The Seventeenth-century Literary Styles, and the Poetry of John Donne and John Milton

Chapter 7: The Seventeenth-century Literary Styles, and the Poetry of John Donne and John Milton Introduction: Some General Observations on the 17-and-18th –century Literature The Seventeenth-century Cultural and Literary Context: Baroque and Neoclassicism John Donne, Baroque and the Metaphysical Poets John Milton and the Neoclassical Style in Poetry The period we are going to discuss is considered to be a most “rationalist” one in the whole of Western European Studies, for many of its developments were based on philosophical rationalism. From the point of view of contemporary readers it is rather a disadvantage than a privilege. Another aspect of the literature of that period that raises suspicions on the part of a contemporary reader is that, the books written then see, to be very bulky, and full of rhetoric at that. Still another point that looks as a disadvantage is that much in the 17-th and 18-th-century writing was done with a certain ideological or political bias. E. g. Milton’s treatises on politics or Swift’s pamphlets on religious issues. Yet, given all the dubious points, we have to acknowledge that certain ideas that were introduced in the 18th-century became the key social-cultural issues in the 19th and twentieth centuries. For example, the term ‘Rousseauist’ is derived from the surname of Jean Jacques Rousseau, a world famous eighteenth-century French writer and philosopher. This detail is enough to show that the notion of ‘Rousseauism’, that is, a certain mode of thinking and life-style generated by Rousseau, is still alive in the English mind. The seventeenth-century English literature is special in the sense that the so-called ‘minor’ figures are more interesting to the readers today that the ‘major’ authors and their works. One obvious example will do. The poetry of English metaphysical poets had been for many decades considered to be secondary, yet today it sounds modern to a contemporary reader. I think the seventeenth-century writing is a case of which Yuryi Tyinianov said in one of his critical essays that certain periods are more explicit through minor figures that through the major ones. Before we turn to the seventeenth-century literary styles and their characteristics, let us read and compare two poems, Sonnet 7 by Shakespeare, and the opening lines of The Sun Rising by John Donne. (See “Notes”, 1, p. 12-13) I assume that the texts in question can serve as vivid examples of the differences and similarities between the seventeenth-century thinking as registered in the poetry of the time, and that of the preceding period of Renaissance. The theme seems to be similar: both poems focus on the image of the sun. But what a great difference is there! In Shakespeare’s sonnet 7 there is an epic perspective: the sun is personified as a man, and the daily round of the sun across the sky is generalized in terms of the time passing, of a man’s lifetime. The metaphor of a man, first as a young God of Light, Phoebus, son of Helios, then as aging and turning into an old man, expresses some universal truth about all men, any man and his earthly existence. It is a fine example of the Renaissance classical style. In Donne’s song ‘The Sun Rising’ (shaped as a medieval alba) the image of the sun is emphatically individual. We hear a private voice speaking about himself and his lover. The poet aims to shock the reader by challenging the poetic norm of his time. The sun image is anti/non/a-Renaissance-like. There is no pretence at generalization: the world is cramped within the walls of a room. We as readers forget about the rest of the world and listen to the poet’s voice. Yet, for all the differences between the two poems “on the sun” we should not forget that Shakespeare and Donne lived at one and the same time. Cf. 1564-161 and 1572-1631. Yet their poetry belongs to two different literary styles – Renaissance and Baroque. Why is it so? In what particular aspects do the Renaissance thinking and writing differ from the Baroque? The Seventeenth-century Cultural and Literary Context: Baroque and Neoclassicism Scholars are unanimous in assuming that the seventeenth-century is a very special period in the history of Western European culture. Its special character becomes conspicuous when we consider it against the background of the Renaissance period. The seventeenth century arts are both the inheritor of Renaissance and its opponent. From the social point of view the 17th century is full of diversity and richness of developments, whereas Renaissance is characterized by a more or less homogeneous philosophy and ideology of humanism. Hence the common notion of Renaissance as found in almost every European country. In contrast to this, there was nothing or very little in common in the social and cultural being of Western European societies in the 17th century, e.g. different political systems in France and in England, etc. There were different political systems in the Netherlands, on the one hand, and in Italy, Spain, Germany, on the other. Throughout the century there broke out social upheavals, religious conflicts and civil wars, e.g. the civil war in Germany of 1618-48, the civil war in England of 1648-49, etc. Perhaps the only thing that was typical of the 17th century is that the age itself was the time of transience and crisis. It was the time of the crucial changes in late medieval economic, political and social structures. Alongside Christian values, there began developing science and lay art. There were changes in writing too. They come to the fore when we