Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its
inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the
inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived
in a mere dialogue such as 'Paradise Regained '; it lacks the grandiose
_mise-en-scene_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the
stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of
'Paradise Lost,' is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is
the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt--a
serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar
excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most
specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected
eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as
his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long
experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of
us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to
hear 'Paradise Lost' preferred to 'Paradise Regained,' in view of the
very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton
knew, namely, to how large an extent 'Paradise Lost' was not the child
of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as
'Paradise Regained,' we might have understood his prejudice.
Certain parts of 'Paradise Lost' are drawn, as we all know, from other
Italian sources, from Sannazario, Ariosto, Guarini, Bojardo, and others.
Zicari who, it must be said, has made the best of his case, will have it
that the musterings and battles of the good and evil angels are copied
from the 'Angeleide' of Valvasone published at Milan in 1590. But G.
Polidori, who has reprinted the 'Angeleide' in his Italian version of
Milton (London, 1840), has gone into this matter and thinks otherwise.
These devil-and-angel combats were a popular theme at the time, and
there is no reason why the English poet should copy continental writers
in such descriptions, which necessarily have a common resemblance. The
Marquis Manso was very friendly with the poets Tasso and Marino, and it
is also to be remarked that entire passages in 'Paradise Lost' are
copied, _totidem verbis,_ from the writings of these two, Manso having
no doubt drawn Milton's attention to their beauties. In fact, I am
inclined to think that Manso's notorious enthusiasm for the _warlike_
epic of Tasso may first of all have diverted Milton from purely pastoral
ideals and inflamed him with the desire of accomplishing a similar feat,
whence the well-known lines in Milton's Latin verses to this friend,
which contain the first indication of such a design on his part. Even
the familiar invocation, 'Hail, wedded Love,' is bodily drawn from one
of Tasso's letters (see Newton's 'Milton,' 1773, vol. i, pp. 312, 313).
It has been customary to speak of these literary appropriations as
'imitations '; but whoever compares them with the originals will find
that many of them are more correctly termed translations. The case, from
a literary-moral point of view, is different as regards ancient writers,
and it is surely idle to accuse Milton, as has been done, of pilferings
from Aeschylus or Ovid. There is no such thing as robbing the classics.
They are our literary fathers, and what they have left behind them is
our common heritage; we may adapt, borrow, or steal from them as much as
will suit our purpose; to acknowledge such 'thefts' is sheer pedantry
and ostentation. But Salandra and the rest of them were Milton's
contemporaries. It is certainly an astonishing fact that no scholar of
the stamp of Thyer was acquainted with the 'Adamo Caduto'; and it says
much for the isolation of England that, at a period when poems on the
subject of paradise lost were being scattered broadcast in Italy and
elsewhere--when, in short, all Europe was ringing with the doleful
history of Adam and Eve--Milton could have ventured to speak of