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The Shaksperian Element In Milton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Alwin Thaler
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Extract

Scholarship has always delighted to render unto Shakspere and Milton individually the tribute which is their natural due. Strangely enough, however, it has neglected the relationships between them. Specifically, no one hitherto, I believe, has undertaken a systematic investigation of the range and quantity of Shaksperian recollection in Milton, much less of the quality thereof. The present paper attempts such an investigation.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 1925 , pp. 645 - 691
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1925

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References

1 First edition, London, 1801; revised and enlarged, 1809. References below are to the revised edition.

2 Especially in his edition of Paradise Lost, Cambridge, 1910.

3 See especially his article on “The Dramatic Element in Paradise Lost,” Studies in Philology, 1917, XIV, 178-95.

4 Cf. Moody, Cambridge Milton, p. 95.

5 See, for example, Verity's notes on Paradise Lost, I, 206; VI, 373, etc.; and Todd's, P. L., VIII, 62; Il Penseroso, 37, etc.

6 Usually by initials appended to the passages from Milton: D = Dunster; W = Thomas Warton; N = Newton; B = Bowle; S = Steevens; T=Todd (whose Variorum, ed. 1809, may be consulted for citations from these writers); V = Verity (see n. 2); H = Hanford (see n. 3).

7 Cf. Todd, VII, 182.

8 Professor Louis Warm, “Lycidas and Barnavelt,” Mod. Lang. Notes, XXXVII, 473, n.

9 See also, for example, Professor Hales's “Milton's Macbeth” (Nineteenth Century, XXX, 919-32)—a valuable paper, which, however, repeats something of the old mistake. “Milton in his younger days …. read Shakspere with immense appreciation.” But the Samson preface, according to Hales, is not to be explained by Milton's disgust with the Restoration theatre. Only the Greek drama was “meet and right” in his eyes. “The modern drama seemed a somewhat dubious growth …. with which as an author he meant to have little to do, however he might peruse it as a reader.” The evidence below will indicate that Milton as an author, even though he did not write dramas in the manner of the Elizabethans, had much to do with them by virtue of his memory. A notable exception to the usual critical blindness is to be found in the excellent paper already referred to, (see n. 3), by Professor Hanford. “There is no evidence,” says Hanford, “that Milton ever outgrew his early love of Elizabethan drama….. What passes out of Milton is but the more sensuous and esthetic essence of Elizabethan poetry…. [His] sympathy with the English renaissance in its moral, philosophical, and human phases deepens with advancing years. Classicism moulds and modifies the Elizabethan influences. Puritanism makes them wear a special expression. But neither Classicism nor Puritanism can efface them.”

10 A subject to which I shall return in a later paper, on “Milton, and Shakspere's Dramatic Contemporaries.”

11 Cf. Todd, VII, 181.

12 Cf., for example, E. N. S. Thompson, Essays on Milton, pp. 14-15.

13 Of the five passages from Milton here noted, the likeness in language between the first, and Juliet's “sober-suited matron, civil night” is the only one that has been generally recognized. Of the other passages the last two are of especial interest,—the lines from The Passion because that poem was written within a few years of the Elegia Prima (in which Milton, as we have seen, probably alludes to Romeo). The last passage may be more doubtful, but I think it is at least possible—in view of Milton's habit of repeating himself in repeating Shakspere—to recognize in this beautiful evening scene, written late in Milton's life, a memory, however shadowy, of Juliet's “cloudy night,”—of the sober-suited matron's mantle turned silver, as it were, in the star-light of memory. (This in spite of the fact that other poets employ the same figure, Todd, for example, citing Phineas Fletcher—Purple Island, VI, 54—“night's black livery,” and Spenser—Epithalamion, 315-32, “Now welcome, Night …. And in thy sable mantle us enwrap.” (The phrase “sable night” occurs also in Lucrece. See below, n. 104.)

14 Verity compares also Richard III, IV, i, 84: “The golden dew of sleep.”

15 Cf. also Merry Wives, IV, iv, 40: “In deep of night to walk by this Heme's oak” (V).—See also below, note 33, and p. 660, on Lear, A (4).

16 Verity compares a somewhat similar figure in Haml., I, i, 162, and P. L., X, 412-414. See also King Lear, I, ii, 112, 130: “eclipses in the sun and moon”; 'our disasters.“

17 For this “sublime passage of the Earth's sympathizing with Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit,” Milton may have been indebted to the lines quoted from Hamlet's remonstrance to his mother upon her crime (Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies).

18 Passages (8) and (9) are both from the player's ranting speech.

19 Cf. below, Midsummer-Night's Dream, p. 677, and n. 96.

20 Cf. Macbeth, V, viii,9-10:

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed,—and Tempest, III, iii, 62.

