-04_The Inner and Outer Process of Milton^s Composition.htm III The Inner and Outer Process of Milton's Composition The usual picture of Milton composing Paradise Lost is constructed from the testimony of a number of contemporary biographers. 1 Milton frequently composed lying in bed in the morning. It is supposed that this was his practice during winter. At other times we have to think of him as getting up early and, since he was already blind, impatiently waiting for his amanuensis to come and take dictation. At times he would have as many as thirty lines ready and, if the amanuensis arrived late, he would complain, saying "he wanted to be milked". When he was dictating, "he sa

VI Derivative Originality and Artistic Puritanism The paradox of the immense mood-cultivation by Milton for the inspired effortless composition of Paradise Lost leads us to yet another curiosity connected with him. We have spoken of the poetry of the past in which he steeped himself. From the literary point of view, what most constitutes his long preparation of the inner mood for his masterpiece is his constant immergence in the high holy fire of the Old and New Testaments, the wide steady light of the Greek and Roman Classics, the strange or sombre or changing chiaroscuro of the Mediaeval and Renaissance writers. Out of this immergence

X Why Paradise Lost Became What It Is We have seen how the manifold greatness of Paradise Lost was prepared by Milton through decades and how the growth towards it can be traced from youth along middle age to the poet's fifties. Nothing interfered with its evolution: even the twenty years of ecclesiastical, social and political controversy helped it. But just the things that helped the greatness were responsible for draining out or at least thinning the psychological diversity in which they were one intermixed element, and aggrandising it at their expense. The conventions of controversy in those days permitted harsh language, but Milton the poet

-08_Milton^s Art ~ His Plane of Inspiration and Shakespeare^s.htm VII Milton's Art His "Plane" of Inspiration and Shakespeare's Now we may note a few examples of Milton's art. On the more obvious yet none the less genuinely expressive level we have the four rivers of Hell conjured up, each by the appropriate phrase elaborating the etymological connotation of the river's Greek name and running in the right psychologically effective rhythm of vowels and consonants: Abhorrèd Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, Whose waves of torrent fire i

The Inspiration of Paradise Lost The Inspiration of Paradise Lost AMAL KIRAN (K.D. SETHNA) The Integral Life Foundation P.O. Box 239 Waterford CT. 06385 USA First published 1994 (Typeset in 10.5/13 Palatino) © Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) Published by The Integral Life Foundation, U.S.A. Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

XI The Complex Theme of Paradise Lost At the very outset the problem of the theme of Paradise Lost is bedevilled by the figure of Satan. So mightily alive - indeed the sole living character in the poem - is the Arch-demon that all other concerns than his are from the dramatic viewpoint dwarfed. And, if by the theme is meant whatever grips us most out of a work, Paradise Lost has its burning centre in the fortunes of Satan. Whether Milton intended it or no, the Fall of Satan, his fight against God and Man, his heroism or villainy, his success or failure are the main interest of the epic. But Satan's doings have evidently to be seen with chief re

II Milton, Macaulay and Sri Aurobindo I hope my introductory words have toned up the reader to an interest in Paradise Lost and in the difficult job I have taken on myself under the influence of the ardours and rigours of Milton's epic inspiration. But before I actually start, let me evoke two pictures in which our poet does not directly figure yet which may aid our minds better to appreciate him. Go back to 1834. A British ship is on way to India. In those days it used to take five months to make the voyage and there were many hazards: the ships were far more at the mercy of storms than our modern luxury-liners. And this particul

XII The Metaphysics of Paradise Lost B. Rajan, in his important study, Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader, has observed that Paradise Lost was meant to be an epic of the Christian world and therefore aimed at the utmost general conformity to the body of universal Christian belief. The words "utmost general" are, of course, the operative ones. Rajan would hardly deny unorthodox traces. Milton, being what he was, would certainly not violate his own integrity by quite submerging his differences from universal Christianity; but, according to Rajan, he would never let them obtrude in a work which was intended to be a moral and religious po

-02_Milton^s Spaciousness of Soul and Sound.htm I Milton's Spaciousness of Soul and Sound Paradise Lost - here we have an epic which would seem almost to make paradise worth losing, since without that loss Milton could not have sung so sublimely and almost regained Paradise for poetry-mad people like the present writer. But more than three hundred years after its composition, years during which a lot of poetry-mad people have had their say about it, it is difficult to avoid making just a rehash of past critical comments. Yet, difficult or no, if one feels that the last word has not yet been spoken, one must make the attempt to bring new aspects forward or at least to present certa

IX Early Milton and What Paradise Lost Might Have Been Clues from Early Sri Aurobindo Savitri is in many respects unMiltonic. However, Sri Aurobindo's early blank verse which assimilates several influences into a varied vigorous originality mingles Paradise Lost most with the chief immediate influence - Stephen Phillips's Christ in Hades and Marpessa - and the principal background influence - Kalidasa's Vicramorvasie. And this blank verse is of particular interest because of a certain question raised by Sri Aurobindo in connection with Milton: "One might speculate on what we might have had