relate them to the Renaissance art. Firstly, the basic notion of the Renaissance literature was the notion of a free human being, and the major criterion of judgement was the one of a man’s rights and the realization of his (sic! women were not included in the mainstream developments of the time) potential abilities. The seventeenth-century literature keeps that view, yet it also modifies it by stressing numerous links of man with the environment. The 17th-century individual is no longer the hub of the universe, s/he depends on others who surround him/her, and whom s/he has to startle and convince in order to show off. Secondly, the Renaissance man and woman found the public and the personal to be clearly defined. Cf. Shakespeare’s sonnet 102: ‘that love is merchandiz’d whose rich esteeming/The owner’s tongue doth publish every where’. For the 17-century individual these aspects, the public and the personal, are in perpetual strife, hence the emphasis is laid on the psychological description of a dramatic choice one faces between personal and public values. Thirdly, in reverse to the Renaissance writers who found the balance between nature and the individual, the body and soul as given, the 17-century poets considered the description of disharmony and the sore aspects of reality to be much more attractive. The two great styles of the 17th century which shaped themselves on the basis of the social-cultural and aesthetic changes were baroque and neoclassicism. Baroque extends from the late 16 to about the middle of the 18th century; as a period it embraces the art beginning with that of late Michelangelo and ending with rococo. Baroque is the art of restless oppositions, of violent clashes, of polarities bought momentarily into precarious balances and of passions briefly brought under control, be it in architecture, or painting, or writing. Its philosophy is that of sudden and dramatic change, its belief is that of constant flux and disbelief in anything permanent. Baroque is an art of paradox and deceit, illusion-making and illusion breaking. Its hallmark is a passionate and stylized language of metaphysical poets like John Donne, Andrew Marvell, as well as John Dryden. Neoclassicism (from late L. classicus=a model) bases itself on three principles. First, its underlying philosophy is that of rationalism. For this reason a neoclassicist poet would think in terms of abstract types rather than individual characters. The obvious outcome is that lyrical poetry would be undernourished. Second, the neoclassicist drama sets fixed rules for the artists of all ages and all nations. Basing themselves on Aristotle’s Poetics neoclassicists set up the rule of three unities – of space, time, and dramatic action. They believed the dramatic art would gain in expressiveness if the action were laid in one location, taking up 24 hours to develop. Third, neoclassicists were Greek and Roman culture oriented. They thought Roman art to be the model to follow. The greatest among English neoclassicist poets is John Milton. Baroque, John Donne, and the Metaphysical Poets The seventeenth-century period in English literature means, in chronological terms, the period from the 1620s to the 1690s. Two facts need be mentioned as having a certain impact on the development of literature then, one is the development of science, primarily mathematics, physics and astronomy, the other is the development of writing as a lay profession, together with literary criticism. Note that the 17th century science pursued experiment as the main strategy of research, and also, the first attempts to earn one’s living by writing, i.e. by publishing one’s works were recorded then. As for the beginnings of literary criticism, there are found in the work of John Dryden (1631-1700), a playwright, poet, and critic, e.g. ‘Of Dramatic Poesy’ (1668). I suggest our focusing first on the 17-century baroque poetry. It is known through the work of the so-called metaphysical poets (the definition coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 4-volume work The Lives of the English Poets, 1779-81), namely Andrew Marvell (1627-1678), George Herbert (1593-1633), Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), Henry Vaughau (1622-1695) and John Donne (1572-1631). Let us turn to Donne’s poems, as he is definitely the Poet from the capital ‘P’ in the group. What makes his poetry written three centuries ago so vivid to a contemporary reader? Mind, I do not mean to say that his poetry is popular, or that it is often read on the Underground, or that it is found in every person’s library (though some of this may be true to some Russian readers, thanks to Brodsky’s and Kruzhkov’s translations of Donne’s poems into Russian). Yet to the English readers, Donne’s poetry which had long been neglected became familiar as a result of the critical revaluation accomplished by T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and other modernist writers and critics of the early 20th century (see T.S. Eliot’s essay Metaphysical Poets, 1921). A proof of this can be found in the much quoted title-cum-epigraph to Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, which comes from Donne’s Book of Pray and Meditations (1623): No man is an Island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if A promontory were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine Own were; any mans death Diminishes me, because I am Involved in Mankind; and Therefore never send to know for Whom the bell tolls: It tolls for thee. (for further references see Notes pp.14-17) Donne is known as ‘the monarch of wit’, ‘a genius of paradox’, and