21 I.e., the lure of woman.

22 See also entries A (6) and (7) of this play, p. 653.

23 Milton's Poetical Works, III, 415. Cf. below, p. 665, on Macbeth, B (3) (d), and, on the next two lines, n. 98.

24 See n. 3.—Compare also p. 682, on Measure for Measure.

25 Hamlet, III, i, 59; cf. Verity on P. L., X, 718.

26 “This universal frame, thus wondrous fair” (P.L., 154-55).—Undoubtedly both Shakspere and Milton drew upon the eighth Psalm, but Milton is none the less indebted to Shakspere.

27 Verity notes also Henry V, IV, iii, 55: “Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.”

28 Cf. Macbeth, IV, iii, 176: “Each minute teems a new” grief.

29 Fortune's forelock, however, is mentioned also in the Distichs of Cato, and by the Greek and Latin poets.

30 Verity compares Henry V, III, Prol. 33, “the devilish cannon,” and P. L., VI, 553: “his devilish enginry.”

31 See n. 3, and, for related matter, notes 40, 97, and text.

32 Cf. Comedy of Errors, II, i, 15-41.

33 Cf. Julius Caesar, III, i, 189: “Though last, not least, in love.”

34 Cf. Macbeth, III, i, 83: “To half a soul and to a notion crazed.”

35 So printed by Todd, V, 503, from the Trinity College MS.

36 See n. 9.

37 See (6) for an echo from Macbeth's speech immediately preceding this.

38 See below, Henry V, A (1), p. 674.

39 Warton thinks there can be no doubt that in painting his drowsy-flighted steeds, Milton “had his eye upon ‘the jades’ ” who, in the 2 Henry VI (IV, i, 3-6) “drag the tragic melancholy night,” and with “their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings Clip dead men's graves.” No one has ventured to put forward the claims of the great passage from Macbeth here suggested as an at least equally probable source of Milton's adjective. If there was a Shaksperian source, this, indeed, would seem the more probable, in proportion to its immense superiority to the Henry VI passage, and Milton's far more intimate relationships to Macbeth. Incidentally the Macbeth passage supports the Cambridge MS. reading, “drowsy-flighted,” as against the “drowsy-frighted” of all other early editions of Comus.—Cf. also King John, III, iii, 38, on the midnight bell, sounding “into the drowsy ear of night.”

40 Eds. find similar expressions in Æschylus, Sidney, and Spenser, but nowhere else is the likeness in thought and word so unmistakable as in Shakspere and Milton. See also Othello, III, iii, 330-33:

Not poppy nor mandragora ….

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou ow'dst yesterday.

41 See above, on Hamlet, B(4)(a), p. 655.

42 This phrase appears in Love's Labour's Lost, A(3), see below, p. 676.

43 Todd here cites Job, XXX, 9: “And now I am their song, yea …. their byword,” but it seems to me just as likely that Milton had in mind the scurrilous Elizabethan street-ballads “sung to filthy tunes” mentioned also by Falstaff (I Henry IV, II, ii, 48).

44 Let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die, meantime To fight with thee no man of arms will deign (Samson, 1226).

Laugh at his challenge (A. & C., IV, i, 4-6).

45 On another tragedy, Titus Andronicus, see n. 53.

46 A word “specially used by Shakspere of an asembly of the gods….. So Milton” (Verity). See also P. L., II, 391, etc.

47 A figure drawn from the theatre. Verity compares also P. R., II, 239-40.

48 See also n. 39.—On 1 Henry VI see n. 53.

49 Warton adds the passage from Cymbeline, IV, ii, 213-14: “I put My clouted brogues from off my feet.”

50 I reproduce this parallel for what it may be worth. Todd finds this phrase also in Gascoigne.

51 Though the contrary has sometimes been supposed. For discussion see Masson, Life of Milton, III, 515.

52 Cf. Richard II, I, iii, 79 : “Be swift like lightning in the execution.”

53 Shakspere, as Verity notes, was especially fond of this proberbial phrase.

It reappears in 1 Henry VI; V, iii, 77; Titus Andronicus, II, i, 82-83, and Sonnet 41.

54 This passage, like (8), is from Clarence's description of his dream.

55 See also n. 65.

56 Blackstone's conjecture (Cf. Todd, II, 423) that Milton might have gotten “the hint” for his allegory of Sin and Death (P. L., II, 648), from Richard III, I, iii, 293,—“Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him”—is not to be taken seriously. The source, as Verity notes, is Scriptural,—James, I, 15.

57 Cf. P. L., IV, 75-80; I, 254 (“the mind is its own place”), and see below, Midsummer-Night's Dream, A(5), p. 677. The thought is the common property of all the poets, from Dante to Marlowe.

