John Milton: The Inner Life""John Milton: The Inner Life" is the product of a mature scholar's lifelong reflection on Milton. The subject matter is thus significant and intelligent. The style is lively, straightforward, and lucid. Thorpe brings to the study of Milton a breadth of general literary knowledge which is never paraded but which is pervasive in ways which enrich his understanding and ours. There are many good things to savor throughout, and the fifth chapter in particular is the best I remember on Milton's treatment of the natural world. This is an idealistic book, in the best sense, emphasizing basic human values, rather than the minutiae of technical scholarship, but it will attract wide scholarly attention, and I should think also from the general public of intelligent readers."--Roland Mushat Frye, University of Pennsylvania "A truly elegant and engaging book. Thorpe is a marvelous stylist, his prose crisp and lucid. And the individual chapters mesh wonderfully: they provide a series of perspectives on Milton, an emerging profile of the poet, especially of his inner life. That profile is strongly and finely etched and while it fixes on Milton's inner life, it also takes stock of Milton's sense of others and of the world around him. Throughout, the book is marked by an impressive mastery of Milton's poetry and prose by an agile movement between the efforts of his right, and left, hand, by a sensitive understanding and grasp of a poet who thought that the poet himself would be a true poem. I can think of no book I've read in recent years that is a better introduction to the poet through his writings, of none that makes Milton so attractively accessible to a general reading public."--Joseph A. Wittreich, Jr., University of Maryland "This is a thoughtful and well-proportioned book, lucidly and gracefully written. It should be welcomed by teachers and students of Milton's poetry and also by non-specialists. It combines fresh insights with sound judgments, and explores with tact and sensitivity the complex problem of the relations between Milton's life and personality and the major themes of his poetry and prose."--John M. Steadman, University of California, Riverside |
From inside the book
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Page 33
... poem before the time when he felt ready to write . The occasion was the death of Edward King , and the poem was " Lycidas . " The familiar opening lines of that poem are , within the govern- ing conventions , an intimate picture of ...
... poem before the time when he felt ready to write . The occasion was the death of Edward King , and the poem was " Lycidas . " The familiar opening lines of that poem are , within the govern- ing conventions , an intimate picture of ...
Page 81
... poem addressed to his father . But we know nothing of the part of Milton's father in these momentous events , nor of ... poem which he entitled " Ad Patrem . " That remark- able Latin poem conveys an open - hearted expression of ...
... poem addressed to his father . But we know nothing of the part of Milton's father in these momentous events , nor of ... poem which he entitled " Ad Patrem . " That remark- able Latin poem conveys an open - hearted expression of ...
Page 82
... poem as this one is . It is true that the poem also suggests that the musician father had made some kind of slighting remark about poetry , and the son offers an affectionate , personal argument in the hope of changing his father's mind ...
... poem as this one is . It is true that the poem also suggests that the musician father had made some kind of slighting remark about poetry , and the son offers an affectionate , personal argument in the hope of changing his father's mind ...
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achieve action Adam answer appears associated become beginning believe blindness Book called chapter characters Christ Christian Comus consider course darkness death Defence delight Diodati divine early earth effect effort example express eyes fact fair fame father favor feelings felt figure final flowers friends give guidance hand heart hope human idea important included inner Italy kind learning least letter light lines live look mean Milton mind natural world never night offer once opposition pamphlet Paradise Lost passage perhaps poem poet poetry praise Prolusion Prose reason relations rhetoric role Samson Satan says Second seems sense sometimes sonnet speak Spirit studies talent tells temptation things thou thought tion true turn understanding virtue wants wish writing wrote