we would expect to find some very dense philosophical (metaphysical) verse in his poems. Yet, perhaps the first thing that strikes us is not so much the meaning (though Donne’s poems are full of meaning) than the immediate response it produces from the reader. A couplet is enough to involve us into Donne’s world. He is a true 17th-century poet through his ability to communicate himself, to amaze and subdue the reader: Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, Love, in Love’s philosophy. Or: He is starke mad, whoever sayes, That he hath beene in love an houre. The main quality of his verse is to express the essential quality of feeling or state in a very laconic way, with a couple of words. Yet, of what kind is the essence of his poetry that it produces such a strong and acute impression? The first poems Donne wrote in 1593-95 were Satires and Elegies. From the very first reading it becomes clear that these are written by a young man, if not a teenager. Why? you can ask. Well, because a young man’s hate of the conventions and the hypocrisy of the adults is there; the people around seem to him to be all liars, flatterers and hangers-on. They should be got rid of with a stroke of the pen: His cloths were strange, though coarse; and black, though bare; Sleevelesse his jerkin was, and it had beene Velvet, but t‘was now (so much ground was seene) Become Tufftaffatie... But! Note the wish to shorten the line, to pile up images. It shows that Donne is dissatisfied not only with his surroundings as a young man or teenager would be. Obviously he is up against something in the poetry of his time! What could it be then? His early poetry is emphatically a-poetical, rude, barren of poetic clichés. This is the case with those who refuse to use trite images and clichés. The early Donne is a non-conformist who can’t help stressing his disapproval with some Elizabethan values. Also, he likes to introduce common or colloquial speech as a means of dramatizing his poetry. It is this quality of his verse that makes it sound so modern: He, like to a high stretched lute string, squeaked, O Sir, ‘Tis sweet to talk of kings. At Westminster, Said I, the man that keeps the Abbey tombs, And for his price doth with who ever comes, Of all our Harries, and our Edwards talk, From King to King and all their kin can walk: Your ears shall hear nought, but kings; your eyes meet Kings only; the way to it, is Kingstreet.’ (Ibid.) Note, that early Donne’s poetry is focused on reality. He would choose a detail and look at it closely till he could express its strangeness with a few words: And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand The short swollen fingers of thy gouty hand... But! There is also a limitation: he can’t see the whole and embrace the whole or distance himself from it and look at it from aside. It is largely because of this that he can’t be taken for a Renaissance poet, being a baroque poet all over. His picture is always acute and poignant. But it rarely shows the world in the perspective. This feature seems to pre-define the choice of the genre form: it is satirical or lyrical poetry, but never drama which requires foregrounding on the part of a playwright or a description of characters. He could only speak from the point of view of ‘I” – hence the satire, the monologue, the analytic-cum-lyrical poetry. All of this explains why Donne’s poetry was in sharp contrast to the style which dominated English poetry of the early 17 century. The latter was high-flown and full of rhetoric whereas Donne’s poetry was the opposite. As a metaphysical poet he would never describe similarities, he was interested in contrasts or paradoxes or conflicting states only. He was attracted by the complicated chemistry when the feelings of love, hatred and laughter are all mixed up. (See T.S.Eliot on the “dissociation of sensibility” in his essay Metaphysical Poets). Is this the reason for his being so modern? This quality of his is especially vivid in his Songs and Sonnets which make up the second stage in his work. For Donne to fall in love seems to mean thousands of things – suffering, disgust, disappointment, ecstasy. It also meant the necessity to speak the truth: Song Goe, and catche a falling starre, Get with child a mandrake roote, Tell me, where all past yeares are, Or who cleft the Devils foot, Teach me to heare Mermaides singing, Or to keep off envies stinging, And finde What winde Serves to advance an honest minde. If thou best borne to strange sights, Things invisible to see, И к безумствам тяготеешь - Ride ten thousand daies and nights, Мчись десятилетья вскачь, Till age show white haires on thee, Мчись, пока не поседеешь, Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell mee А затем – сочти, припомни All strange wonders that befell thee, Чудеса до одного мне, - And sweare Не встречу No where В той речи Lives a woman true, and faire. Женщины, что честь могла сберечи. If thou findst one, let mee know, Есть такая, - дай мне знать. Such a Pilgrimage were sweet; Я в паломничество ринусь. Yet doe not, I would not goe, Впрочем, можешь не писать - Though at next doore wee might meet, С места я за ней не сдвинусь. Though shee were true, when you met her, С верной вестью ты вернешься, And last, till you write your letter, Но едва ты отвернешься - Yet shee Уж с тою Will bee Златою False, ere I come, to two, or three. Погуляют двое или трое. You see that Donne’s love poetry shows us the poet of a stature quite different from a typical poet writing on love at the turn of the 16 century. Donne’s love poetry covers the second period of his creative work. He finds