Bertrand Russell: Prose Style

Bertrand Russell is one of the greatest masters of English Prose. He revolutionized not only the subject matter but also the mode of expression. He has in him a happy blend of greatest philosopher and a great writer. He was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in 1950. The subject matter of his essays may be very difficult but his manner of expression is so lucid and simple that even a layman can understand him without any special difficulty. It is a rare privilege which only few prose masters enjoy. The precision and clarity which Russell’s prose style possesses are very rare in the bulk of English prose.

Russell has justly been regarded as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century. Although he is not a literary writer yet his work devoted mainly to problems of philosophy, ethics, morality, political, social life and economics, etc. impresses us greatly by its literary qualities.

Of course, Russell's style sometimes becomes difficult for the average reader who comes across sentences which he has read for more than once in order to get the meaning. Russell’s style appeals mainly to our intellects and very little to our feelings or emotions. He uses words simply as tools, to convey his meaning plain and effective and not to produce any special effects. It is not a coloured or gorgeous style. Nor is there any passion in it. It is somewhat cold.

There are no “jeweled phrases” in his writings nor sentences over which we would like to linger with the aesthetic pleasure. Russell’s style is intellectually brilliant. He can condense an idea or a thought in a few words if he so desires. Russell is always direct, simple and lucid. He knows that the complexity of expression leads to ambiguity. Nothing can be more lucid than such opening lines:

“Happiness depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.”

“Of all the institutions that have come down to us from the past, none is so disorganized and derailed as the family.”

Russell’s sentences clearly show Bacon’s terseness. They are replete with so deep thoughts like those of Bacon that we may elaborate them in countless pages. Many sentences are like proverbs, replete with deep meanings like:

“Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.”

“One of the most powerful sources of false belief is envy.”

“Pride of a race is even more harmful than national pride.”

Russell’s quotations from the Bible, Shakespeare, Roman and Greek writers are harmoniously woven into the texture of his thoughts. The Biblical phrases and quotations lend sublimity to his prose and make his style scholarly. Russell manipulates such allusiveness in order to make his ironical onslaughts more effective.

Irony is a principal instrument of his style. He ironizes the so-called modern minded people. Russell makes frequent uses of wit and humour but his humour is generally not pure fun or frolic.

Russell writes chaste prose and there is a rationalistic approach to life. As a deep thinker and a man with scientific mood, he has infused into his style a new depth and a stream-like continuity and clarity.

His chief concern is to convey his ideas to his readers. That is why his prose style exhibits his balanced personality. ‘Style is the man’ applies to him more logically.

Russell makes long sentences to pour out his feelings with a poetic flash. He thinks deeply and expresses the matter in a logical manner. The sentence is definitely long but the main link of the thought is not broken anywhere. All subordinate clause move towards the main clause with the definite aim of making the sense more clear. No part of the syntax is loose.

Russell does not use metaphors and similes frequently. To him, they are the matter of necessity. These are to be used only when there is a dire necessity of using them. Russell makes a great use of the art of rhetoric to emphasize his point. He does not make his rhetoric pompous and exaggerated.

Bertrand Russell always argues his case in a strictly logical manner and his aim always is exactitude or precision. As far as possible, he never leaves the reader in any doubt about what he has to say. He stresses the need of rationality, which he calls scepticism in all sphere of life.

Each essay is logically well knit and self-contained. In each essay the development of the thought is continuous and strictly logical, with a close interconnection between one paragraph and another. It is a style best suited to an advocate. There are no superfluities in his style at all.

To conclude, Russell is one of the great prose writers of the last century, who wrote an almost all kinds of varied subjects with great force and confidence. The unity of his thoughts goes hand in hand with the unity of his style.

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Francis Bacon

Bacon challenged the basic beliefs of man e.g. truth, love, friendship, honesty, secrecy and reshaped them. He challenged the most established norm and ideals of mankind.

He questioned everything; he questioned what was, generally, considered unquestionable. He was an iconoclast. His approach was revolutionary. He begins his essays with a challenging statement i.e. what is truth, what is friendship and what is love.

He was very skeptical. He believed that the test of the truth of everything is in practical observation. He believes that experience is the basis of every judgment. This is called empirical approach. And no doubt he was an empiricist. His way of thinking was inductive. It was based upon facts and upon data. His spirit of inquiry and spirit of skepticism was the outcome of Renaissance. Bacon was very utilitarian. Like a scientist, he did only what was useful.

His training had been as a scholastic but his approach was anti-scholastic. He was bitterly against the scholastic approach. He said that the arguments of scholastics appear to be very intelligent and philosophical but actually these are nothing but only mental luxury. He said that scholastic try to prove the proven, means, who is God, what is sin or reward. In philosophy, this attitude is called begging in question. What is to be proved, it is taken as supposed.

