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Updated: May 21, 2025
But now comes a biographer in whose eyes the life of Milton the citizen is a mere episode, and not only a mere episode but a lamentable and humiliating episode, in the life of Milton the poet. Milton's life, says Mr. Pattison "is a drama in three acts. The first discovers him in the calm and peaceful retirement of Horton, of which 'L'Allegro, 'Il Penseroso, and 'Lycidas' are the expression.
And yet it seems almost ungenerous to place Milton even below himself, particularly when in the very speech we are criticizing we are brought face to face with two such flawless lines as those on 'fair Ligea's golden comb', Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks lines which anticipate and rival the perfection of rhythmic modulation in L'Allegro and Il Penseroso .
Milton and Ben Jonson were still alive; Bacon's Novum Organum was just coming out; and in thirty or forty years you could have had L'Allegro, Il Penseroso and Paradise Lost; Newton's Principia, too, in 1687. Perhaps these were all too serious and heavy for your national taste; still one sometimes likes to claim things one cannot fully appreciate.
I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between "Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker," I, whose every attempt at music, though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my earliest childhood, been regarded as premonitory symptom of epilepsy, or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders, I, who can but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso, I was bidden to Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to slaughter, I went.
'Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace whom all commend. L'Allegro.
In the same neighborhood, and within the same five years, it is believed that he produced also the "Arcades," and the "Lycidas," together with "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso." In 1637 Milton's mother died, and in the following year he commenced his travels. The state of Europe confined his choice of ground to France and Italy. The former excited in him but little interest.
As the twin idylls of 1632 show a great advance upon the Ode on the Nativity , the growth of the poetic mind during the five years which follow 1632 is registered in Lycidas. Like the L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, Lycidas is laid out on the lines of the accepted pastoral fiction; like them it offers exquisite touches of idealised rural life.
But if I talk in this way the reader will think I am laughing, and I can assure him that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion, and in his happiest state the opium-eater cannot present himself in the character of L'Allegro: even then he speaks and thinks as becomes Il Penseroso.
Its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion, and in his happiest state the opium-eater can not present himself in the character of L'Allegro; even then he speaks and thinks as becomes Il Penseroso.
Paul's School and Camb., and while at the latter wrote earlier poems including The Nativity and Sonnets, lived for 6 years at Horton and wrote L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas, travelled in France and Italy 1638, settled in London, entered on his political and controversial labours, and wrote inter alia on Reform of Discipline 1641, Divorce 1643-45, Education 1644, Areopagitica 1644, and the two Defences 1650 and 1654, appointed Latin Sec. 1649, this period closed by Restoration 1660, Paradise Lost written 1658-64, pub. 1667, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes 1671, d. 1674, m. first 1643 Mary Powell, second 1652 Katharine Woodcock, third 1663 Eliz.
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