ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR MORE DETAILED STUDY IN studying a poem, or anything else for that matter, we want to appreciate it as a whole, and also to understand each separate part. Of these two necessities the first would probably be reckoned of the greater importance. But it happens with most poems that we cannot gain the first point without having passed the second that is, the best appreciation of the poem as a whole comes from the understanding of each separate part; so the second point is of the first importance. Really, the two things are so dependent on each other, that it is not wise to say that one is more important than the other. We could not well get along without either. For the best appreciation of Paradise Lost, one must have much minute understanding of minor things. Not that this minute understanding is the best appreciation; but it is a necessary factor in it. These notes are for the purpose of directing such particular and minute study as will result in a better appreciation of the whole. They concern a number of small points; each one of them, by itself, may seem insignificant and uninteresting; all together they will form a background of half-conscious recollection, that will be both interesting and significant. BOOK I. It is a thing of importance to know the subject-matter thoroughly. In reading a piece of narrative poetry that is not short and simple, it is useful to make a careful analysis, or to compare such an analysis with the poem. Without some such work, one is likely to slip from part to part, without a good idea of the relation of one thing to another, or sometimes without an appreciation of the real character of what one is at the moment reading. The danger of such work is that one may get the idea that it is in itself a thing of importance. We must always remember that its only value is as a help to a good understanding and appreciation of the poem itself. I. Introductory lines. ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK. 1. Invocation. 1-16, 17-26, proposing the whole subject, the Fall and Redemption of Man. 2. The prime cause of his fall touched, 27-49. II. The Narrative. With 50 "the poem hastens into the midst of things." 1. Satan arouses himself after his fall. Satan on the burning lake, 50–83. Satan to Beëlzebub, 84-124. Answer of Beëlzebub, 128-155. Reply of Satan, 157–191. Satan moves ashore, 192-241. 2. He musters his powers. Satan calls the Fallen Angels, 283-330. Chemos, 406-418. Diverse male and female, 419-437. Thammuz, 446–457. Dagon, 457-466. \ Rimmon, 467-476. The Gods of Egypt, 476-489. Belial, 490-505. b. The Gods of Greece, 506–521. The muster of the Fallen Angels, 522-567. 3. He summons his followers to consult. Satan reviews his host, 567-621. He addresses them, 622-662. The building of Pandemonium, 663–751. THE ARGUMENT. The prime cause, the first cause. Not in the centre; i. e., of the earth, according to the common notion embodied in such phrases as "He descended into Hell.” The Hell of Paradise Lost was elsewhere. See the Introduction, p. xxxvii. Not yet made. Elsewhere it would appear that it had been made though not accursed. Milton means by heaven and earth the universe. Now from the account of the Creation in Book vii. it would seem (see ll. 130-173) that the purpose of the Creation is announced as the Son returns from casting Lucifer out of Heaven. He proceeds at once to do the Father's will, and the Six Days of Creation follow. But the poem begins on the eighteenth day after Satan had been cast out, for he fell nine days, and lay nine days on the fiery lake. So when Satan (i. 651) and Beelzebub (ii. 348) speak of the World, they speak of what had for some time been in existence. Of their miserable fall. The words on and of, in the sense of concerning, were used well-nigh interchangeably. To be created. As above, really created already. THE TEXT. 1. Fruit. Only in one passage of Paradise Lost (x. 483) does Milton speak of the fruit as an apple, and then in the contemptuous account given by Satan on his return to Pandemonium, In Paradise Regained (ii. 349), however, he speaks of it himself, as "that crude apple that diverted Eve." Many other writers from Cadmon down speak of the apple, and of course the popular tradition is very old. In older English, however, the word "apple " was often used with the general meaning "fruit." 3. Death into the world. Namely, by the introduction of sin. "Therefore, as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin " (Rom. v. 12, and see also James i. 15). The idea is presented in the poem in two-fold wise; first in allegory, and then, as we may say, actually. The allegorical or symbolical representation we have in ii. 648-883. Sin, born of Satan, representing unbridled desire, conceives and brings forth Death, and these two creatures follow Satan to the earth, making as they go a perpetual pathway from Hell to the Universe (ii. 1024). But also we have Death threatened by the Almighty as a punishment of disobedience (v. 542-546), and afterward we have the Sin of Adam and Eve in disobeying the command of God, and the anticipation of Death (x. 814.) That Milton was aware of the inconsistency, if such it be, is obvious from x. 585 : "Meanwhile in Paradise the Hellish pair Too soon arrived-Sin, there in power before Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet One greater man. "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous (Rom. v. 19, and see also 1 Cor. xv. 22). 6. Note the accent on the first syllable instead of on the second as usual. The more unusual the inversion of accent, the more marked or emphatic the word on which the accent falls. This particular inversion is common; still it serves for slight emphasis on the word Sing. So in l. 10 Rose; in l. 21 Dove-like; in l. 87 Myriads; in l. 197, Prone, and in many other places. 66 Secret. Bentley, who made a good many emendations to Paradise Lost to correct supposed misprints, changed this word to sacred. The change may seem at first to be to the point, and yet the difference, though slight, does much to give an idea of the real Miltonic quality. The expression "sacred top" is on the whole conventional; if it suggest anything, it is merely the idea “holy.” Secret," however, may not at once give any meaning at all; but on a moment's thought we begin to see that it implies all the remoteness, mysteriousness, and awfulness, perhaps even sacredness too, of the great mountain where Moses went apart from the people to talk with God. And when once established in meaning, the word becomes one of those truly poetical words, which by themselves do much to create an emotional atmosphere. 9. Heavens. In our ordinary sense; not the abode of God and the angels, which is usually called, not the Heavens, but Heaven or the Heaven of Heavens. (With perhaps one or two exceptions, e. g., vi. 567.) 10-12. Sion's hill and Siloa's brook were probably mentioned by Milton with a recollection of Mount Helicon, the abode of the classical Muses, and the spring Aganippe. Compare the lines in the beginning of Book iii. "Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 12. Thence. The word must be emphasized, for otherwise the parenthetic "or if Sion hill," etc., will not seem to have any connection with what has gone before. 14. No middle flight above the Aonian mount. That is to say, his theme, at least, was to be far higher than those of the great Greek poets. With the same idea in ll. 515–517, he speaks of the gods of Greece, who "On the snowy top Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air, The Heaven which Milton conceived was far higher. 16. In prose or rhyme. It is possible that Milton meant to indicate here that Paradise Lost was itself in form neither prose nor rhyme, for blank verse is neither one nor the other. Look on p. lviii. for Milton's opinion of rhyme, and you will see why it was that he thought blank verse to be the form best suited to so high a theme as his. 17. And chiefly thou, O Spirit. Turn to the Invocation of Paradise Regained, as quoted in Appendix, A 5, and the quotation on p. xi. The earnest, devoted way in which Milton regarded his vocation as poet, almost as a divine calling, is manifest in many parts of his work. 21. Brooding is said to be a more exact rendering of the Hebrew in Gen. i. 2, than the word moved in the King James version of the Bible. 23. Raise. The inversion of accent makes the word emphatic. Inversion in the third or fourth foot is not so common as in the |