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 8
... tell Of things invisible to mortal sight . The invocations to both the Seventh and the Ninth Books set forth Milton's ... tells of his being “ fall'n on evil days ... In darkness , and with dangers compast round / And soli- tude , " but ...
... tell Of things invisible to mortal sight . The invocations to both the Seventh and the Ninth Books set forth Milton's ... tells of his being “ fall'n on evil days ... In darkness , and with dangers compast round / And soli- tude , " but ...
Page 53
... tell us of his self - estimates indirectly through their tone , and finally consider some of his ways of dealing with ... tells of his education , his training , and the praise he received in Italy and at home as a promising poet . He ...
... tell us of his self - estimates indirectly through their tone , and finally consider some of his ways of dealing with ... tells of his education , his training , and the praise he received in Italy and at home as a promising poet . He ...
Page 97
... tells us , before he comprehended the death of his friend . Then , more than a year after the event , he wrote the “ Epi- taphium Damonis " -in my view , a much greater poem than it is usually reckoned . In the course of pouring out ...
... tells us , before he comprehended the death of his friend . Then , more than a year after the event , he wrote the “ Epi- taphium Damonis " -in my view , a much greater poem than it is usually reckoned . In the course of pouring out ...
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Common terms and phrases
achieve action Adam and Eve Andrew Marvell answer appears Areopagitica argument believe blindness chapter characters Christ Christ's College Christian Doctrine classical classical antiquity Comus conflict course Dalila death delight Diodati divine doubtless dramatic poems earth Edward Phillips Elegy eloquence example eyes fame fantasy father favor feelings flowers friends friendship garden give glory God's guidance hath heart heaven hope human important inner invocation to Book John Aubrey John Milton kind L'Allegro Lady learning letter liberty live Lycidas Milton felt Milton's sense Milton's writings mind natural world night orator pamphlet Parable Paradise Lost Paradise Regained passage perhaps poet poetry praise Prose Reason of Church-Government relations rhetoric Riley Parker role Samson Agonistes Satan says Second Defence seems Seventh Prolusion sometimes sonnet Spirit tactic talent tells temptation thee things thir thou thought tion ton's true understanding verse virtue words wrote