58 See p. 655, Hamlet, B(4)(a).

59 The thought, as eds. note, is sufficiently familiar. It appears in Euphues, and elsewhere.

60 See also H. IV, V, iv, 85-86: “Thou art ….food for …. worms, brave Percy,” and P. L., X, 983-86: “Our own begotten …. Food for so foul a monster” [death],—but cf. Job, XXIV, 20.

61 Todd quotes two somewhat similar—but not especially significant—sets of parallelism in figure,—H. IV, V, iv, 59, and P. L., VI, 313; H. IV, III, i, 15, and P. L., I, 728.

62 See also Richard II, I, iv, 23-36, and the Eikono klastes passage, above, p. 667

63 The phrase appears also in Richard II (I, iii, 133).

64 See also p. 672, 1 H. IV, B(1) (b).

65 Though, as Hanford has shown (P. M. L.A., XXXVI, 310-11), Shakspere was by no means the sole formative influence that shaped Milton's ideal of kingship.—On Henry V see below. Compare also Richard III, I, iv, 78-83,—“Princes have but their titles for their glories.” ….

66 See above, p. 663, on Macbeth, A(3).

67 Todd, however, finds the phrase (“Expectation …. took stand”) in Fletcher's Bonduca, III, i. Verity cites Troilus and Cressida, Prol., 20-22: “Now Expectation, tickling skittish spirits …. Sets all on hazard.”

68 See above on 2 Henry IV, B(1).

69 Newton compares Low's Labour's Lost, I, i, 100-101 : “Biron is like an envious sneaping frost That bites the first-born infants of the spring.”

70 Todd also quotes Drummond, “And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven.” Obviously, the Shakspere-Milton likeness here is not especially significant.

71 If this is, as Todd says, an “obvious parallel,” there is a deal of unconscious irony in it.

72 Editors compare Spenser, Faerie Queene, III, iv, 23, on “the wealth of th' East and pompe of Persian kings,” but these lines are not nearly so close to Milton's as are Shakspere's.—See above, p. 665, Antony and Cleopatra, A(1).

73 This curious likeness in rhyme-words, if it is nothing more, has escaped the commentators.

74 Cf. Twelfth Night, II, iv, 114-115: “concealment, like a worm i' the bud.” Warton and Todd hold that “frequent repetition of this image” by Shakspere “suggested it to Milton.”—See also n. 85.

75 “A play,” says Verity, “constantly imitated by Milton.”

76 Compare also M. N. D., II, i, 15 and Lycidas, 146; and the whole flower passage in Lycidas (140-150) with Oberon's flowers.

77 See above, p. 669, King John, A(2).

78 “Much the same image” as Shakspere's, says Warton, but he cites also Spenser, Faerie Queen, I, i, 14: “A little glooming light, much like a shade.” Malone quotes from Lucrece (1378-79) “Ashy lights, Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.”

79 Verity remarks that the passage in P. L., X, 896-908 (on the “innumerable mischiefs” wrought by “female snares” reads “like a commentary” on the proverbial line, “The course of true love never did run smooth” (M. N. D., I, i, 134).

80 Op. cit., p. 37.

81 “I think this was more immediately …. suggested by Shakspere” than by Plato (Warton) .—Verity compares another passage from Lorenzo's speech,—“Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold,” (V, i, 58-59)—with Milton's “road of Heaven, star-paved” (P. L., IV, 976).

82 Compare also Measure for Measure, II, ii, 75-78:

How would you be

If He which is the top of judgment should

But judge you as you are? O, think on that

And mercy then will breathe within your lips.

83 This single and unimportant phrase, which, as eds. note, is used also by Crashaw, Vaughn, and Dryden, clearly does not prove that Milton remembered the play. The same applies to the item given under The Merry Wives.

84 See also n. 15.

85 See also n. 74.

86 Todd and Verity suggest that Milton borrowed this “miserable equivocation” from Shakspere, and quote also, Two Gentlemen, II, v, 28: “My staff understands me.” The pun, however, had had a wide currency. Jonson and others laughed frequently at the “grave understanders of the pit.”

87 Todd, however, quotes from Philaster, “Heaven is in your eyes,” and, less closely, from Phineas Fletcher.

88 This theme, of course, had wide currency in the literature of the Renaissance. (It was a favorite with the sonneteers, including Shakspere, and appears prominently in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, Jonson's Volpone, and elsewhere.) But, though the theme was a commonplace, Shakspere's treatment of it—for which see also Romeo and Juliet, I, i, 222-25—is not likely to have escaped Miltön.

89 “Milton evidently alludes to Shakspere, in the expression as well as the sentiment” (Todd).

