Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

20 THE ACTION NOT LIMITED TO ANY PARTICULAR TIME.

The Modern Criticks have collected from several Hints in the Iliad and Eneid the Space of Time, which is taken up by the Action of each of those Poems; but as a great Part of Milton's Story was tranfacted in Regions that lie out of the reach of the Sun and the Sphere of Day, it is impoffible to gratifie the Reader with fuch a Calculation, which indeed would be more curious than inftructive; none of the Criticks, either Ancient or Modern, having laid down Rules to circumfcribe the Action of an Epic Poem with any determined number of Years, Days, or Hours.†

This piece of Criticifm on Milton's Paradife Loft, Shall be carried on in following [Saturdays] Papers.

[merged small][graphic]

The SPECTATOR.

-Notandi funt tibi Mores.

Hor.

{Note well the Manners.}

Saturday, January 12. 1712.

AVING examined the Action of Paradife Loft, let us in the next place confider the Actors. These are what Ariflotle means by [This is Ariftotle's Method of confidering; first] the Fable, and [secondly] the Manners, or, as we generally call them in English, the Fable and the Characters.

Homer has excelled all the Heroic Poets that ever wrote, in the multitude and variety of his Characters. Every God that is admitted into his Poem, acts a Part which would have been fuitable to no other Deity. His Princes are as much distinguished by their Manners as by their Dominions; and even those among them, whose Characters feem wholly made up of Courage, differ from one another as to the particular kinds of Courage in which they excell. In short, there is scarce a Speech or Action in the Iliad, which the Reader may not ascribe to the Person that speaks or acts, without seeing his Name at the Head of it.

Homer does not only out-shine all other Poets in the Variety, but also in the Novelty of his Characters. He has introduced among his Gracian Princes a Perfon, who had lived thrice the Age of Man, and converfed with Thefeus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first Race of Heroes. His principal Actor is the Off-spring [Son] of a Goddefs, not to mention the Son [Offfpring] of Aurora [other Deities], who has [have] likewife a Place in his Poem, and the venerable Trojan Prince, who was the Father of fo many Kings and Heroes. There is in these feveral Characters of Homer,

22 CHARACTERS OF HOMER, VIRGII, AND MILTON COMPARED.

a certain Dignity as well as Novelty, which adapts them in a more peculiar manner to the Nature of an Heroic Poem. Tho', at the same time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan, that is, a Buffoon among his Gods, and a Therfites among his Mortals.

Virgil falls infinitely fhort of Homer in the Characters of his Poem, both as to their Variety and Novelty. Æneas is indeed a perfect Character, but as for Achates, tho' he is stiled the Hero's Friend, he does nothing in the whole Poem which may deserve that Title. Gyas, Mnefleus, Sergeflus, and Cloanthus, are all of them Men of the fame Stamp and Character,

-Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum [Virg.] There are indeed feveral very natural Incidents in the Part of Afcanius; as that of Dido cannot be fufficiently admired. I do not fee any thing new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are [remote] Copies of Hector and Priam, as Laufus and Mezentius are almost Parallels to Pallas and Evander. Characters of Nifus and Eurialus are beautiful, but common. [We must not forget the Parts of Sinon, Camilla, and fome few others, which are beautiful Improvements on the Greek Poet.] In fhort, there is neither that Variety nor Novelty in the Persons of the Eneid, which we meet with in those of the Iliad.

The

If we look into the Characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the Variety that his Poem was capable of receiving. The whole Species of Mankind was in two Perfons at the time to which the Subject of his Poem is confined. We have, however, four distinct Characters in these two Perfons. We see Man and Woman in the highest Innocence and Perfection, and in the most abject State of Guilt and Infirmity. The two laft Characters are, indeed, very common and obvious, but the two firft are not only more magnificent, but more new than any Characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole Circle of Nature.

Milton was fo fenfible of this Defect in the Subject of his Poem, and of the few Characters it would afford

ALLEGORICAL CHARACTERS NOT PROPER TO AN EPIC. 23 him, that he has brought into it two Actors of a Shadowy and Fictitious Nature, in the Persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has interwoven in the Body of his Fable a very beautiful and well invented Allegory. But notwithstanding the Fineness of this Allegory may atone for it in fome measure; I cannot think that Perfons of fuch a Chymerical Existence are proper Actors in an Epic Poem; because there is not that measure of Probability annexed to them, which is requifite in Writings of this kind. [as I fhall fhew more at large hereafter.]

Virgil has, indeed, admitted Fame as an Actress in the Eneid, but the Part fhe acts is very fhort, and none of the most admired Circumftances in that Divine Work. We find in Mock-Heroic Poems, particularly in the Difpenfary and the Lutrin, feveral Allegorical Persons of this Nature, which are very beautiful in those Compofitions, and may, perhaps, be used as an Argument, that the Authors of them were of Opinion, that* fuch Characters might have a Place in an Epic Work. For my own part, I should be glad the Reader would think fo, for the fake of the Poem I am now examining, and must further add, that if such empty unsubstantial Beings may be ever made use of on this occafion, there were never any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper Actions, than those of which I am now speaking. †

Another Principal Actor in this Poem is the great Enemy of Mankind. The part of Ulyffes in Homer's Odyffey is very much admired by Ariftotle, as perplexing that Fable with very agreeable Plots and Intricacies, not only by the many Adventures in his Voyage, and the Subtilty of his Behaviour, but by the various Concealments and Discoveries of his Person in feveral parts of that Poem. But the Crafty Being I have now mentioned, makes a much longer Voyage than Ulyffes, puts in practice many more Wiles and Stratagems, and hides himself under a greater variety of Shapes and Appearances, all of which are severally detected, to the great Delight and Surprize of the Reader.

+ See also pp. 45; 70-72; 133-135.

We may likewise observe with how much Art the Poet has varied feveral Characters of the Persons that speak in his infernal Affembly. On the contrary, how has he represented the whole Godhead exerting it self towards Man in its full Benevolence under the Three-fold Diftinction of a Creator, a Redeemer and a Comforter !

Nor must we omit the Perfon of Raphael, who amidst his Tenderness and Friendship for Man, fhews fuch a Dignity and Condefcention in all his Speech and Behaviour, as are suitable to a Superior Nature. [The Angels are indeed as much diversified in Milton, and diftinguished by their proper Parts, as the Gods are in Homer or Virgil. The Reader will find nothing afcribed to Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, or Raphael, which is not in a particular manner fuitable to their respective Characters.]

There is another Circumstance in the principal Actors of the Iliad and Æneid, which gives a particular [peculiar] Beauty to those two Poems, and was therefore contrived with very great Judgment. I mean the Authors having chofen for their Heroes Perfons who were fo nearly related to the People for whom they wrote. Achilles was a Greek, and Æneas the remote Founder of Rome. By this means their Countrymen (whom they principally proposed to themselves for their Readers) were particularly attentive to all the parts of their Story, and fympathized with their Heroes in all their Adventures. A Roman could not but rejoice in the Escapes, Succeffes and Victories of Æneas, and be grieved at any Defeats, Misfortunes, or Difappointments that befel him; as a Greek must have had the fame regard for Achilles. And it is plain, that each of those Poems have loft this great Advantage, among thofe Readers to whom their Heroes are as Strangers, or indifferent Perfons.

Milton's Poem is admirable in this respect, fince it is impoffible for any of its Readers, whatever Nation, Country or People he may belong to, not to be related to the Perfons who are the principal Actors in it; but what is still infinitely more to its Advantage, the principal Actors in this Poem are not only our

« PoprzedniaDalej »