lots of shades in the feeling which make his poetry alive and very subtle. In his poem Ecstasy we find an attempt at expressing the transcendental unity of ‘him’ and ‘her’ beyond all transient disappointments and exaltations: Ecstasy Where, like a pillow on a bed, Там, где фиалке под главу A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest Распухший берег лег подушкой, The violet’s reclining head, У тихой речки, наяву Sat we two, one another’s best. Дремали мы одни друг с дружкой. Ее рука с моей сплелась, Our hands were firmly cemented Весенней склеена смолою; With a fast balm which thence did spring; И отразясь, лучи из глаз Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread По два свились двойной струною. Our eyes upon one double string; Мы были с ней едины рук Взаимосоприкосновеньем; So to intergraft our hands, as yet И все, что виделось вокруг, Was all the means to make us one, Казалось нашим прододженьем. And pictures in our eyes to get Как между равных армий рок Was all our propagation. Победное колеблет знамя, Так, плотский преступив порог, As ‘twixt two equal armies, fate Качались души между нами. ... Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state Were gone out) hung ‘twizt her and me; And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lie; All day, the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day. ... Donne grasps the poignancy of the moment because he realizes that the next minute everything can change. This is essentially the baroque poetic thinking. Hence the depth and acuteness of the state described: The Good-Morrow ... My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest, Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp North, without declining West? Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. Here and elsewhere Donne uses a special type of metaphor known as a conceit. The metaphor proper requires a transfer of meaning when one object is made similar to another, thereby showing it in the new light and giving rise to various associations. The conceit is more complicated: one object is also made similar to the other but the objects chosen are very far from each other in meaning and have nothing in common at first glance. Thus the poet is interested not so much in describing the first object through the second one, but rather in the relations between the two dissimilar objects and the associations which arise when they are related. E. g. the faces of two lovers reflected in each other’s eyes, are compared to two hemispheres; or, the lovers’ souls are related to a pair of compasses in the poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning: A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Our two souls there fore, which are one, Простимся. Ибо мы – одно. Though I must go, endure not yet Двух наших душ не расчленить, A breach, but an expansion, Как слиток драгоценный. Но Like gold to airy thinness beat. Отъезд мой их растянет в нить. If they be two, they are two so Как циркуля игла, дрожа, As stiff twin compasses are two, Те будет озирать края, Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show Где кружится моя душа, To move, but doth, if the other do. Не двигаясь, душа твоя. And though it in the centre sit, И станешь ты вперяться в ночь Yet when the other far doth roam, Здесь, в центре, начиная вдруг It leans, and harkens after it, Крениться, выпрямляясь вновь, And grows erect, as that comes home. Чем больше или меньше круг. Such wilt thou be to me, who must Но если ты всегда тверда Like th’ other foot, obliquely run; Там, в центре, то должна вернуть Thy firmness draws my circle just, Меня с моих кругов туда, And makes me end where I begun. Откуда я пустился в путь. The last period in Donne’s work was taken up with writing Holy Sonnets and Hymns. (At that time Donne was the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London). The latter are full of suffering and distress, motifs of sin and godforsakenness. Yet up to the very end of his days Donne persisted in his interest in his own feelings, in his passion to speak the truth challenging the whole world. See his Sonnet X, which demonstrates, alongside his belief in the re-incarnation of the soul, his stubborn will and unique individual stature when he defies Death: Sonnet X Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so; For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, not yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, than from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and souls’ delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die. It is a well-known fact that Donne asked the sculptors to carve a portrait for his future tombstone while he was posing on his death-bed. The sculpture survives in St Paul’s having withstood the fire of 1666 and the German air raids of 1940. Isn’t this a testimony of a certain time-proofness of Donne’s poetry? John Donne was not alone in overcoming the conventions of Elizabethan poetry. Beside him stands another great poet of the early 17th century, Ben (Benjamin) Johnson. It is these two who renovated the English poetry of the time. According to D. Bush, an English literary scholar, ‘around 1600 a typical educated English person was largely medieval in his thinking, whereas in 1660 he was already quite modern in his perception’. The poets whose work bears an imprint of the radical change in the attitudes and the mentality of the English of the mid-1650s are John Donne and Ben Jonson. Let us turn to Ben Jonson for a brief account of his life and work. Ben Jonson (1572/3 – 1637) was born in London and educated in Westminster School (designed for poor but gifted students). During the early 1590s he worked as a bricklayer in his stepfather’s employ, and saw military service in Flanders. In 1597 he began working for the London theatre companies. His first important play, Every Man in His Humour, - mind, with Shakespeare in the cast, - was performed by Lord Chamberlain’s company in 1598, and Every Man out of His Humour, at the Globe in 1599. His first tragedy Sejanus (alas, lost) was given at the Globe by Shakespeare’s company in 1603; his first court masque (masque is a dramatic genre combining music and ballet), The Masque of Blacknesse was written to accommodate Queen Anne’s desire to appear as a Negress on stage, and it was performed in 1605. In that very year Ben Jonson was imprisoned for his share in Eastward hoe,1 and also, he gave evidence to the Privy Council concerning the Gunpowder Plot. Then followed the period of his most important plays: Volpone was acted at the globe and both universities in 1605-06; Epicene, or The Silent Woman, 1609-10; The Alchemist in 1610; and Bartholomew Fair in 1614. In 1612-13 Jonson stayed in France as tutor to Walter Raleigh’s son, and in 1618-9 journeyed in foot to Scotland where he stayed with Drummond of Hawthornden,2 who recorded their conversation. Though he was not formally appointed the first poet laureate, yet the essentials of this position were conferred on Jonson in 1616, when a pension was granted him by James I. In the same year he published a folio edition of his Works, which raised the Englisg drama to a new level of literary respectability, and also, he received an honorary MA from the University of Oxford. After The Devil is an Ass (1616) he abandoned the public stage for ten years, and his late plays (the third period in Jonson’s activities as a playwright) proved to be unsuccessful for the reason of their allegorical and symbolical content. Jonson, however, was much more successful in producing masques for the court, with scenery by Inigo Jones (does the name of Inigo Jones the baroque architect ring the bell?). This form of entertainment reached its highest elaboration in Jonson’s hands. He introduced into it the ‘antimasque’, an antithetical, usually disorderly, prelude to the main action which served to highlight by contrast the central theme of political and social harmony. There are examples of this in The Masque of Queens (1609), or Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618, which gave Milton his idea of Comus). Well, after Chlorida (1631) Jonson’s collaboration with Jingo Jones ended with a famous quarrel, which Jonson treated in several vituperative poems, concerning the relative priority of verbal and thematic content in a spectacle. His non-dramatic verse includes Epigrams and The Forest printed in the folio of 1616, and also, a translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica published in 1640. Jonson presided over a literary circle which met in London at the Mermaid Tavern (cf. the famous 18th-century London coffee-houses!). His friends included Shakespeare, Donne, Francis Bacon, George Chapman (the translator) and younger writers who called themselves ‘the sons’ or ‘tribe of Ben’. Jonson was buried in Westminster Abbey under a tombstone bearing the inscription ‘O rare Ben Jonson’. In the 17th century Jonson’s literary prestige and influence were unrivalled, but his reputation declined sharply from about 1700, as Shakespeare’s increased reviving again in the 20th century. E. g. ‘To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and What He Hath Left Us’ John Milton and the Neoclassical Style in Poetry The neoclassical style in poetry was primarily shaped by John Milton, though we do find baroque imagery in his verse as well. The two modes were not incompatible, as you see. Let us turn, however briefly, to Milton’s life and work. John Milton (1608-74), son of a composer of music, was educated at St. Paul’s School and at Cambridge, where he wrote poetry in Latin, Italian, and English, on both sacred and secular themes. His first distinctly Miltonic work, ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’, written in 1629, shows a growing mastery of stanza and structure, an exuberant and at times baroque use of imagery, and the love of resounding proper names. While at Cambridge Milton rote a score of poems. Among them the twin poems, ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il’Penseroso’. On leaving Cambridge he embarked on an ambitious course of private study at his father’s house in preparation for a future as a poet or a clergyman – he obviously believed that he would be able to reconcile the two. In 1637 he wrote his masque Comus and Lycidas, an elegy. During the 20 years that elapsed between this and his composition of Paradise Lost, Milton wrote no poetry, apart from some Latin and Italian pieces, and some sonnets. From 1637 to 1639 Milton travelled abroad, chiefly in Italy. His attention was now diverted by historical events to many years of pamphleteering and political activity, and to a tireless defense of religious, civil and domestic liberties. In 1641 he published a series of five pamphlets against episcopacy (the first one is called Of Reformation in England and the Causes that Hitherto Have Hindered it) – in them he displayed a vigorous, colourful Ciceronian prose, and a keen polemic spirit which could rise to visions of apocalyptic grandeur. In 1642 Milton married Mary Powell, daughter of royalist parents: he was 33, she was 17. In a month and a half he consented to her going home to visit her parents near Oxford, on condition that she would return in three