ENGL2104: Mock Epic
CORRUPTION:
MILTON turns largely away from Restoration England. However there is minimal oblique reference:
- to the corrupt court (Charles II)
- to social society as bleek and grim -> individuals who speak out, ultimately good, but achieve nothing.
* Generally society is corrupt and cannot be reformed
MITLON GIVEN UP ON ENGLISH REPUBLIC?!?
-> no reference to england or patriotism
VIRTUE:
+> Religion -> protestant belief
* serving and obeying under free-will - not to save oneself (for care of god)
+> to make sure reason is not overtook by passion
POETRY:
NOT PATRIOTIC EPIC - rather PROTESTANT EPIC
- Milton percieves himself as ENOCH and NOAH
-> poem not effacacious of reformation
Change of poet's construction of evidence -
no longer 'inner light; but emprical data and reason (philosophy)
HEALTH -> related to science [Royal Society]
Physics/Natural Science/Mathematics
[Religion Never Falls Out]
ANGLICANISM -> moderate churchgoing.
=> science argued as consistent with PROTESTANTISM
FLOODING OF BAD POETRY - 1803
-> urban beast...the in thing...modern
DRYDEN & FLECKNO
comparison to Milton
use of...
simile
3rd person omniscient narrative
epithets
elevated word usage/grammar -> diminshed sense via: rhyming
lack of enjambent
set speeches
allusions to Paradise Lost
Simultanouesly incorporating...
low subject/theme
=> MOCK EPIC -> becomes fountain of criticism - standard mode of ridicule:
irony
satire
*the use of words o mean the opposite of their commonly understood meaning
=> TRAVERSTY -> making agents of debased versions of supreme ceremonies/ritual/regality
Labels: english, notes