Bacon says the reasoning of schoolmen is in fact very smart and full of life but actually this life is like the life of worms in rotten flesh. They appear to be very active but this is a very deadly activity. They are not agent of life rather they are the agents of death. The arguments of scholastics kill the mind than to develop the mind. Thus Bacon demolished the scholasticism with their own tools.

Bacon gave the theory of “duality of truth”. He proved that ideals are definitely good but ideals are only for ideal and perfect people. Imperfect people can’t follow the ideals and when they can’t follow them they go reverse and tell lies. Bacon said that everyone should try to be as good as possible. One must realize his faculties. An imperfect man must compromise with his imperfection. Instead of cursing himself one should compromise with his imperfection. This is called “expediency”. That truth is only for ideal people and for common man expediency should be the principle.

Bacon said that there are two kinds of truths – heavenly truth and earthly truth. He further said that heavenly truth is contained in Bible and it is for “salvation”. But earthly truth is in the laws of nature and in the means of science and it is necessary for earthly success. And this earthly truth is different from heavenly truth. Both are opposite to each other and can’t function for its opposite and one must be able to differentiate between them. This is called relativity of truth or duality of truth. L. C. Knight wrote that Bacon did not give the theory of the duality of truth but he only stated the facts who actually believe in their conducts.

What Bacon’s essays reveal is that:

1. Man in relation to the world and society.
2. Man in relation to himself
3. Man in relation his Maker.

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Lytton Strachey's ironic attitude

Lytton Strachey, an English biographer, critic and essayist, is best known for his ironic attitude towards the subject of his biographical studies. Strachey’s targets of irony were evangelicalism, liberalism, humanitarianism, education and imperialism. Strachey proposed to write lives with brevity which excludes everything that is redundant and nothing that is significant. He is best known for “Eminent Victorians”.

Treating his subject ironically he was fascinated by personality and motive. His aim was to paint a portrait; and through this he led to an ironical caricaturing. He taught biographers a sense of form and of background, and he sharpened their critical insight.

Strachey ironically shows us General Gordon including in his secret passion for fame and becoming a willing instrument not of God but of the extreme imperialist faction of the British Government. The messianic religiosity inspiring Gordon was well known by a weary generation just back from the trenches and sickened by the chauvinism of bishops and journalists declaring that God had been in the trenches on their side.

Strachey said:

“My notion is to do a series of short lives of eminent persons of that kind. It might be entertaining if properly pulled off. But if will take a very long time.”

Some of the eminent persons were to be admired while others like Manning were to be exposed ironically. To Ottoline Morrell he wrote:

“I am … beginning a new experiment in the way of a short condensed biography of Cardinal Manning – written from a slightly cynical point of view.”

The impact of ‘Eminent Victorians’ on literary circles was tremendous. The world was weary of big guns and big phrases, and Strachey’s witty polemic was especially attractive to the younger generation. In his preface, which was a manifesto for 20th century biographers, Strachey wrote:

“Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process.”

Yet the four Victorians he chose for treatment were not independent of the moral system of the Victorian Age. His verbal attack against Cardinal Manning is an attack on the evangelicalism that was to be the defining characteristic of 19th century culture, an exposure of its hypocrisy and the emptiness of self-regarding ambitions.

Strachey toppled Florence Nightingale from the pedestal where she was placed as the legendary lady with the lamp, having saintly and self-sacrificing qualities. He replaced her with a twentieth century neurotic. Thus Strachey struck ironically at the popular mythology of Victorian England, in particular its conscience-saving humanitarianism.

His irony towards the Dr. Arnold probably arose from his own unhappy schooldays. He depicted Arnold as the most influential teacher of the Victorian public school system whose cult distorted middle-class intelligence and set hard the principle of Victorianism into the 20th century.

Strachey has ironically presented his sinister picture of Manning’s formal interview with the Pope. He ironically mentioned Manning as an ‘eagle’ and Newman as a ‘dove’.

There are times, however, when Strachey’s sharp sense of the ridiculous does find its way into his irony. It is a definite undercurrent in this treatment of the Chinese diplomatist Li Hung Chang:

“It was Gordon who gave him his first vision of Europe. Nothing could be more ironical. The half-inspired, half-crazy Englishmen, … the irresponsible knight-errant whom his countrymen first laughed at and neglected, then killed and canonized – a figure staying through the perplexed industrialism of the nineteenth century like some lost “natural” from an earlier Age.”

Thus irony with its marked possibilities for variation, served Strachey admirable not only for comic purpose of suggesting change and dissimilarity which could be significantly and effectively relate to a background of uniformity in style.

Strachey’s great weapon was irony and ‘Eminent Victorians’ set the tone for subsequent biographers. It made ‘debunking’ fashionable. Few of Strachey’s imitators possessed his gift of sharp irony or his picturesque humour. They inherited from him nothing but his shallow scepticism. Strachey was in high favour with the wound because they relished the breaking of ‘Eminent Victorians’ praised till then like idols.

