It is probably
the most unadorned poem extant in any language. He has pushed severe
abstinence to the extreme point, possibly beyond the point, where a
reader's power is stimulated by the poet's parsimony.
It may elucidate the intention of the author of _Paradise Regained_,
if we contrast it for a moment with a poem constructed upon the
opposite principle, that, viz., of the maximum of adornment,
Claudian's _Rape of Proserpine_ (A.D. 400) is one of the most rich
and elaborate poems ever written. It has in common with Milton the
circumstance that its whole action is contained in a solitary event,
viz., the carrying off of Proserpine from the vale of Henna by Pluto,
All the personages, too, are superhuman; and the incident itself
supernatural. Claudian's ambition was to overlay his story with the
gold and jewellery of expression and invention. Nothing is named
without being carved, decked, and coloured from the inexhaustible
resources of the poet's treasury. This is not done with ostentatious
pomp, as the hyperbolical heroes of vulgar novelists are painted, but
always with taste, which though lavish is discriminating.
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