or that in Amoretti 69, he is free. The theme of his verses on Shakespeare is the immortality of that 'dear son of memory'; and the figure of the enduring ‘monument' which the poet has erected for himself in his work, is indeed present. But no one would cite this tribute to the dramatist as a stale literary device. Rather does the idea, in Milton's rendering, closely approach the fine ardor of the familiar Horatian lines-to which the convention goes back: Exegi monumentum aere perennius Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens Possit diruere aut innumerabilis Annorum series et fuga temporum, Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam.1 In Comus 516, and in L'Allegro 137, Milton speaks of 'immortal verse'; in Paradise Lost (6.373), he implies that there is immortality in his own: I might relate of thousands, and their names And in the eighth sonnet, he seeks immunity from the violent foes of the Commonwealth by alleging that the poet can bestow wide-spread and lasting fame.2 1 Carm. 3.30. 1-7. Trans. by Conington: And now 'tis done: more durable than brass My monument shall be, and raise its head Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. The notion was real to him, and once more, by apt and sparing use, he gave freshness and originality to something that had become empty and outworn. Finally, Milton's aesthetic theory brings all fine art to a supreme test. Not content with exacting from music and literature, and, we may assume, from painting, sculpture, and architecture, that they benefit the individual man, he judges the arts in relation to society and the State. In his view, civilization and the arts prosper together, and he seems to have made no attempt to distinquish the one as cause and the other as effect. A century and a half later Shelley, reviewing the history of European poetry, was to come to a similar conclusion. Grouping the same elements surveyed by Milton, in such a manner as to compare the condition of poetry with that of 'architecture, painting, music, the dance, sculpture, philosophy, and . . . the forms of civil life,' he wrote: 'We know no more of cause and effect than a constant conjunction of events; poetry is ever found to co-exist with whatever other arts contribute to the happiness and perfection of man." To Shelley so interwoven are the welfare of poetry and the welfare of the State that, at the conclusion of his Defence, he gives his art the triple rôle of 'herald, companion, and follower' of every beneficial change in opinion or institution. Likewise the youthful Milton eagerly asserts the interdependence in fruition of the active and the contemplative life: 'Where no arts flourish, where all learning is exterminated, there is no trace of a good man, but cruelty and horrid barbarism stalk abroad." As the title suggests, Beatiores reddit Homines Ars 1A Defence of Poetry, in Shelley's Prose in the Bodleian Manuscripts, ed. by Koszul, pp. 79, 80. Prolus. 7, Works 7. 460, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1.299. quam Ignorantia, the entire argument of this Miltonic exercise. in rhetoric goes to prove that the fine arts grow and approach perfection simultaneously with those institutions that are essential to the conduct of a free and elevated social life. In the History of Britain this conjoint ebb and flow again, is noticed: "Therefore, when the esteem of science and liberal study waxes low in the Commonwealth, we may presume that also there all civil virtue and worthy action is grown as low to a decline." In referring to Italy, Milton repeatedly links artistic and civil development together. To his Florentine friend, Buommattei, he writes: 'I have never heard of an empire or state that did not flourish, at least in some degree, so long as it maintained the care and culture of its own language.' And in his Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, he proposes, among other ideal measures, that 'the natural heat of government and culture,' mutually arising from an upbreeding of citizens in 'learning and noble education, not in grammar only, but in all liberal arts and exercises,' be communicated to all extreme parts, so that the whole nation may soon be made more industrious, more ingenuous at home; more potent, more honorable abroad.' 4 In short, with Milton, to whom as to other great poets, his vision was a very practical thing, the belief that all that 1Hist. Brit. (Bk. 2), Works 5.29. 2Cf. 2 Defence, trans. by Fellowes, 6.399 (Works 6.285). Epist. Fam. 8, trans. by Hall, p. 37 (Works 7.379–380). Cf. Jonson, Discoveries, ed. by Castelain, p. 50 (74). A recent writer in The Saturday Review concludes an article on The Present State of the English Language with this ringing echo of Milton: 'When a language becomes corrupt and degenerate, be sure that it responds to callousness and sensuality in the character of the nation.' Works 5.450-451. is best in civil life advances with all that is most pure and fine in the arts is a commonplace. As we shall see, whatever interest he took, or failed to take, in the graphic or the plastic arts, whatever he knew of music, or thought of poetry, he was convinced that in the right performance of their function these all serve to beautify and purify the social organism. Their evolution is bound up with the evolution of the State; upon its strength and order they rely for support; to its freedom and vitality they steadily contribute. Therefore to betray the arts by misuse, by a lowering of standards, a confusion of aims, an indifference to their higher propriety, or an ignorance of their far-reaching power, is simultaneously to betray mankind in a worse disaster than could arise from negligence in any other field of action. CHAPTER IV MILTON AND THE DRAMA At the close of the 'sunshine holiday' and rural merrymaking in L'Allegro, young Milton turns for more thoughtful diversion to the 'learned sock' of Jonson and the 'woodnotes wild' of Shakespeare. In Il Penseroso, he forsakes the 'deluding joys' of the comic stage for the melancholy delights of 'gorgeous Tragedy'; and in the first Elegy, he divides his attention between Roman comedy and Attic and English tragedy. Thus the dramatic allusions in his later works1 were the reminiscences, and the dramatic preferences of his later life were the outgrowth, of an early catholic enjoyment of dramatic literature. On the whole, his interest in the drama seems always to have been more literary than histrionic, but Arcades and Comus were, of course, intended to be shown, and in his writings are what one of his biographers called 'a serious and just apology for frequenting playhouses,' and a number of direct references to the theatre. A few lines in the first Elegy seemingly refer 2 1E.g., Works 3.261; 8.11. 'John Toland, The Life of John Milton, p. 32. For the 'apology' alluded to see An Apology, Works 3.266. 'Lines 27-28, 39-40: Excipit hinc fessum sinuosi pompa theatri Et dolet, specto, juvat et spectasse dolendo; |