In this context Paradise Lost raises an interesting issue. When Adam,
talking to Raphael, says that Eve seems better than himself he says that
each thing she says "Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best" he
seems to be engaged in proleptic hissing. And when Eve begins to be
convinced by Satan the opening of her speeches shift to emphasize the
sibilants. Here we know about the association of Satan and serpents and
so make the connection between the sound and the impulse to fall.
Bill Oram
>>> [log in to unmask] 03/04/04 09:18PM >>>
Yes, and of course there are also those wonderful lines in PL IX and
X when first Satan and then all the devils sibilantly descend into
serpents.
Susanne
>Pope says in An Essay on Criticism that "the sound must SEEM an echo
>to the sense" (not be, but seem)...and that sounds astute enough for
>me. Surely it's acceptable to think that sound and sense can
>*appear* to agree even when we would not be willing to say they
>necessarily *do* agree, or would want to stipulate that some pattern
>in poetry (whether it come from rhythm or from sound) could be yoked
>just as fittingly to several different senses?
>
>My special favorite sound/sense/sibilance lines from Spenser are
>these from Book Five:
>
>
>The glauncing sparkles through her beuer glared,
>
>And from her eies did flash out fiery light,
>
>Like coles, that through a siluer Censer sparkle bright.
>
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