itself, and has all survived,-an assumption which we have no right to make.

The other chief point concerns Alcibiades. Mr Wright thinks that the banishment scene was inserted, to give Alcibiades a motive for warring upon Athens, by the interpolator, who missed the point; and that what we want is 'that Timon's claim on Alcibiades and Timon's service to the thankless state be more conspicuous.' His first point is true enough; but he does not quite succeed in showing that no reason is needed for the action of Alcibiades besides his affection for Timon. The comparison with Fortinbras is not a very good one: Alcibiades is much more central. And in making out his case Mr Wright is led to exaggerate the closeness of the connexion between Timon and Alcibiades which is indicated in the play.

In many ways the last part of the book is the best, where the relations between Shakespeare and the second hand are summed up, the present state of the play accounted for, and the real requirements of the plot suggested. The general lines of all this, as Mr Wright puts them, seem to be correct.

The author writes well and clearly. A certain number of the details, as has been suggested, are unsatisfactory, and the assumptions are often too simple. But this is probably the best account of the play that we have. The personality of the second hand is as dark as ever, and as unimportant. How Fleay can have imagined that he detected the feverish and brilliant style of Tourneur, it is impossible to see.

R. C. BROOKE. CAMBRIDGE.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Edited by A. W. VERITY. Cambridge: University Press. 1910. 8vo. lxxii + 750 pp.

Mr Verity's edition of Paradise Lost is a careful and scholarly piece of work. The brief sketch of the poet's life, which forms part of the Introduction, if it adds nothing to our knowledge of the facts, contains more than one happy phrase which draws attention to the relation between Milton's character and training and his poetry. 'The world,' says Mr Verity, 'has known many greater scholars in the technical, limited sense...but few men, if any, who have mastered more things worth mastering in art, letters, and scholarship,' and the distinction is apt and illuminating. Again, in dealing with that long period devoted to political controversy, he has the courage to oppose those who lament these years as irretrievable waste: 'It may fairly be contended that had Milton elected in 1639 to live the scholar's life apart from i' the action of men," Paradise Lost, as we have it, or Samson Agonistes, could never have been written. Knowledge of life and human nature, insight into the problems of men's motives and emotions, grasp of the broader issues of human tragedy, all these were essential to the author of an

17-2

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:56:30 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

epic poem; they could only be obtained through commerce with the world.' It is to be regretted that Mr Verity did not expand this still further, and illustrate more fully Milton's knowledge of human nature, and the niceties of his treatment of character; except for an occasional hint-such as the note on the Council of the Fallen Angels (II, 309)- he does little to prove his assertion; and yet in the face of those critics who still maintain that Milton 'knew human nature only in the gross,' it is well worth enforcing. It is also somewhat surprising to find a modern critic quoting with apparent approval Dryden's complaint 'that Milton saw nature through the spectacles of books,' and calling no attention to such exquisite passages as the description of evening after a stormy day, in Bk. II, 11. 488-95. It is true that in a note on Bk. Ix, 11. 445-54, Mr Verity somewhat coldly allows that Milton was 'a true lover of Nature,' but he goes on to say that the poet who dwells with delight on

The smell of grain or tedded grass or kine, on 'drooping plant and dropping tree,' is not 'minutely accurate.' The introductory essay on the sources of Paradise Lost is admirably clear and sane. Due allowance is made for every possible influence which can have affected Milton, without the assumption that every chance resemblance implies deliberate plagiarism. The notes are full, and contain abundant references to the work of former critics, and also to passages from other poets both ancient and modern, whose works may serve to illustrate a point or make an interesting comparison. The beginner will find this edition a storehouse of information, and those who know Milton well will find much to interest them.

G. E. HADOW. CIRENCESTER.

The Oxford Book of Ballads. Chosen and edited by ARTHUR QUILLER- COUCH. Oxford: University Press. 1910. 8vo. xxiv + 871 pp.

The ballad-editor's dilemma is between scientific collectivism and literary eclecticism; for the fact is that the ballads are not-or at least were never meant to be-literature. Let him who shies at so plain a statement pause to investigate the true meaning of the word 'literature,' and to contrast it with the true meaning of the word 'lore'; and he will perceive that the ballads are properly communicable only by word of mouth, not to be stereotyped in hard letters and cold lead. The written or printed ballad is an 'animula vagula,' as it were, 'in corpore vili.' It is not easy nowadays for us to assume the right position towards the ballads-which, it may be, has gone past recovery; yet while the editor of a play extant in four folios and six quartos is expected to record all his variants, the editor of ballads may go browse and choose what pleases him most. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch has the advantage of a precedent set by Sir Walter Scott and William Allingham; he has also the variorum edition of Francis James Child;

epic poem; they could only be obtained through commerce with the world.' It is to be regretted that Mr Verity did not expand this still further, and illustrate more fully Milton's knowledge of human nature, and the niceties of his treatment of character; except for an occasional hint-such as the note on the Council of the Fallen Angels (II, 309)- he does little to prove his assertion; and yet in the face of those critics who still maintain that Milton 'knew human nature only in the gross,' it is well worth enforcing. It is also somewhat surprising to find a modern critic quoting with apparent approval Dryden's complaint 'that Milton saw nature through the spectacles of books,' and calling no attention to such exquisite passages as the description of evening after a stormy day, in Bk. II, 11. 488-95. It is true that in a note on Bk. Ix, 11. 445-54, Mr Verity somewhat coldly allows that Milton was 'a true lover of Nature,' but he goes on to say that the poet who dwells with delight on

The smell of grain or tedded grass or kine, on 'drooping plant and dropping tree,' is not 'minutely accurate.' The introductory essay on the sources of Paradise Lost is admirably clear and sane. Due allowance is made for every possible influence which can have affected Milton, without the assumption that every chance resemblance implies deliberate plagiarism. The notes are full, and contain abundant references to the work of former critics, and also to passages from other poets both ancient and modern, whose works may serve to illustrate a point or make an interesting comparison. The beginner will find this edition a storehouse of information, and those who know Milton well will find much to interest them.

G. E. HADOW. CIRENCESTER.

The Oxford Book of Ballads. Chosen and edited by ARTHUR QUILLER- COUCH. Oxford: University Press. 1910. 8vo. xxiv + 871 pp.

The ballad-editor's dilemma is between scientific collectivism and literary eclecticism; for the fact is that the ballads are not-or at least were never meant to be-literature. Let him who shies at so plain a statement pause to investigate the true meaning of the word 'literature,' and to contrast it with the true meaning of the word 'lore'; and he will perceive that the ballads are properly communicable only by word of mouth, not to be stereotyped in hard letters and cold lead. The written or printed ballad is an 'animula vagula,' as it were, 'in corpore vili.' It is not easy nowadays for us to assume the right position towards the ballads-which, it may be, has gone past recovery; yet while the editor of a play extant in four folios and six quartos is expected to record all his variants, the editor of ballads may go browse and choose what pleases him most. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch has the advantage of a precedent set by Sir Walter Scott and William Allingham; he has also the variorum edition of Francis James Child;

Reviews Reviews 260 260

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.115 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:56:30 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions