His characteristic style and stanza were
recognised by the classic school as a distinct "kind" of poetry which
might be used where the theme fitted instead of the heroic manner, and
Spenserian imitations abound. Sometimes they are serious; sometimes,
like Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_, they are mocking and another
illustration of the dangerous ease with which a conscious and sustained
effort to write in a fixed and acquired style runs to seed in burlesque.
Milton's fame never passed through the period of obscurity that
sometimes has been imagined for him. He had the discerning admiration of
Dryden and others before his death. But to Addison belongs the credit of
introducing him to the writers of this time; his papers in the
_Spectator_ on _Paradise Lost_, with their eulogy of its author's
sublimity, spurred the interest of the poets among his readers. From
Milton the eighteenth century got the chief and most ponderous part of
its poetic diction, high-sounding periphrases and borrowings from Latin
used without the gravity and sincerity and fullness of thought of the
master who brought them in. When they wrote blank verse, the classic
poets wrote it in the Milton manner.
The use of these two styles may be studied in the writings of one man,
James Thomson.
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