Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
One of the points always brought out in a study of the prosody of Milton's later poems is the manner in which he breaks away from the end-stopped lines, and moulds his verse into long majestic periods, like the paragraphs of prose. But while this aspect of his poetry has often been admired, the prosodical devices by which it is made noticeable and effective have never been studied. Accurate knowledge of these devices depends: first, on an analysis of Milton's punctuation, as the number and position of the full stops determine the extent and effect of the verse paragraphs; and second, on an analysis of the rhythms immediately following the full stops, that is, at the opening of the succeeding sentences.
1 By “full stop” is meant colons, periods, and question and exclamation marks, when these occur after a complete sentence and not merely a word or phrase. The question and exclamation marks, of which there are very few, are included among the periods in the following tables.
2 Paradise Lost, in Ten Books. The text exactly reproduced from the first edition of 1667 . . . . London. Basil Montagu Pickering. 1873.