Vondel is more human than Milton, just where human attributes are
unnatural, so that heaven is made to seem like earth, while in
_Paradise Lost_ we always feel that we are in a region aloft. Miltonic
presentation has a dignity and elevation, which is not only wanting
but is sadly missed in the Dutch drama, even the language of which
seems common and familiar.
The poems now mentioned form, taken together, the antecedents of
_Paradise Lost_. In no one instance, taken singly, is the relation of
Milton to a predecessor that of imitation, not even to the extent
in which the Aeneid, for instance, is an imitation of the Iliad and
Odyssey. The originality of Milton lies not in his subject, but in his
manner; not in his thoughts, but in his mode of thinking. His story
and his personages, their acts and words, had been the common property
of all poets since the fall of the Roman Empire. Not only the three
I have specially named had boldly attempted to set forth a mythical
representation of the origin of evil, but many others had fluttered
round the same central object of poetic attraction. Many of these
productions Milton had read, and they had made their due impression on
his mind according to their degree of force.
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