P. M. Jack wrote in praise of Strachey that he had a faculty for sharpening the readers’ critical sense and often proved to be right.

“We doubt if another miscellany of this sort could possess half the wit and distinction of a biographical style that we find here.”

In 1937 Edgar Johnson praised Strachey’s ironical sense of values and the largeness of his opinion:

“In Strachey the old Elizabethan lion refines down to a cat. The lion singles out the enemy to be destroyed; it is the cat, however, that plays slyly and patiently with the victim.”

Andre Maurois had already spoken of him not only as an iconoclast using the method of irony but also as a highly gifted writer in the tradition of the great humorist and as “a very deep psychologist”.

In fact, Lytton Strachey is best known for his ironic attitude towards the subjects of his biographical studies. His point of view was highly personal and some of his judgments have been described as exaggerated. But his sense of form and his witty, ironic style inspired a host of imitators who were eager to reduce historical figures to life size. He established the ironical writing of biography as a literary art.

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Lytton Strachey as a biographer

The biographer Lytton Strachey belonged to the Bloomsbury Group. He inaugurated the new era of biographical writing at the close of World War I. In his preface, Strachey enunciated the two fold principle of selection and scrutiny which was to mark all his work.

Strachey proposed a briefness which excludes everything that is superfluous and nothing that is significant. The completion of this mission made Strachey the greatness of modern biographers.

Strachey has certainly revolutionized the art of writing a biography. Before him, the biographer used to neglect like a hagiographer the darker side of their heroes because they generally used to idealize their heroes by representing them as angels of virtue. Strachey was the first to realize that in order to give a complete and human portrait.

Strachey did not hesitate to include in his biographies the failings, jokes and whims of his heroes. He believed that a biographer must have a psychological insight into his character.

A biographer must neither suppress vital facts nor obscure those aspects of his character which help us visualize his true picture as he lived. Instead of giving abstractness, Strachey indeed gave a creature of flesh and blood.

Strachey has suggested that the biographies must be primarily a form of literary art capable of giving the pleasure. In biography, it is not so much the subject as the treatment of the subject that really matters.

Strachey suggested that the biographies of eminent men should not be immediately written after their death because their relatives and friends are naturally reluctant to disclose the relevant confidential details. Thus he was of the opinion that:

“First class biographies can only be written long after the hero’s death.”

Strachey had a gift of irony which has hardly been equaled in literature by anyone since the eighteenth century masters.

Strachey has made biography a literary medium. His biographical style has the appeal of a fine work of art.

Strachey has brought us face to face with men and women, who are nonetheless fallible human beings and not infallible saints or gods. We watch them live, think, and quarrel like us. Sometimes they behave meanly and foolishly and sometimes nobly and wisely.

Strachey’s objectives were to make biography an unmistakable channel for the truthful transmission of personality; to write it as the most authentic footnote to history; to make it a vivid and complete story; to make it a source of inner satisfaction to the reader. In most of his experiments in biography Strachey certainly succeeded in attaining them. Strachey’s achievement in biography was indeed a challenge to dullness and incompetence.

Charles Richard Sander says:

“Throughout his career Strachey protested against the lengthy, formless, badly written biographies produced by the Victorians. He insisted that the spirit of the biographer should be free and that he should write from a definite point of view, should select and include only the essential materials of a subject, should give to a work good structure and excellence of style.”

His intensely personal sketches shocked many critics but delighted many readers. M. Forster says:

“Strachey helped sweep away the ponderous Victorian approach to the writing to biography, replacing it with a witty and with impressionistic style that was widely imitated and studied at the University of Cambridge.”

Instead of using the conventional method of detailed chronological narration, Lytton Strachey carefully selected his tact to present “Eminent Victorians”.

These deliberations suffice to signify that Strachey is the greatest biographer of the Victorian age.

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Chaucer: "Nun's Priest's Tale" - A mock epic

According to Aristotle:

An epic is the tragedy of a conspicuous man, who is involved in adventures events and meets a tragic fall on account of some error of judgment i.e. Hamartia which throws him from prosperity into adversity; his death is not essential.

So, the subject matter of an epic is grand and that’s why it is written in bombastic language in heroic couplets. Its style, too, is grand. On the contrary, a mock-epic is a satire of an epic. It shows us that even a trivial event can also be treated on epical scope.

A mock-epic is a literary parody of heroic style. It imitates serious characters and grave events in a comic manner. The subject matter is trivial and unfit for an epic but the subject is clothed in the conventional epic style. For example, in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” the ordinary event of taking away of a cock is compared and contrasted with famous and grave historical events of the past.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a mock-epic. The tale is ordinary and common. There is a widow, having two daughters. She has cattle and sheep as is usual with the villagers. She has a cock and many hens. Once, a cock is carried away by a fox but later escapes. Though the subject is trivial, yet this trivial subject has been exalted because fowls have been invested with the qualities of learned human begins. The cock and the hen behave, talk, argue and conduct like extraordinary human beings. We find the cock and the hen having learned and philosophical discussion on dreams which later includes some vital issues of human life. This is not at all a fanciful discussion; it is substantially learned. They also make historical references and illustrations to substantiate their respective points of view. We hardly believe that they are fowls. We are always reminded of two philosophers. Both stick to their own points of view on the reality of dreams and the discussion ends in no conclusion. So an animal fable has been elevated to the level of a philosophical poem, having deep thoughts and ideas. The cock is raised to the status of a hero and, thus the tale becomes a mock-epic.

Chaucer’s style in the poem is grand. He employs bombastic words for a trivial subject. For example, Chanticleer is called a gentle cock and his crowing is sweeter than that of any other cock. Pertelote, likewise, has the best colouring on her throat and she is called “a fair damsel”. She is courteous, discreet, gracious and companionable. So the description of the cock and the hen is sufficiently comic.

Humour is one of the essential prerequisite of a mock-epic and this tale is full of humour. Most of the comedy is introduced through the incongruity and disproportion between grand style and trivial subject. The trivial events have been enlarged to look lofty and grand. For example, the fox has been called “The False Murderer” and the false dissembler and has been compared to various notorious rascals of the past – Judas, Iscariot, Simon, Gauclon, etc. Likewise, the ordinary event of the taking away of the cock has been equated with well-known, historical events of the past e.g. the capture of Troy, the murder of King Priam etc. The outcry and lamentation raised by Pertelote at the event is louder than the hue and cry raised by Hasdrubal’s wife at his painful death. The sorrowful cries of the hens have been identified with the woeful lamentation, uttered by the senators’ wives when their husbands were burnt alive by Nero. On the taking away of the cock whole village – human beings as well animals – madly run after the fox and there is a stale of chaos as if it is the day of judgment whereas the carrying away of the cock by the fox is not a grave event. The awful noise produced at that time has been compared with the uproar created by the members of the Peasant’s Revolt. The chase of the fox is described in an inflated tone.

As essential prerequisites of an epic as well as mock-epic is the moral. There can be no mock-epic without moral. In “Nuns Priest’s Tale” moral is explicit as well as implicit. Though this story, Chaucer wanted to discuss important and vital issues of life, such as flattery predestination, the qualities of a good man and a good woman, the nature of dreams and irony of fate etc.

In short, we can say that “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is a parody of an epic in which all the leading epic features and conventions are brought in connection with a very trifling theme.

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Chaucer: "Nun's Priest's Tale" - Philosophy of Dreams

Dreams are the backbone of “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”. The story begins with a dream and ends up in a dream. Dreams were also present in the source fable but there the focus of attention was the fate of Chanticleer, whereas the dream had a secondary role to play. While, in “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” the dreams make the basis of the story and the fate of Chanticleer is not much important. Here, the dream is the main source through which a lot of humour flows. So, by making artistic use of dreams, Chaucer makes it the part and parcel.

The poem begins with a short description of a widow having two daughters and some humble house hold articles required for the basic necessities of life. Then, there is a long and tiresome discussion between Chanticleer and Pertelote with regard to the sanctity attached to dreams. As a result of this discussion two schools of thought develop.

1. Dreams are, in fact, realities.
2. Dreams are fantasies.

Chanticleer believes the dreams are true and they signify the coming events, whereas, Pertelote disagrees to this point of view.

Chanticleer and Pertelote give illustrations and references from the past to substantiate their points of view to prove or disprove the reality of dreams. For example, Pertelote refers to Cato who said, “Regard dreams as of no impertinence”. On the contrary, Chanticleer alludes to the writers who were of the view “dreams are true and signify the joys and troubles of our life”. He refers to two tales from the past substantiating the reality of dreams.

In the first tale two friends go to pilgrimage. On the way, they have to stay at separate lodgings. At night, one of them witnesses the friend is being murdered in his dreams and the dreams proves true in the morning.

In the second tale, a man is commended in his dreams to refrain from setting sail in the morning as the ship is going to meet a wreck on that day. This dream also comes true. Chanticleer makes several other references from the history to prove his view point.

Chaucer also makes dreams a vehicle of discussing the vital and paramount issues of life e.g. causes of dreams, an ideal man and an ideal woman, philosophical discussion on flattery, predestination, humour, irony of fate, of pleasures of life, i.e. worldly joys and pleasure are ephemeral and moral lesson.

Firstly, he philosophically discusses the causes of dreams. Pertelote is of the view that we witness horrible dreams owing to overeating and repletion and often due to constitutional disorders and imbalance of humour. She suggests chanticleer some digestive and laxatives.

During the discussion of dreams Chaucer also tells that in the eye of a woman an ideal man is brave, wise and broad-minded, who has emotional self-control, secretive, and is not cruel and miser and not foolish. Also he discusses the qualities of an ideal woman and the role of a woman in man’s life; she is “man’s joy and all his bliss”. She has to encourage man, please him, uplift him when he is frustrated and despaired and help him through thick and thin.

