Milton, like Wordsworth, urged his theory of parsimony farther in
practice than he would have done, had he not been possessed by a
spirit of protest against prevailing error. Milton's own ideal was the
chiselled austerity of Greek tragedy. Bat he was impelled to overdo
the system of holding back, by his desire to challenge the evil
spirit which was abroad. He would separate himself not only from the
Clevelands, the Denhams, and the Drydens, whom he did not account as
poets at all, but even from the Spenserians. Thus, instead of severe,
he became rigid, and his plainness is not unfrequently jejune.
"Pomp and ostentation of reading," he had once written, "is admired
among the vulgar; but, in matters of religion, he is learnedest who
is plainest." As Wordsworth had attempted to regenerate poetry by
recurring to nature and to common objects, Milton would revert to the
pure Word of God. He would present no human adumbration of goodness,
but Christ Himself. He saw that here absolute plainness was best. In
the presence of this unique Being silence alone became the poet. This
"higher argument" was "sufficient of itself" (_Paradise Lost_, ix.
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