Of Milton, De Quincey says that he is not a poet among poets, but a power among powers; and that he alone exhibits the sublime not fitfully and at intervals, but in a sustained and unintermittent manner. The subject of Paradise Lost is of itself of this description. The characters are God, angels, devils, and new-made man. The scenes are heaven, hell, and paradise. The angelic beings are created by the poet's own invention; even their language has to be created, and the dialect which they speak has a grand cadence of the true Miltonic character. The first, second, and third books contain a sustained flight into the loftiest regions of imagination, where all is sublime, and where it is difficult to select any one example in preference to any other : "Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms." "The thunder, Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, "To be no more: sad cure. For who would lose, 66 In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion ?" "Black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.” Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam." "Lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground, With solemn adoration, down they cast Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold. Immortal amarant, a flower which once In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life, Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows And where the River of Bliss through midst of heaven With these, that never fade, the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with gems." "Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent, Immutable, Immortal, Infinite, Eternal King; the Author of all being; Amid the glorious brightness where Thou sittest, Among other English poets examples abound. Gray, in the following, seems to have caught Milton's own inspiration: "Nor second he that rode sublime He passed the flaming bounds of space and time: The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Byron affords more passages of this lofty and thrilling kind than any other poet since Milton. His impetuous and vehement spirit is always ready to rise to the level of the highest themes, and the vigor of his language never fails. His Thunder-storm on Jura, Battle of Waterloo, and Address to the Ocean may be cited as examples. Wordsworth is too philosophical and contemplative to exhibit much of so fervid a quality; but, in spite of this, in his Ode on Immortality he has risen to a height of grandeur attainable but by few. Campbell's vigorous muse frequently rises to the sublime, and perhaps attains its highest power in Hohenlinden. Great sublimity of conception and expression is exhibited by Shelley in the first canto of the Revolt of Islam, and in the Prometheus Unbound. Mrs. Browning's Seraphim, and Drama of Exile, which are due to the influence of Shelley's poetry, though often overwrought and strained, nevertheless rise to very lofty heights of thought. The following lines exhibit the power of Keats to attain to the utmost grandeur of conception : "Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold. § 431. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. Milton, a name to resound for ages; Rings to the roar of an angel onset- And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods The sublime is intense, and therefore short-lived, and often but momentary. The beautiful is prolonged, and may be perpetual. As Shakespeare says in Antony and Cleopatra : "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety." Or in the words of Keats's Endymion : "A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never S CHAPTER III. THE RIDICULOUS. 8432. THE RIDICULOUS. THE ridiculous has reference to those things which conduce to mirthfulness, laughter, or derision. The term "ludicrous" is often used as interchangeable with it. There are some who distinguish between the two, associating the former with contempt, and the latter with mirthfulness; but this is a distinction which cannot be insisted on, and the term ridiculous may be considered as the more comprehensive of the two. The source of the ridiculous lies in the perception of incongruity. The laws of mind and experience lead us to anticipate a regular order in ideas or in events, such as the logical sequence of cause and effect, antecedent and consequent; the proper classification of genus and species; the subordination of a part to the whole, the less to the greater, and the like. By incongruity is meant the violation of this order, and the effect of this is to excite within the mind a sense of the ludicrous. This is illustrated in the following cases. 1. Cause and effect. Where there is a great parade of preparation without any result whatever: as— "The king of France, with twice ten thousand men, 2. Antecedent and consequent. Where there is an inconsequential statement, that is, where one statement follows another without any connection between them: as— "To whom the knight, with comely grace, Put off his hat, to put his case." "His head was turned, and so he chewed GENERAL LIBRARY The Ridiculous. 3. Classification. Where discordant things are jumbled to gether: as "Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last." 4. Comparison. Where the resemblance is affirmed between two totally incongruous objects, which, however, are said to have one thing in common: as 5. Contrast. presented: Aside. "Like a lobster boiled the morn, From black to red began to turn." Where an unexpected and violent contrast is "I really take it very kind, This visit, Mrs. Skinner. I have not seen you such an age (The wretch has come to dinner)." The sense of the ridiculous is as widely diffused as the sense of the beautiful, and differs according to the taste in the same. way. The clown enjoys coarse jokes, while the man of culture can only appreciate refined wit, and is disgusted by that which is amusing to the other, while to the other the light and graceful raillery of the educated man seems unintelligible. § 433. WIT. The chief elements of the ridiculous are two, namely, wit and humor. 1. Wit. Wit is a certain quickness of fancy, by which ideas, seemingly incongruous, are associated in a pointed and amusing manner. It may also be defined as a sudden association of incongruous things, expressed in brief and striking language. In wit there are three requisites: Ist. Pointed expression, such as antithesis, which is often used; or any other form which may serve this purpose. 2d. Brevity. "Brevity is the soul of wit." 3d. The association of incongruities: as "The general is a great taker of snuff as well as of towns." "Beneath this stone my wife doth lie; She's now at rest-and so am I." |