weeks. She did not, may be for the reason of the Civil War breaking out. Anyway, in 1643 Milton came up with a treatise on The Doctrine and the Discipline of Divorce, in which he argues among other points that a true marriage was of mind as well as of body. This pamphlet made him notorious, but he pursued his arguments in three more on the subject of divorce in 1644-45. In 1644 Areopagitica, his great defense of the liberty of the press, appeared in 1644. At this time he became aware of his growing blindness, and by 1652 he was to be totally blind. After the execution of Charles I, Milton was appointed Latin secretary to the newly formed Council of the State, retaining the post until the Restoration. His first wife died in 1652, and four years later he married his second wife, who died in 1658. On the eve of Restoration he boldly published a pamphlet The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), a last-minute attempt to defend the ‘Good old Cause’ of republicanism. At the Restoration Milton went into hiding very briefly, then he was arrested, fined and released. He now returned to poetry and set about the composition of Paradise Lost which was published in 1667. In 1671 Paradise Regained appeared, together with Samson Agonistes. In these later years he published A History of Britain (1670). In 1673 appeared a second edition of his Poems which were originally published in 1645, including most of his minor verse. Milton’s towering stature as a writer was recognized early. Although he had always been appreciated as a master of polemical prose as well as subtle lyric harmony, his reputation rests largely on Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse, originally in ten books (later in 12). Milton formed the intention of writing a great epic poem as early as 1639. A list of possible subjects, some of them scriptural, some from British history, written in his own hand about 1640-1, still exists, with drafts of the scheme of a poem on ‘Paradise Lost’. In Book 1 the poet invoking the ‘Heav’ly Muse’ (remember Iliad?), states his theme, the Fall of Man through disobedience, and his aim as no less than to ‘justufy the wayes of God to men’. He then presents the defeated archangel Satan, and his rebellious angels, lying on the burning lake of hell. Satan awakens his legions, rouses their spirits and summons a council. The palace of Satan, Pandemonium, is built. In Book 2 the Council debates whether another battle for the recovery of Heaven be planned, Satan undertakes to visit it alone, and passes through Hell-gates, guarded by Sin and Death, and passes upward through the realm of Chaos. In Book 3 Milton describes God who sees Satan’s flight towards our world, and foretells his success and the fall and the punishment of man. The Son of God offers himself as a ransom, is accepted, and exalted as the Saviour. Satan alights on the outer convex of our universe, ‘A Limbo large and broad, since call’d the Paradise of Fools’. He finds the stairs leading up to Heaven, descends to the Sun, disguises himself as ‘a stripling angel’, and in this shape is directed to earth by Uriel, where he alights in a mountain in Armenia. In Book 4 Satan journeys on towards the Garden of Eden, where he first sees Adam and Eve ‘in naked Majesty’, and overhears their discourse about the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. He resolves to tempt them to disobey the prohibition, but is discovered by the guardian angels and expelled from the garden by their commander, Gabriel. In Book V Eve relates to Adam the disquieting dream of temptation which Satan had inspired. Raphael, sent by God, comes to Paradise, warns Adam, and confirms obedience. At Adam’s request, Raphael relates how Satan inspired by hatred and envy of the Messiah, inspired his legions to revolt. In Books VI-VIII Raphael tells about the first attack of God against Satan which sent his legions to Hell, and describes God’s decision to create another world from the vast abyss. He described the six days of creation, ending with the creation of man. In Book IX Milton described Satan’s entry into the body of the serpent, and his discovery, in this form, of Eve. He persuades her to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve relates to Adam what has passed and brings him of the fruit. Adam recognizes that she is doomed, and resolves to perish with her, and eats the fruit. First they enjoy realizing their lost innocence, their they grow ashamed of their nakedness and start accusing each other. In Book X God sends his Son to judge the trespassers. Sin and Death resolve to come to this world, and make a broad highway from Hell to Heaven. Satan returns to Hell and announces his victory. Adam at first reproaches Eve, but then they get reconciled and together resolve to seek mercy from the Son of God. In Book XI the Son of God who sees their penitence interferes. Yet God decrees that they must leave Paradise, and sends down Michael to carry out his command. Eve cries, Adam pleads not to be banished, but Michael reassures him that God is omnipresent, then unfolds to him the future revealing to him the consequences of his original sin in the death of Abel, ending with the Flood and the new Covenant. In Book XII Michael goes on with his story of the Old Testament, then described the coming of Messiah, his incarnation, death, and resurrection. He also foretells the corrupt state of the Church until the Second Coming. Adam and Eve resolve to obey and submit, they are assured that they may possess ‘a Paradise within’, and on this point they are led out of the Garden. Paradise Regained (1671) is an