Through dreams Chaucer also discusses the theory of predestination. Chaucer presents three schools of thought regarding the theory of predestination.

Firstly, God foreknows everything and we are compelled and destined to act accordingly. Man is totally a bound slave of destiny. He cannot avoid it.

Secondly, God has the foreknowledge but we have given a free choice to do or not to do it.

Thirdly, God foreknows everything but his foreknowing never compels us to do a thing except by way of conditional necessity.

The dreams are also the main spring of humours. Infact when Chanticleer and Pertelote, two birds, start discussing and arguing about dreams like learned human beings, it creates humour and looks ridiculous. Had these two characters actual human beings it would not have been humorous. Chaucer artistically used dreams for creating humour.

Through dreams he also discusses the irony of fate. There are many things, which one can't acquire unless God wishes. The fox carries the cock with a desire to eat it calmly in the jungle but at the last moment the cock escapes. It means that our fate rules us all. Our joys and pleasures vanish in a moment and fate imposes pains and sorrows upon us.

He also uses dreams to convey a moral purpose. He gives a whole account on the dangers of flattery. He proves that flattery satisfies our ego. It blinds us to the truth. It brings us to a romantic environment. First cock falls to the victim of flattery and then fox falls to the same weapon.

Thus, the whole philosophy of the poem continues through the dream. In the original tale, dream might be a part of a story but here it has illustrations, philosophy, thought, moral etc. So, Chaucer handles dream in such an artistic way that it become more powerful than a mere dream.

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Chaucer: A Humorist

Humour is an essential ingredient of Chaucer's poetry and the back-bone of “The Prologue and The Canterbury Tales”. All the characters in The Prologue have been humorously described. Humour, infact, makes Chaucer’s characterization distinct. A humorist is one who is quick to perceive the funny side of the things and who has the capacity to laugh and makes other laugh at what is absurd or ridiculous or incongruous.

Chaucer is called the first humorist of English literature. No English literary work before him reveals humour in the modern sense. And Chaucer is a greater humorist than Boccaccio. Chaucer’s humour is consistent all pervasive and intense as we find in Shakespeare’s plays. He paints all the characters in “The Prologue” in a humorous manner. The Knight is as gentle as a maid; the Squire is too sentimental in his love to sleep at night; the Friar has relations with the bar-maids instead of the poor; the Parson is too innocent and Clerk is too studious. Chaucer even does not spare himself and says:

My wit is short, ye may well understonde

His humour has refined and sophisticated touches and it does not offend anybody. For example, when he tells us that Prioress is so amiable and pleasant in her manners that she takes paints to imitate the manners of the court we cannot know whether he is praising her or laughing at her affection:

And full pleasant and amiable of port;
And peyned hire to counterfete cheere
Of court, and been es’attich of manere,

But his humour is of the finest type. It is pleasant and sympathetic because he is a man of pleasant temperament. He knows that every human being has one type of defect or others. He pinpoints the defect in a light manner with a view to cure them, not for degrading the victim. His attitude is positive. So, when he says that the Friar lisps a little out of affection and when he plays on a harp, his eyes twinkles in his head like sparkling stars on the frosty night, we do not hate him or his affection, rather we just laugh at him at this weakness.

Chaucer’s humour is also tinged with pity. It makes us thoughtful of the weakness of his victim and we start pitying him. For example, when he tells us that the Monk is more interested in riding, hunting and other worldly pursuits than in religious activities we pity him and wish him better. It means that his humour carries a sound message.

Chaucer’s humour is, of course, satirical but it is sugar coated. Hs purpose is to awake the people against realities of life. His age is of romantic idealism and people are blind to the realities of life. His satire is not corrosive but gentle and mild. Secondly, he is not a zealous reformer. He satirizes only these characters that cannot be reformed at any cost, e.g. the Summoner, and the Pardoner who are extremely corrupt. Here he openly passes remarks about their dishonesty and corruption.

Most of the time, Chaucer’s humour takes the form of irony because it relieves the bitterness of satire. For example, the use of the world “Worthy” for the most unworthy characters brings a tickling irony except for the “Worthy” Knight. Chaucer employs different sorts of irony. He has made an ample use of irony by contract in “The Prologue”. For example, after talking about the bravery, skill, experience and grandeur of the Knight, he tells us that in his behaviour he is as gentle as a maid and cannot harm anyone.

And of his port as meeke as is a mayde

He also employs irony be exaggeration when he says the Prioress has all the manners of eating because she knows how to carry a morsel and how to keep. She does not let any morsel fall from her mouth and she does not dip her fingers deep in the sauce. This is all exaggeration because these things do not account for manner and everyone knows them well.

He creates irony by situation too. For example, he describes those qualities of the Monk, which are not worth of his religious rank i.e. he is a good rider and brave man.

