Criticism on Milton's Paradise Lost; from the Spectator, 31 December, 1711-3 May 1712

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ... 16 THE FABLE PERFECT OR IMPERFECT AS IS THE ACTION. to Ledds Egg, or begun much later, even at the Rape of Helen, or the Investing of Troy, it is manisest that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of several Actions. He theresore opens his Poem with the Discord of his Princes, and with great Art interweaves in the several succeeding parts of it, an account of every thing [material] which relates to the Story [them], and had passed besore that fatal Dissension. After the fame manner AEneas makes his first appearance in the Tyrrhene Seas, and within sight of Italy, because the Action propofed to be celebrated was that of his Settling himself in Latium. But because it was necesfary for the Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his Voyage, Virgil makes his Hero relate it by way of Epifode in the second and third Books of the AEneid. The Contents of both which Books come before thofe of the first Book in the Thread of the Story, tho' for preserving of this Unity of Action, they follow them in the Disposition of the Poem. Milton, in Imitation of these two great Poets, opens his Paradife Lost with an Infernal Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he propofed to celebrate; and as sor thofe great Actions, which preceded in point of time, the Battel of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which would have entirely destroyed the Unity of his Principal Action, had he related them in the fame Order that they happened) he cast them into the fifth, sixth and seventh Books, by way of Epifode to this noble Poem. Aristotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the Unity of his Fable, tho' at the fame time that great Critick and Philofopher...