epic poem in four books. It is a sequel to Paradise Lost, and it deals exclusively with the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. According to Milton’s idea, whereas Paradise was lost by the yielding of Adam and Eve to Satan’s temptation, so it was regained by the resistance of the Son of God to the temptation of the same spirit. Satan here is described as a cunning, smooth, and dissembling creature. The poem is scarce in ornament, it mostly expands on the biblical texts. E. g. ‘Song, May Morning’. ‘To the Lord General Cromwell’. ‘O Nightingale’ (see “Notes”) Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) is known for his lyrics and ‘An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’, perhaps the greatest political poem in English. During his lifetime Marvell was many things: a traveler, a tutor, an unofficial laureate to Cromwell, Latin Secretary to the Council of State in 1657 (after Milton had gone blind), a spy in Holland in 1662-63 on a secret mission to Russian, Sweden, and Denmark, anonymous author of political pamphlets, and a poet. As a poet he is known through his Miscellaneous Poems (1681) which were printed from papers found in his room by his housekeeper (Mary Palmer). Famed in his day as a patriot, satirist and foe to tyranny, Marvell was virtually unknown as a lyric poet. It was not after the First World War, that the modern high estimation of his poetry began to prevail. His oblique, ironic, and finally enigmatic way of treating conventional poetic themes has especially intrigued the modern reader. E.g. ‘Bermudas’ (See “Notes”). T. S. Eliot summed up the views on Donne, Marvell and other in his essay ‘Metaphysical Poets’ (1921). According to Eliot, these poets had the advantage of writing at a time when thought and feeling were closely fused, before the ‘dissociation of sensibility’ set about the time of Milton. Notes to the lecture on The Seventeenth-century Literary Styles, and the Poetry of John Donne and John Milton 1. Compare two poems William Shakespeare Sonnet 7 Lo, in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty: And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age he reeleth from the day, The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract and look another way; So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, Unlook’d on dienst, unless thou get a son. *** John Donne The Sun Rising Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus Through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour ‘prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long... Compare the target texts Пылающую голову рассвет Приподымает с ложа своего, И все земное шлет ему привет, Лучистое встречая божество. Когда в расцвете сил, в полдневный час, Светило смотрит с вышины крутой, - С каким восторгом миллионы глаз Следят за колесницей золотой. Когда же солнце завершает круг И катится устало на закат, Глаза его поклонников и слуг Уже в другую сторону глядят. Оставь же сына, юность хороня. Он встретит солнце завтрашнего дня! (trans. by S. Marshak) *** Как ты мешать нам смеешь, дурень рыжий! Ужель влюбленным Жить по твоим резонам и законам? Иди отсюда прочь, нахал бесстыжий! Ступай, детишкам проповедуй в школе, Усаживай портного за работу, Селян сутулых торопи на поле, Напоминай придворным про охоту; А у любви нет ни часов, и дней – И нет нужды размениваться ей! В твои лучи, хваленое светило, Я верю слабо; Моргнул бы и затмил тебя – когда бы Мог оторваться я от взора милой. Зачем чудес искать тебе далеко, Как нищему, бродяжить по вселенной? Все прелести и жемчуга Востока – Там или здесь? – ответь мне откровенно. Где все цари, все короли Земли? В постели здесь – цари и короли! (trans. by G.Kruzhkov) 2. No man is an Island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if A promontory were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine Own were; any mans death Diminishes me, because I am Involved in Mankind; and Therefore never send to know for Whom the bell tolls: It tolls for thee. 3. Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, Love, in Love’s philosophy. (from A Lecture Upon the Shadow) 4. He is starke mad, whoever sayes, That he hath beene in love an houre. (From The Broken Heart) 5. His cloths were strange, though coarse; and black, though bare; Sleevelesse his jerkin was, and it had beene Velvet, but t‘was now (so much ground was seene) Become Tufftaffatie... (From Satire 4) 6. He, like to a high stretched lute string, squeaked, O Sir, ‘Tis sweet to talk of kings. At Westminster, Said I, the man that keeps the Abbey tombs, And for his price doth with who ever comes, Of all our Harries, and our Edwards talk, From King to King and all their kin can walk: Your ears shall hear nought, but kings; your eyes meet Kings only; the way to it, is Kingstreet.’ (Ibid.) 7. And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand The short swollen fingers of thy gouty hand... (From the elegy Comparison) 8. Song Песня Goe, and catche a falling starre, Get with child a mandrake roote, Tell me, where all past yeares are, Or who cleft the Devils foot, Teach me to heare Mermaides singing, Or to keep off envies stinging, And finde What winde Serves to advance an honest minde. If thou best borne to strange sights, ...