Chapter 8: Defence of this Style
Very roughly, we might almost say that in Rhetoric imagination is present for the sake of passion (and, therefore, in the long run, for the sake of action), while in poetry passion is present for the sake of imagination, and therefore, in the long run, for the sake of wisdom or spiritual health --- the rightness and richness of a man's total response to the world. - p. 54
Sensitive critics are so tired of seeing good Stock responses aped by bad writers that when at last they meet the reality they mistake it for one more instance of posturing. The are rather like a man I knew who had seen so many bad pictures of moonlight on water that he criticized a real weir under a real moon as "conventional". - pp. 55-56
For though the human heart is not unchanging (nay, changes almost out of recognition in the twinkling of an eye) the laws of causation are. When poisons become fashionable they do not cease to kill. - p. 57
The whole art consists not in evoking the unexpected, but in evoking with a perfection and accuracy beyond expectation the very image that has haunted us all our lives. The marvel about Milton's Paradise or Milton's Hell is simply that they are there -- that the thing has at last been done -- that our dream stands before us and does not melt. Not many poets can thus draw out leviathan with a hook. - p. 58
The grandeur with the poet assumes in his poetic capacity should not arouse hostile reactions. It is for our benefit. he makes his epic a rite so that we may share it; the more ritual it becomes, the more we are elevated to the rank of participants. - p. 60
Chapter 9: The Doctrine of the Unchanging Human Heart
Men do mightily wrong themselves when they refuse
to be present in all ages
and neglect to see the beauty of all kingdoms.
Traherne
But in reality you understand enginehood or humanity or any other universal precisely by studying all the different things it can become -- by following the branches of the tree, not by cutting them off. - p. 65
Chapter 10: Milton and St. Augustine
What we call bad things are good things perverted.... This perversion arises when a conscious creature becomes more interested in itself than in God. - p. 66
As the angels point out, whoever tries to rebel against god produces the result opposite of his intention (vii, 613). At the end of the poem Adam is astonished at the power "that all this good of evil shall produce" (xii, 470). This is the exact reverse of the programme Satan had envisaged in Book I, when he hoped, if God attempted any good through him, to "pervert that end" (162); instead he is allowed to do all the evil he wants and finds that he has produced good. Those who will not be God's sons become his tools. - pp. 67-68
Chapter 11: Hierarchy
Every being is a conductor of superior love or agape to the being below it, and of inferior love or eros to the being above. Such is the loving inequality between the intelligence who guides a sphere and the sphere which is guided. - p. 75
... those who cannot face such startling should not read old books. - p. 76
For this is perhaps the central paradox of his vision. Discipline, while the world is yet unfallen, exists for the sake of what seems its very opposite -- for freedom, almost for extravagance. The pattern deep hidden in the dance, hidden so deep that shallow spectators cannot see it, alone gives beauty to the wild, free gestures that fill it, just as the decasyllabic norm gives beauty to all the licenses and variations of the poet's verse. The happy soul is, like a planet, a wandering star; yet in that very wandering (as astronomy teaches) invariable; she is eccentric beyond all predicting, yet equable in her eccentricity. The heavenly frolic arises from an orchestra which is in tune; the rules of courtesy make perfect ease and freedom possible between those who obey them. - p. 81
Chapter 12: The Theology of Paradise Lost
[Prof. Saurat] tells us that "Milton's god is far from the God of popular belief or even orthodox theology. He is no creator external to His creation, but total and perfect Being, which includes in Himself the whole of space and the whole of time." - p. 82
to be present in all ages
and neglect to see the beauty of all kingdoms.
Traherne
But in reality you understand enginehood or humanity or any other universal precisely by studying all the different things it can become -- by following the branches of the tree, not by cutting them off. - p. 65
Chapter 10: Milton and St. Augustine
What we call bad things are good things perverted.... This perversion arises when a conscious creature becomes more interested in itself than in God. - p. 66
As the angels point out, whoever tries to rebel against god produces the result opposite of his intention (vii, 613). At the end of the poem Adam is astonished at the power "that all this good of evil shall produce" (xii, 470). This is the exact reverse of the programme Satan had envisaged in Book I, when he hoped, if God attempted any good through him, to "pervert that end" (162); instead he is allowed to do all the evil he wants and finds that he has produced good. Those who will not be God's sons become his tools. - pp. 67-68
Chapter 11: Hierarchy
Every being is a conductor of superior love or agape to the being below it, and of inferior love or eros to the being above. Such is the loving inequality between the intelligence who guides a sphere and the sphere which is guided. - p. 75
... those who cannot face such startling should not read old books. - p. 76
For this is perhaps the central paradox of his vision. Discipline, while the world is yet unfallen, exists for the sake of what seems its very opposite -- for freedom, almost for extravagance. The pattern deep hidden in the dance, hidden so deep that shallow spectators cannot see it, alone gives beauty to the wild, free gestures that fill it, just as the decasyllabic norm gives beauty to all the licenses and variations of the poet's verse. The happy soul is, like a planet, a wandering star; yet in that very wandering (as astronomy teaches) invariable; she is eccentric beyond all predicting, yet equable in her eccentricity. The heavenly frolic arises from an orchestra which is in tune; the rules of courtesy make perfect ease and freedom possible between those who obey them. - p. 81
Chapter 12: The Theology of Paradise Lost
[Prof. Saurat] tells us that "Milton's god is far from the God of popular belief or even orthodox theology. He is no creator external to His creation, but total and perfect Being, which includes in Himself the whole of space and the whole of time." - p. 82
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