...utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added...industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs. Milton's statements of poetic theory and self-explanation...

...calling to search every nook of the poem and, using the tempered spear of interpretation "to [which] must be added industrious and select reading, steady...[and] insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs,"2 to free the text to do its work. Satan provides a proleptic parody of IthuricTs close reading...

...utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallow'd fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases: to this must be added industrious and select reading, steddy observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affaires, till which in some measure...

...utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases. To this must be added...industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs' (241). Artists so equipped realize, of course,...

...and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar0 to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases; to this must be added...industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, at...

...utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added...compast, ... I refuse not to sustain this expectation." Johnson then concludes with measured praise: From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational,...