These being the conditions required in the subject, it is obvious
that no choice was left to the poet in the England of the seventeenth
century but a biblical subject. And among the many picturesque
episodes which the Hebrew Scriptures present, the narrative of the
Fall stands out with a character of all-embracing comprehensiveness
which belongs to no other single event in the Jewish annals. The first
section of the book of Genesis clothes in a dramatic form the dogmatic
idea from which was developed in the course of ages the whole scheme
of Judaico-Christian anthropology. In this world-drama, Heaven above
and Hell beneath, the powers of light and those of darkness, are both
brought upon the scene in conflict with each other, over the fate
of the inhabitants of our globe, a minute ball of matter suspended
between two infinities. This gigantic and unmanageable material is so
completely mastered by the poet's imagination, that we are made to
feel at one and the same time the petty dimensions of our earth in
comparison with primordial space and almighty power, and the profound
import to us of the issue depending on the conflict.
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