Excellent observation David.
Original Message:
I notice in Robert Gray's review that time-worn observation: " I am of
Milton's school: poetry should be "simple, sensuous and passionate". which
writers both for and against (furiously, as with Ezra Pound) have so often
trundled out. Thing is, Milton didn't exactly say that: he did write that in
contrast to 'graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of the rule of Plato,
Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus' poetry is 'less subtle
and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate'. Notice Milton is
decribing how perceives poetry to be relatively, he isn't offering a
prescription on how it *should* be written, the quote comes from a tract
called 'Of Education' (1644) in which Milton applies his experience as a
private tutor to the issues of young men of sufficient means and
expectations should be grounded in humanist arts (he's concerned with how
they read poetry, not write it) and aim of his thought in this paragraph is
that they would ' soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rimers
and playwriters be, and show them, what religious, what glorious and
magnificent use might be made of poetry both in divine and human things.'
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