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Milton and the Epic Subject from British History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Putnam Fennell Jones
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Extract

Scholars have explained why Milton chose Paradise Lost as the subject for his great epic, but they have not directly considered his reasons for giving up his original plan of writing a heroic poem about the half-mythical figures of the Britons who preceded the Germanic tribes in England. Reasons may well be sought. Certainly the selective process consists not only in approving the good characteristics inhering in one alternative; it also recognizes the defects and disadvantages in the alternative which is rejected. It is my aim in the following pages to show that these negative considerations had their share in determining Milton to write “Of Man's first disobedience” rather than of

      what resounds
      In fable or romance of Uther's son,
      Begirt with British and Armoric knights.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1927 , pp. 901 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 See, e.g., Masson, Life of Milton [etc.], VI (1880), 522.

2 Paradise Lost, I, 579–81.

3 Vv. 78–84; translated by Masson in his Poetical Works of John Milton, 1890, I, 314, and in his Life of Milton, I (1881), 819.

4 Vv. 155–178; translated by Masson in his Poetical Works of John Milton, 1890, I, 3 2 4, and in his Life of Milton, II (1894), 91–2.

5 Op. cit., II (1894), 96.

6 Reproduced by the Cambridge University Press (Facsimile of the Manuscript of Milton's Minor Poems, 1899) with a preface and transliteration by W. A. Wright. See sheets 33–39 (pages 35–41 of the original). For a digest of the jottings see Masson's Life of Milton, II, 106–15.

7 Op. cit., II, 121, note.

8 In the two sketches of the action there are elements suggestive of a proposed allegorical drama on The Four Daughters of God; cf. Dr. Hope Traver's The Four Daughters of God (Bryn Mawr College Monographs, Vol. VI, 1907), pages 145, 146.

9 I take the manuscript heading to read “British Trag.” Masson (Life of Milton, II, 112) writes “British Tragedies,” without comment. S. L. Sotheby (Ramblinsg in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, 1861, p. 85) reads “British Traj.,” which he considers an abbreviation for “British Tragedies.” W. A. Wright (Facsimile [etc.], sheet 35) transliterates “British Troy.,” but in his list of Errata corrects this to “British Trag.”

10 Masson, Life of Milton, VI, 522.

11 The Prose Works of John Milton, ed. J. A. St. John, 1877, III, 118.

12 Ibid., II, 477–8.

13 Cf. J. H. Hanford, “The Chronology of Milton's Private Studies,” PMLA, XXXVI (1921), 251 ff. Professor Hanford shows this to be the time of Milton's reading in Bede, Malmesbury, Holinshed, Speed, and Stowe, but denies that he was “primarily searching for poetic materials.”

14 Prose Works, V, 258–9.

15 Ibid., II, 478.

16 Cf. Milton's In Proditionem Bombardicam and the epigrams immediately following; In Quintwm Novembris; Lycidas 128–9; Apology for Smectymnuus, beginning at “So that having received it….” (Prose Works, III, 159); Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence, beginning at “Remonst. They were bishops,….” (op. cit., III, 89); the letter “To Carolo Deodati, a Florentine Noble,” beginning at “My Latin poems….” (op. cit., III, 502); and the Second Defence of the People of England, beginning at “On my departure….” (op. cit., I. 256).

17 Prose Works, V, 295–6.

18 In 1641, while he was either still reading and pondering the choice of a subject, or at least had fresh in mind his reasons for rejecting the historical theme.

19 Prose Works, II, 380.

20 Of Prelatical Episcopacy; Prose Works, II, 421.

21 Prose Works, II, 441.

22 Cf. H. W. Peck, “The Theme of Paradise Lost,” PMLA, XXIX (1914), 256 ff., for a convincing argument that Milton interpreted the Scriptures literally.

23 An Apology for Smectymnuus; Prose Works, III, 118.

24 Milton's three major poems are on Scriptural themes. See, too, what he says of the Scriptures themselves as poetry: “The Scripture also affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of two persons, and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges. And the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and mtermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies” (The Reason of Church-Government; op. cit., II, 479.).

25 It may be objected that in writing the History of Britain Milton did, after all, fulfill his youthful hope. Yet we observe that he originally promised to write a poem of “the Trojans cruising our southern headlands”; and no one who has read the History would ever call it a poem, or, from the carping spirit in which much of it is written, material for a poem. If the History of Britain -represents the highest reach of Milton's temperament in the realm of secular history, it is fortunate for English literature that in his poetry he used a more congenial tradition.