Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/133

 PARADISE LOST

��In the Cambridge " Vacation Exercise " we get the first trace of the epic ambition forming in Milton's mind, where the young poet longs to sing

" Of kings and queens and heroes old, Such as the wise Demodocus once told In solemn songs at king Alcinoiis feast."

In the Latin verses, In Quintum Novembris, also, Professor Masson detects some em- bryons of Paradise Lost in those passages which have to do with the " personality and agency of Satan, and the physical con- nection between Hell and Man's world." Milton's naive confession to Diodati, at Horton, that he was "pluming his wings for a flight," meant doubtless some effort of a much more sustained sort than Lycidas, which immediately followed. But it was the unstinted praise which he received at the hands of the Italian academies, to- gether with his reading of Tasso, Ariosto, and Boiardo, which first set him seriously thinking of a poem of heroic dimensions.

The first subject to which he gave much thought was the legendary history of King Arthur, as he explicitly states in the Latin poem to Manso, his Neapolitan host, and in the Epitaphium Damonis. The latter, written shortly after his return from abroad, informs us that he had decided to write in English, and that he had, indeed, already begun. One portion of this passage arouses interesting conjecture. He says,

" I will not say what lofty strain my pipe was sounding 't is now the twelfth day since and perchance it was to new reeds that I had set my lips, when they burst their fastenings, and refused longer to en- dure the grave sounds."

��Whether the " new reeds " meant a new stanza, a new verse-line, the untried epic form, or the English language put to novel uses, it is certain that when burst they were thrown aside forever, so far as this particu- lar poem was concerned.

Without definitely casting aside the sub- ject of King Arthur, Milton undertook, during the comparatively unemployed time between 1639-1642, a systematic course of reading in the Bible, in the chronicle- histories of Holinshed and Speed, and in the older chronicles of Bede, Geoffry of Monmouth, and William of Malmesbury, with the design of setting down all the hopeful subjects which occurred to him in perusal. These jottings have been pre- served to us among the Milton manuscripts in Trinity College, Cambridge. They con- sist of ninety-nine subjects, of which two thirds are from old and new testament Scripture, and the remainder from British history. For the most part the subjects are barely indicated, but in some cases pains have been taken to elaborate a little outline of treatment. Among these last, the sub- ject of the fall of Adam stands out con- spicuously; there are two outlines and two elaborated drafts of it, occupying in all nearly a page and a half of the seven pages of notes. All the drafts are for dramas; the possibility of epic treatment is not sug- gested. The first presents merely a list of dramatis personce, chief among which, after the human pair, are Michael and Lucifer: there is a chorus of angels and a number of allegorical figures, Heavenly Love, Conscience, Death, etc., introduced as " mutes." In the second draft Moses takes the place of Michael. The third is elabo- rated to show the course of the action and

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