90 This antithesis is a familiar one (eds. cite examples from the Book of Job, Dante, Surrey, etc.), but Milton apparently remembered this whole speech.

91 Verity compares this and the preceding line with P. L., II, 178-82:

We perhaps ….

Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,

Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds.

The Limbo passage quoted in the text seems to me the more apposite.

92 For another parallelism, based upon a common (Biblical) source, cf. Meas., II, ii, 122; P. L., VIII, 77-78; and Psalms, II, 4.

93 Todd, however, quotes also a passage, equally close to Milton, from Drayton's Legend of Matilda :

Nature thee ordayned

As her brav'st Piece ….

(Wherein her former workmanship she stayned) ….

Hoard not thy beauty when thou hast such store.

94 See n. 49. Todd compares also Cymb. II, iv, 87-88 (Imogen's chamber): The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubims is fretted.

P. L., I, 714 (from the description of Pandemonium) : Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave.

95 Cf. Sonnet 29, “The lark at break of day arising.” Eds. cite somewhat similar passages from Phineas Fletcher and John Lyly, but there can be little doubt that Shakspere's line was immediately in Milton's memory here.

96 See also P. R., IV, 426-30:

Till morning fair …. laid the winds

And griesly spectres, which the Fiend had raised,—

with which Warton compares Hamlet, I, i, 147-49:

It was about to speak, when the cock crew.—

And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons.

(See above, n. 19, and text.)

97 See above, p. 658, Othello, B(1).

98 Compare with Posthumus's outbreak on woman's inconstancy (when Iachomo has succeeded in tricking him),—

It is the woman's part ….

They are not constant, but are changing still …. (II, v, 20-32) the Samson passage on the same theme. See p. 655, Hamlet B(4)(a).

99 The phrase “forsake the court” occurs in W. T., I, ii, 362, and in the Ode, line 13; but this is a pastoral commonplace.

100 “It is obvious that the general texture and sentiment of this line is from The Winter's Tale …. especially as [Milton] had first written ‘unwedded’ for ‘forsaken’ ” (Warton). Cf. Mark Pattison, Milton, p. 25.

101 Op. cit., p. 37.

102 What appears to be an uncomplimentary allusion on Milton's part to another character of this play—the passage in the Apology for Smectymnuus in which Milton scores the “antic and dishonest gestures of Trinculos, buffoons and bawds”—has been thought to refer not to The Tempest but to the play of Albumazor, acted at Cambridge in 1614 (See Johnson's Life of Milton, Works of Samuel Johnson, London, 1825, VII, 70, n.).

103 Satan commends the gay attendants to Christ as “Spirits of air, and woods, and springs …. who come to pay Thee homage (Id., II, 374-76). ”These spirits,“ says Dunster, ”remind us of Shakspere's ‘Elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves’,“ to whom Prospero bids farewell just before he abjures his magic. But Dunster, like the rest of the commentators, remains silent as to the stage-management of the two banquet scenes.

104 The commentators have been able to accumulate scarcely half a dozen instances of possible contacts between Milton and Shakspere's non-dramatic poems, and I can add nothing to these findings at present. So far as quantity goes, I think it may safely be said that these relationships are comparatively unimportant. I subjoin the instances referred to.

Venus and Adonis

A. (1) 453-56: P. L., X, 698:

A red morn that ever yet betoken'd …. Gusts and foul flaws to herd-men and to herds. Snow and hail, and stormy gust and flaw.—(N)

(2) 956-57: She vail'd her eyelids, who like sluices, stopt The crystal tide. P. L., V, 132-33: Two other precious drops …. Each in their crystal sluice.—(T)

Lucrece.

A. (1) 117-18: Till sable night …. dim darkness doth display. Comus, 278: Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth.—(W)

(2) See n. 78.

Sonnets.

A. (1) Sonnet 132: That full star that ushers in the even. P. L., IV, 355: The stars that usher evening.

(2) See n. 95.

105 Approximately fifty in the early poems, as against over a hundred in Paradise Lost, and about thirty in Paradise Regained and Samson.

106 Not all the illustrative material presented above may commend itself to every reader. On the other hand, some things that might be accepted without question have doubtless escaped me. Errors of omission—and perhaps of judgment—are inevitable in a study of this kind. The writer will welcome suggestions for corrections or additions.

107 To which may be added Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI (see n. 53). Of the entire Shakspere canon only The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado are not represented in some way.

108 I.e., The Two Gentlemen, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives, Pericles, Timon, 3 Henry VI, and perhaps Twelfth Night and Henry VIII. (I do not include 2 Henry VI and The Winter's Tale in this list of eliminations, because one or two of the few echoes from these plays have been generally accepted as clear and unmistakable.)