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Milton's L'allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas
Milton's L'allegro Il Penseroso Comus and Lycidas Author:John Milton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. L'ALLEGRO. L'Allegro and II Penseroso, owing to their close relation in form and matter, should be read together. Although they were not printed unt... more »il 1645, 'hey seem to have been written much earlier, probably about 1632 or 1633, at Horton, where Milton had retired from Cambridge after taking his M.A. degree. The titles are from the Italian, and imply " the cheerful man " and " the thoughtful man." Much discussion has arisen among editors and critics as to the import of these poems, which the want of space prevents us from considering. Perhaps, after all, it will be best for the student to work out his own theory of the matter, and then correct and supplement it by consulting the Introduction to this and the standard editions. Milton, in the composition of these poems, seems to have been indebted for a few slight hints and suggestions, in addition to those pointed out in the notes, to some verses entitled The Author's Abstract of Melancholy, p1efixed to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and to a song beginning " Hence, all you vain delights," in Fletcher's play of The Niee Valour. 1 2. Cerberus. Who was Cerberus ? In classical mythology Erebus was the spouse of Night, but Milton, in order to have Melancholy inspire horror and repulsion, invented the present genealogy. 1 3. Stygian cave. The den of Cerberus was on the further bank of the Styx, the chief river of the nether world, and in front of it were landed all the shades ferried over by Charon. Browne takes Stygian here in the sense of " detested." For Styx, cf. P. L. ii. 577 ; also Stygian darhness, C. 132. 1 4. Shapes. Cf. II P. 6, C. 207. When we note the indefiniteness of the images in this line, we recall that marvelous description of Death in P. L. ii. 666-673, and Coleridge's remark in his Lectures a...« less