صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

And in Manoah's final elegy over his son; but it is never allowed to pass beyond the bounds of dramatic simplicity and brevity.

The versification is a subject which must not be entirely passed over. To the casual reader this will often seem somewhat harsh and irregular. Dr. Johnson severely criticised it in reference to this, as well as to the longer poems. The key to its difficulties and apparent anomalies is probably to be found in the following passages, quoted from Sir Egerton Brydges and Mr. Keightley respectively :

"I believe that Milton's principle was to introduce into his lines every variety of metrical foot which is to be found in the Latin poetry, especially in the lyrics of Horace such as not merely iambic, but spondee, dactyl, trochee, anapest, etc., and that whoever reads his lines as if they were prose, and accents them as the sense would dictate, will find that they fall into one, or rather several, of these feet, often ending, like the Latin, with a half-foot; wherever they do not, I doubt not that it arises from a different mode of accenting some word from that which was the usage in Milton's time. If there is any attempt to read Milton's verses as iambics, with a mere occasional variation of the trochee and the spondee, they will often sound very tame, instead of being, as they really are, magnificently harmonious."

66

In the defence thus put forward by Sir Egerton Brydges there is doubtless some truth, but it is obviously too comprehensive. No ear could appreciate the melody of verse in which a poet arbitrarily employed every variety of metrical foot which is to be found in Latin poetry." Nor could Milton have thought himself justified in employing a method of versification for which there is no precedent to be found. At the same time we must look for the explanation of many of his metrical, as well as of his grammatical, peculiarities in his strongly pronounced classical tastes.

Mr. Keightley writes thus, in an essay which the student should if possible, consult :

"For our own part, we freely own that we are so convinced that a poet of Milton's order could not write inharmoniously, that whenever we seem to detect a want of melody we feel quite convinced that the fault must be in ourselves; and on further consideration we have always found it to be the case.

"We will now examine the lines of the lyric parts which seem most likely to have offended the ear of those nice critics; premising, in opposition to Hallam, that he uses no 'number of syllables not recognized in the usage of English poetry,' for his lines are all of from two to thirty feet-all measures in use. We have shown above that in lines of three and four feet the first foot may be monosyllabic. We will further observe that it seems to have been the poet's intention that the lyric parts should be read in a grave, solemn, measured tone :—

[ocr errors]

"Irrecoverably dárk, tótal eclipse (81)
By prívilége of death and búrïal (104)
Let us not break in upón him (116)
As one past hope, abandoned,

And by himself given over. (120)

That heróic, thát renówn’d,

Irresistible Sámson? whom unárm'd (125)
Chalìbean tempered steel and frock of mail

A'damantéan proof (133)

Prison within prison (153)

But the heart of the fool (298)

Oh! that torments should not be confíned (606)"

The scholar will be able to apply Mr. Keightley's method for himself to any lines that may seem to fail in harmony on first reading. If he also remembers that the Samson is a drama, and that the poet, though not ntending it for performance, follows the usual dramatic rule in allowing for a slower or more rapid delivery, according to the sense of the passage, he will not find the versification present any serious difficulties.

OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM

WHICH IS CALLED

TRAGEDY.

Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας, μεγεθος ἐχούσης, δι ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν. Aristotle, Poet. vi.

TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions; that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so in physic things of melancholy hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence, philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, I Cor. xv. 33; and Paræus com. menting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguished each by a chorus of

14

heavenly harpings and song between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca the philosopher is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which he entitled "Christ Suffering." This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common interludes; happening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient tragedy use no prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defence, or explanation, that which Martial calls an epistle; in behalf of this tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much beforehand may be epistled; that Chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of verse used in the Chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epode, which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then used with the Chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material; or being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be called Alloostropha. Division into act and scene

15

referring chiefly to the stage (to which this work never was intended) is here omitted.

It suffices if the whole drama be found not produced beyond the fifth act. Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such economy or disposition of the fable as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy. The circumscription of time wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is according to ancient rule, and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours.

« السابقةمتابعة »