Если ты такой ловкач Things invisible to see, И к безумствам тяготеешь - Ride ten thousand daies and nights, Мчись десятилетья вскачь, Till age show white haires on thee, Мчись, пока не поседеешь, Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell mee А затем – сочти, припомни All strange wonders that befell thee, Чудеса до одного мне, - And sweare Не встречу No where В той речи Lives a woman true, and faire. Женщины, что честь могла сберечи. If thou findst one, let mee know, Есть такая, - дай мне знать. Such a Pilgrimage were sweet; Я в паломничество ринусь. Yet doe not, I would not goe, Впрочем, можешь не писать - Though at next doore wee might meet, С места я за ней не сдвинусь. Though shee were true, when you met her, С верной вестью ты вернешься, And last, till you write your letter, Но едва ты отвернешься - Yet shee Уж с тою Will bee Златою False, ere I come, to two, or three. Погуляют двое или трое. 8. The Ecstasy Восторг Where, like a pillow on a bed, Там, где фиалке под главу A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest Распухший берег лег подушкой, The violet’s reclining head, У тихой речки, наяву Sat we two, one another’s best. Дремали мы одни друг с дружкой. Ее рука с моей сплелась, Our hands were firmly cemented Весенней склеена смолою; With a fast balm which thence did spring; И отразясь, лучи из глаз Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread По два свились двойной струною. Our eyes upon one double string; Мы были с ней едины рук Взаимосоприкосновеньем; So to intergraft our hands, as yet И все, что виделось вокруг, Was all the means to make us one, Казалось нашим прододженьем. And pictures in our eyes to get Как между равных армий рок Was all our propagation. Победное колеблет знамя, Так, плотский преступив порог, As ‘twixt two equal armies, fate Качались души между нами. ... Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state Were gone out) hung ‘twizt her and me; And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lie; All day, the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day. ... 9. The Good-Morrow ... My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest, Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp North, without declining West? Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. 10. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Прощание, запрещающее грусть ... But we by a love, so much refin’d, ...Но мы – мы, любящие столь That ourselves know not what it is, Утонченно, что наших чувств Inter-assured of the mind, Не в силах потревожить боль Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. И скорбь разъединенных уст, - Our two souls there fore, which are one, Простимся. Ибо мы – одно. Though I must go, endure not yet Двух наших душ не расчленить, A breach, but an expansion, Как слиток драгоценный. Но Like gold to airy thinness beat. Отъезд мой их растянет в нить. If they be two, they are two so Как циркуля игла, дрожа, As stiff twin compasses are two, Те будет озирать края, Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show Где кружится моя душа, To move, but doth, if the other do. Не двигаясь, душа твоя. And though it in the centre sit, И станешь ты вперяться в ночь Yet when the other far doth roam, Здесь, в центре, начиная вдруг It leans, and harkens after it, Крениться, выпрямляясь вновь, And grows erect, as that comes home. Чем больше или меньше круг. Such wilt thou be to me, who must Но если ты всегда тверда Like th’ other foot, obliquely run; Там, в центре, то должна вернуть Thy firmness draws my circle just, Меня с моих кругов туда, And makes me end where I begun. Откуда я пустился в путь. 11. The Flea Блоха Mark but this flea, and mark in this, Узри в блохе, что мирно льнет к стене, How little that which thou deny’st me is; В сколь малом ты отказываешь мне. It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee, Кровь поровну пила она из нас: And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Твоя с моей в ней смешаны сейчас. Thou know’st that this cannot be said Но этого ведь мы не назовем A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead; Грехом, потерей девственности,злом. Yet this enjoys before it woo, Блоха, от крови смешанной пьяна, And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two,Пред вечным сном насытилась сполна. And this, alas, is more than we would do. Достигла больше нашего она. 12. Sonnet X Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so; For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, not yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, than from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and souls’ delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die. (From Holy Sonnets) 13. John Milton O Nightingale O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still. Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart does fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. Thy liguid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love; O, if Jove’s will Have link’d that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, e’er the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why: Whether the muse, or love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 14. Andrew Marvell Bermudas Where the remote Bermudas ride In the ocean’s bosom unespied, From a small boat that row’d along The listening winds received this song: “What should we do but sing His praise That led us through the watery maze Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, He lands us on a grassy stage, Safe from the storms’ and prelates’ rage: He gave us this eternal Spring Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care On daily visits through the air... O, let our voice His praise exalt Till it arrive at Heaven’s vault, Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may Echo beyond the Mexique bay!’ Thus sung they in the English boat A holy and a cheerful note: And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time.