A monk there was, a fair for the maistrie,
An outridere, that lovede venerie;
A manly man, to been an abbot able.

In this way, he creates an ironical situation, which makes us think since he is a Monk, he should not do this. His actions are set in contrast with is situation as a Monk.

Chaucer’s humour is wide in range. It covers all kinds of humour from downright jokes to good-natured strokes when he paints the physical appearances of characters. For example, he describes Reeve:

Ful longe were his legges and ful lene,
Y-lyk a staf, ther was no calf y-sene

Then, he says, that the Doctor of Physic is the greatest physician because he has the knowledge of astronomy.

In the description of the Shipman, he creates humour by incongruity when he says that he is a good fellow because he steals wine and has no prick of conscience.

In conclusion, we can say that critics may be divided in opinion as to Chaucer’s right to be called the father of the English poetry, but there can be no question that he is the first great English humorist.

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Paradise Lost: A Classical Epic

Homer and Virgil were the two great masters of the Classical epic. Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid have invariably served as models for all writers of the classical epic. Milton was a great classical scholar and he sought to write an epic. He dreamt of immortality and he aspired to be one with Homer and Virgil as the author of a classical epic. Milton turned his great classical and Biblical learning to a poem to “assert eternal providence, and justify the ways of God to men”.

I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

Milton achieved eminent success in making Paradise Lost as classical epic. In spite of certain drawbacks and defects, Milton’s epic is entitled to take its rightful place among half a dozen classical epics in the world. The first essential feature of the epic is its theme. The theme of an epic must have a national importance or significance; that is, the epic must be a true and faithful mirror of the life and of a nation. Homer represented the national life, thought and culture of ht Greeks in the Iliad, and Virgil gave expression to the hopes and aspirations of the Romans in the Aeneid. The Fall of Man is the theme of the epic.

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

The epic action has three qualifications. First, it should be one action, secondly, it should be an entire action, and thirdly, it should be a great action. In short, the action of an epic should be one, entire and great. All these three qualities of epic action are followed by Milton.

The action of Paradise Lost is one and there is a unity of action. The central action is the Fall of Man, and everything in the epic as, the battle of angels, the creation of the world, is subordinated to this central action. There are digressions at the beginning of the third and seventh books, but they do not affect the unity and central action of the poem. The whole action of Paradise Lost is single and compact. In the second place, its action is entire which means that it has a beginning, middle and an end. The action in Paradise Lost is contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by heaven. In the third place the action ought to be great, by greatness of the action, Aristotle means that it should not only be great in its nature but also in its duration. The entire action of Paradise Lost has a stamp of grandeur and greatness about it. Milton’s subject is greater than Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. It does not determine the fate of one single person or nation; but of the whole human race.

Milton plunges into the middle of the action. Milton, in imitation of the great poets, opens his Paradise Lost, with an infernal council plotting the fall of man.

The characters of the epic must have dignity and variety. In Paradise Lost, we have a wide variety of characters marked with qualities. In Paradise Lost, we have human as well as superhuman characters. Adams and Eve are human characters, whereas God, Christ and Satan are superhuman characters.

An epic must have a hero with great qualities. Identification of the hero is different in Paradise Lost. Adam can be called the hero of the epic. He is not a warrior or a conqueror but a noble figure.

An epic is a serious poem embodying sublime and nobler thoughts. Milton’s Paradise Lost is a sublime and noble poem characterized by loftiness of thought and sentiment.

An epic is not without a moral. Moral forms an integral and intrinsic part in Milton’s poem. It seeks to “vindicate the ways of God to man, to show the reasonableness of religion and the necessity of obedience to the Divine Law”.

Milton, in conformity with the epic practice, begins Paradise Lost by invoking the Muse to help him in his great task. But since Milton seeks the aid of the Heavenly Muse, the Holy spirit,

And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st:

He requests:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,

In and epic poem the poet narrates very little in his person. The characters themselves carry forward the mission of the poet.

Lastly the language of an epic must be sublime and rose above the language of common parlance.

- - - - - - - - - - - What though the fields be lost?
All is not lost

Aristotle observes that a sublime style can be formed by three methods --- by the use of metaphors, by making use of the idioms and by lengthening of the phrase by the addition of words. Milton employs all these three methods to give the air of grandeur to his epic. His similes and metaphors are epical. Latin words are frequently introduced. The style of Paradise Lost is the truest example of grand style. On one place, Satan says:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n

On the other place:

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

Milton’s Paradise Lost is a successful classical epic. Paradise lost has thus many excellences as an epic but the defects in it also not be forgotten. The introduction of allegorical persons like sin and death, the frequent allusions to heathen mythological fables, the intervention of grotesque incidents, the frequent indulgence in puns and useless display of learning and the unnecessary use of technical terms as in the description of Pandemonium are some blemishes in the style of the poem.

