See
Sidney Colvin, _John Keats_, pp. 160ff.]
Bulwer Lytton's _Milton_ was, if one may believe the press notices,
the most favorably received of his poems, but it is a signal example of
aspiring verse that misses both the sensuous beauty of poetry, and the
intellectual content of philosophy. Milton is portrayed as the life-long
lover of an incarnation of beauty too attenuated to be human and too
physical to be purely ideal. At first Milton devotes himself to this
vision exclusively, but, hearing the call of his country in distress, he
abandons her, and their love is not suffered to culminate till after
death. Bulwer Lytton cites the _Phaedrus_ of Plato as the basis of
his allegory, reminding us,
The Athenian guessed that when our souls descend
From some lost realm (sad aliens here to be),
Dim broken memories of the state before,
Form what we call our reason...
... Is not Love,
Of all those memories which to parent skies
Mount struggling back--(as to their source, above,
In upward showers, imprisoned founts arise:)
Oh, is not Love the strongest and the clearest?
Greater importance attaches to a recent treatment of the theme by George
Edward Woodberry.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223