Had he had upon his
canvas only a single human incident, with ordinary human agents, he
would have known, as well as other far inferior artists, how to secure
perfection of illusion by exactness of detail. But he had undertaken
to present, not the world of human experience, but a supernatural
world, peopled by supernatural beings, God and his Son, angels and
archangels, devils; a world in which Sin and Death, may be personified
without palpable absurdity. Even his one human pair are exceptional
beings, from whom we are prepared not to demand conformity to the laws
of life which now prevail in our world. Had he presented all these
spiritual personages in definite form to the eyes the result would
have been degradation. We should have had the ridiculous instead of
the sublime, as in the scene of the _Iliad_, where Diomede wounds
Aphrodite in the hand, and sends her crying home to her father.
Once or twice Milton has ventured too near the limit of material
adaptation, trying to explain _how_ angelic natures subsist, as in the
passage (_Paradise Lost_, v. 405) where Raphael tells Adam that angels
eat and digest food like man.
Pages:
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271