One other point must also be noted. An epic is an objective poem, and personal reflections are out of place in it. But the most sublime parts of Paradise Lost reflect the individuality of the poet. How ever this has added to the interest of the work as a poem though it is not, strictly speaking, permissible in an epic.

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Milton: Character of "Satan"

Satan occupies the most prominent position in the action of Paradise Lost. Though the main theme of the poem is the “Man’s first disobedience” yet it is the character of Satan which gives a touch of greatness to this epic. Al the poetic powers of Milton are shown on the delineation of the majestic personality of the enemy of God and Man, i.e. Satan.

As it is shown in Paradise Lost Book-I that the character of Satan is a blend of the noble and the ignoble, the exalted and the mean, the great and the low, therefore, it becomes difficult to declare him either a hero or a wholly villain.

In Paradise Lost Book-I we can hardly doubt his heroic qualities because this book fully exhibits his exemplary will-power, unsurpassable determination, unshakable confidence and unbelievable courage. However, the encyclopedia of religion removes some of the confusion from our minds regarding Satan’s character in the following words:

Satan means the arch-enemy of men, the adversary of God and of Christianity, a rebel against God, a lost arch-angle.

Milton also confirms the remarks and tells us that Satan is an archangel. When God declares the Holy Christ his viceroy, Satan refuses to accept God’s order because he himself is a confident for it, his false strength and pride leads him to revolt against God for the fulfillment of his lust for power but he and his army suffers a heavy defeat and throw headlong into the pit of hell.

Milton’s description of Satan’s huge physical dimension, the heavy arms he carries, his tower like personality and his gesture make him every inch a hero. In his first speech, Satan tells Beelzebub that he does not repent of what he did and that defeat has brought no change in him at all. He utters memorable lines:

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost – the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.

Actually he is not ready to bow before the will of God and is determined to wade and eternal war by force and will never compromise. He proudly calls himself the new possessor of the profoundest hell and foolishly claims to have a mind never to be changed by force or time. As he says:

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Although Satan undergoes perpetual mental and physical torture in hell yet he is fully satisfied because he is at liberty to do whatever he likes, without any restriction. The following line clearly indicates his concept of freedom.

Better to reign in Hell, the Serve in Heaven.

It can be said without any doubt that Satan gives an evidence of great leadership qualities which are certainly worthy of an epic hero and Beelzebub appreciates him for his undaunted virtues as the commander of undaunted virtue as the commander of fallen angels. His speech to the fallen angels is a sole roof of his great leadership because it infuses a new spirit in the defeated angels who come out of the pit of hill with their swords and are ready to face any danger regardless of their crushing and humiliating defeat at the hands of God. We fully laud Satan’s views on the themes of honour, revenge and freedom, but we cannot help sympathizing him because he embodies evil. He is the embodiment of disobedience to God.

As the poem proceeds, the character of Satan degenerates and he fails to produce any impression to true heroism because he is morally a degraded figure. When we closely examine his addressed to his followers, we find that it is full of contradictions and absurdities, because he tries to throw dust into the eyes of his comrades. In fact, on the one hand, he says that they will provoke war against God and on the other hand, he wants peace which is only possible through submission. Then, on reaching the earth, he enters into a serpent and is completely degrades. Pride is the cause of his fall from Heaven – Pride that has ‘raised’ him to contend with the mightiest. But where is that pride when the Archangel enters into the mouth of a sleeping serpent and hides himself in its “Mazy folds”. Here from the grand figure that he is in the beginning, he degenerates into a man and cunning fellow, and then he tries to tempt Eve by guile. So, Satan degenerates from the role of a brave hero to that of a cunning villain as C. S. Lewis remarks:

From hero to general, from general to politician, from politician to secret service agent, and thence to a thing that peers in at bed-room or bath-room window and thence toad, and finally to a snake – such is the progress of Satan.

So, it can easily be said in the light of above mentioned facts that Satan is out and pouter hero in Book-I of Paradise Lost, but in Book-IX he appears before us every inch a villain because of his evil design and he himself says that his chief pleasure lies in the destruction of mankind which lowers him in our estimation as a hero.

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Milton: Hell in "Paradise Lost"

This is how Milton describes Hell as Satan sees it after his fall from Heaven:

At once, as far as Angles ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild:
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes at all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice had prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison set,
As fat removed from God and light of Heaven
As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!

This description is brief but vivid and effective. We are to visualize a region which is sinister, barren and wild. The place is a horrible dungeon or pit burning like a huge furnace. Yet from the burning flames comes no light. The flames give out just as much light as is needed to make the darkness visible. The flames of Hell give no light. All around him Satan discerns sights of misery and unhappy dark spaces, where peace and rest can never dwell. It is a place where even hope which comes to all beings, is never felt. This region is far away from God. The contrast between this place and the Heaven conveyed to us is:

Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!

The place is perpetually afflicted with “floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire”.

