But his approval of his work, even if it did not amount to
preference, looks like the old man's fondness for his youngest and
weakest offspring.
Another view of the matter, however, is at least possible. Milton's
theory as to the true mode of handling a biblical subject was, as I
have said, to add no more dressing, or adventitious circumstance,
than should assist the conception of the sacred verity. After he had
executed _Paradise Lost_, the suspicion arose that he had been too
indulgent to his imagination; that he had created too much. He would
make a second experiment, in which he would enforce his theory with
more vigour. In the composition of _Paradise Lost_ he must have
experienced that the constraint he imposed upon himself had generated,
as was said of Racine, "a plenitude of soul." He might infer that were
the compression carried still further, the reaction of the spirit
might be still increased. Poetry he had said long before should be
"simple, sensuous, impassioned" (_Tractate of Education_). Nothing
enhances passion like simplicity. So in _Paradise Regained_ Milton has
carried simplicity of dress to the verge of nakedness.
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