17th C Epic - Paradise Lost, Order and Disorder

What did the 1667 edition of PL exclude

paratext, no courtly apparatus. no indicats pf sort of poem, no genre label. 10 books = Pharsalia, Camoen’s 10 book Lusiads.

reissued 1668 and 1669 with prose arhs and a note on verse. 1674 reissued in 12 book form = Virgilian - ambience of CHalres; restoration - engraved protrait of author, commendatory latin poems, defense by Marvell  

Who (and when) warned poets away from theological questions

Tasso 1594

What was the COnventicle Act 1670

banned groups meeting for religious worship outside CoE. urged informants to spy.

What was PL published in same volume as

Samson Agonistes - retelling Samson story based on Greek trag - respect for classics

Quotes suggesting JM wants to equal or surpass ancients

‘Soar above th’ Aonian Mount’

‘Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rime’

How is Order and DIsorder more conservative theologically than PL

'orthodox trinity - ‘all coeternal, all coequal are’

What does Order and DIsorder do 

recalls genesis chronologically in heroic couplets - begins w creation of universe. JM starts in media res in Hell

What si Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis about

1666, naval war w Holland, frie of Lonson, reestablish CHarles II’s reputation agaisnt scandal. Charles as tender and pious fatherl 

name an example of unfinished epic

Pope tried to write epic on brutus

Gondibert in Interregnum wrote ‘A Heroick poem’ - unfinished. struggles w influence 

WW’s Prelude as self sustaining - intended to prelude Recluse 

Why was rhymed iambic pentameter associated w english epic

Chapman’s tranlation of Odussey in early 17th C was in rhymed iambic pentameter - used by Dryden andPope in their homer and virgil transls. 

What was Order and Disorder seen as correcting

Hutchinson’s earlier transl of Lucretius. - filled w marginalia of biblical authority

How did Dryden’s The state of Innocnce change PL

erposition JM as classic - royalist. disperses Satans speeches among angels = Parliament. 

What did Thomas Newton say that PL contained

seeds of epic destruction

JM eanting to surpass predecessors

B9 ‘not less but more heroic

JM muse B1

‘sing hevanely muse’ - but Miuse if ‘that shepherd; - author first 5 books of bible, Genesis. ‘in the beginning’

JM primacy

‘of mans first disobedience’

Order and Disorder preface caution of biblical themes

‘let them take heed they find not themselves without God in the world, adoring figments of their own brians, instead of the living and true god’ 

How is Satan like Achilles in the embassy in Iliad 9 

B1 ‘fixed mind/ and high disdain’ 

BUT how is S unlike Achilles 

defects - recoils from Abdiel B6, writhing in pain from Michael B6 

How is S like Aeneas when he appears in the throne room in B10

‘star bright’ = Aeneas before Dido B1 clarus - signalled by latin adj ‘flulgent; B10 - cognate of verb given to Aen B1 refulgeo.

How is S also like O

Wanderer - but his ;dark Illimitable ocean’ B2 worse than O’s as ‘time and place are lost’

How does S pervert role of knighst in romantic gardens

‘the fiend/ saw undelighted all delight’ 4 

How is S like a perverted St George

becoming dragon ‘constrained/ into a beast, and mixed with ebstial slime’ 9. 

JM anti war

‘not sedulous by nature to indite wars’ B9

Examples of S avoiding conflcit

refuses fight against Gabriel B4, flees the son in B10

snakeification - loss of weapons B10

‘down their arms’ - arma V Aen.

Son as true hero B7

‘girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned’.

A and E become v human 12

‘hand in hand with wandeirngs teps and slow,/ through eden took their solitary way’ 

Burrow 1993 JM’s principal concern

‘duties and bonds which link creatiosn to their creators’

WHat was Drydens Britannia Redivivia 1688 about

birth of an heri to catholic James II

Why was Dryden dismissed from faour at court

deposition of Jmaes II in Glorious Revolution, replaced by duaghter Mary and husband WIlliam of Orangel

What is Dryden’s dedication to hs text of Aeneid

‘not stuck into him, but growng out of him’