Selections from Paradise Lost; Including Books I. and II. Entire, and Portions of Books III. IV., VI., VII., and X. (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION TO PARADISE LOST. Its History. This poem is the result of the union in one person of the highest quality of poetic genius, the most exalted personal character, and the most unremitting industry, all devoted through a period of more than sixty years to the accomplishment of a single purpose. In this statement the early productions of Milton are not ignored; for at the time when he was composing his lyrics he had already formed the resolution to " write something that the world would not willingly let die," and all his minor poems were but the flights in which he tried his wings to gain strength for the great flight " above the Aonian mount" (P. L. I. 15). It was for this great work alone that he stored his mind with all the learning of the ages, and exercised his soul in all godly discipline from earliest boyhood. Immediately upon his return from Italy in 1639, Milton turned his attention to the composition of his projected masterpiece. He noted down, in a list which still exists, over one hundred possible subjects from which to select, and seems to have considered the subject of the Arthurian legend: a very promising one. His intensely religiousbent, however, soon led him to fix upon the subject ot Paradise Lost, and he next began to weigh the respective merits of the dramatic and the epic forms. Four tentative drafts of characters and leading incidents, which he drew up at this time, exhibit clearly his progress toward a decision in favor of the epic form. Short passages were composed as early as 1642, of which one (P. L. IV. 32-41) was originally designed to form a part of the introduction to the contemplated tragedy. The duties of his position in the public service forced him to lay this too ambitious work aside for sixteen years, to renew it only when fa...