Thus Milton's Hell is a place of darkness where flickering light of fire serves only to make more dark. Geologically it is a volcanic region, “fed with ever-burning sulphur” in inexhaustible quantities. Satan and his followers have fallen into a “fiery gulf”, a lake that burns constantly with liquid fire. The shore of this lake marks the beginning of a plain to which Satan flies after raising himself from the lake.

----------------------------- till on dry land
He lights—if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Aetna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds
And leave a singed bottom al involved
With stench and smoke:

This means that in one case it is “liquid fire”, and in the other “solid fire”. The heat of the land is naturally as intense as is that of the boiling lake. Satan walks uncomfortably over the boiling soil. Heat is everywhere. In the background, we are later told, is a volcanic mountain:

There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top
Belched fire and rolling smoke, the rest entire
Shone with a glossy scurf—undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic ore,
The work of sulphur.

All these description are certainly terrifying. Milton’s object in describing Hell is two-fold; firstly, to indicate the torments which the fallen angels have to endure in contrast to the bliss and joy of Heaven which they have lost for ever; and, secondly, to infuse a feeling of horror in the readers. The modern reader, with his scientific background and scientific notions, may not feel as awed or horrified by these descriptions as readers of Milton’s time might have felt. But even the modern reader has to recognize, not only the graphic quality of the description, but its oppressive and overwhelming effect.

The size of Hell, the nature of its tortures or the degree of heat that Satan feels, such thing can be felt to the reader’s imagination, simulated by words which carry frightening associations for all of us. Hell is a place of absolute darkness, fierce heat, hostile elements and most terrible sight of all, the entire space is “valued with fire”. Its all-enclosing dreadfulness typifies the dwarfing awareness of remorse, distance from God and pain from which its inhabitants cannot escape. Though terrible it is not formless; sea and land exist and from its soil the precious metals are refined which go into the construction of Pandemonium.

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Milton: Pandemoniun in "Paradise Lost"

Some angels rushed towards a nearby hill, Pandemonium, a hill not far from there that emerged fire and smoke. All the rest of the hill shone with a bright crust, which was a sure sign that in its interior was buried metallic ore or sulphur. Towards that hill a company of numerous angels moved with great haste like groups of miners, hurrying in advance of the royal army to dig trenches in some battlefield or to build a fortification.

Those angels were guided thither by Mammon. He first taught human beings to pillage the earth, in order to obtain treasures buried. Soon had his companion made a huge opening in the hill and dug out large pieces of gold.

Let nobody feel surprised by the riches that exist in Hell. The soil of Hell perhaps is most appropriate for gold. And here let those who boast of human achievements and who describe, with a feeling of wonder, the Tower of Babel and the Pyramids of Egypt, learn how the greatest monuments, which have been built by human strength and skill and which have become famous, are easily surpassed by the work of worthless Spirits who can do in an hour what countless human beings, with unceasing labour, can hardly accomplish in a long period of time.

Nearby on the plain a second large group angles prepared many cells beneath which burns liquid fire. With wonderful art they melted the massive ore, separating each metal, and skimmed the scum or the impurities. A third group of angels had, with equal promptitude, set up, within the ground, moulds of various kinds and shapes, and filled each hollow recess with the melted gold transported there from the cells by a wonderful device.

Soon out of the earth, a huge structure emerged like a mist. This structure was built like a temple. It was set with round-shaped columns. It had pillars of the Doric style of architecture and the pillars were overlaid with a golden beam. Nor was there lacking cornice or frieze inscribed with sculptures in relief. The roof was carved with gold. Neither Babylon nor Cairo ever attained such splendour in all their glory, even in building temples dedicated to their gods. The rising structure now became complete, having reached its full and impressive height, and at once the doors, opening their brassy leaves, revealed over a wide area within, large spaces on the smooth and level pavement. From the arched roof, many rows of star-like lamps and bright fire-baskets hung as if by some mysterious magic. These lamps were fed with naphtha and asphaltus, and their light fell as if form a sky.

The multitude of angles entered the building hastily, admiring it. Some of them praised the building and some praised the architect. This architect’s sill was known in Heaven by a large number of high buildings, having towers, where angels holding their rods of authority dwelt and sat, like princes whom the supreme ruler, God, had raised to such power and to each of whom He had given the authority to rule according to his status and rank. The name of this architect was also well-known and much respected in ancient Greece; and in Italy he was known by the name of Mulciber. It was told in a fable how this architect had fallen from heaven, having been thrown by angry Jove clean over the bright walls. He had kept falling from morning to noon, and from noon to dewy evening, for the whole of a summer’s day; and with the setting sun he had alighted from the height, like a falling star, on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean sea. Such is the story people relate mistakenly because he, with that rebellious throng of angles, had fallen from Heaven long before that. Nor was it of any use to him now that he had erected building with high towers in Heaven. Not could he escape from his present fate in spite of all his contrivances, but was thrown headlong with his hard-working companion to build a palace for Satan and his followers in Hell.

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