For The Rest, It Is To Be Hoped That We Have Outgrown Our Fastidiousness
On Some Of These Points.
Theological fervour has abated, and in a work
of the pure imagination, as 'Paradise Lost' is now - is it
not?
- Considered to be, there is nothing incongruous or offensive in an
amiable commingling of Semitic and Hellenic deities after the approved
Italian recipe; nor do a few long words about geography or science
disquiet us any more. Milton was not writing for an uncivilized mob, and
his occasional displays of erudition will represent to a cultured person
only those breathing spaces so refreshing in all epic poetry. That
Milton's language is saturated with Latinisms and Italianisms is
perfectly true. His English may not have been good enough for his
contemporaries. But it is quite good enough for us. That 'grand manner'
which Matthew Arnold claimed for Milton, that sustained pitch of kingly
elaboration and fullness, is not wholly an affair of high moral tone; it
results in part from the humbler ministrations of words happily
chosen - from a felicitous alloy of Mediterranean grace and Saxon mettle.
For, whether consciously or not, we cannot but be influenced by the
colour-effects of mere words, that arouse in us definite but
indefinable moods of mind. To complain of the foreign phraseology and
turns of thought in 'Paradise Lost' would be the blackest ingratitude
nowadays, seeing that our language has become enriched by steady gleams
of pomp and splendour due, in large part, to the peculiar lustre of
Milton's comely importations.
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