Milton’s descriptive work in Paradise Lost is admirable, capturing the reader’s imagination; Milton dazzles us with defamiliarized, celestial descriptions of Earth, and engrosses us in horrific descriptions of Hell. In fact, it was Milton’s description of Hell in Book 1 that captivated me as a high school student studying excerpts from the epic for the first time.
In this blog post, my goal is to exemplify Milton’s use of prosody and poetic device in an excerpt from Book 2 that caught my attention while re-reading it some days ago. It was the shift in meter at line 621 that made me pause and do some close reading. It describes the landscape of Hell, where the fallen angels preoccupy themselves during Satan’s adventure to Paradise. Here, some angels task themselves with surveying the land, describing the four rivers that flow from the lake of fire, and Lethe, the river of oblivion that encircles Hell and separates it from its frozen outskirts. The angels travel between the cold and heat of Hell, trading one form of torture for another, yet every time they attempt to drink the waters of oblivion and forget their torment, they are prevented…
At line 621 the meter is momentarily freed from iambic pentameter. The line has four stressed syllables on either side of a caesura: a double spondee followed by a spondee and double iamb (— — — — || — — ◡ — ◡ —). The line is also unique for its assonance that forms a quasi-internal rhyme scheme of ABBC||ACBC:
A: Short O: ‘Rocks,’ ‘Bogs’
B: Long A: ‘Caves,’ ‘Lakes,’ ‘Shades;’
C: Short E: ‘Fens,’ ‘Dens,’ ‘Death’
The rhyme of ‘Fens’ and ‘Dens’ coupled with the alliteration between ‘Dens’ and ‘Death’ inclines me to read ‘Dens’ and ‘Death’ as a slant rhyme for further emphasis. This is similar to Milton’s use of heroic couplets for emphasis, such as lines 220-21 of the same book, ‘This horror will grow mild, this darkness light, / Besides what hope the never-ending flight / Of future days may bring…’ This heroic couplet also highlights Milton’s frequent use of enjambment throughout the poem.
In the excerpt analyzed above, enjambment modulates the flow of iambic pentameter, and in my opinion Milton uses enjambment and caesura symbiotically to affect the movement (both rhythmic and emotional) in his description of the outskirts of Hell. The first half of the excerpt heavily relies on enjambment to endow the text with a forward motion that emulates the fallen angels’ movement through space; Our eyes must ‘rove on’ to the next line in order to complete the clause. The enjambment and unification of lines 622-23 is indicated by alliteration: ‘God by curse / Created evil,’ possibly because this section contains less of it. This lessening of enjambment coincides with Milton’s use of amplitude, and allows us deceleration to fully appreciate how every subsequent line modifies and adds to the last. There are two main subjects of amplitude: The ‘lamentable lot’ that expands into valleys and peaks, cold and fire (the ‘Universe of death’ can be seen as a sub-category of this that is further amplified); And the perversion bred by Nature.
If most amplification and ‘unnecessary’ wordage were removed, the 15 lines could become five:
…Thus roving on in confusd march forlorn,
Th’adventurouos Bands with shuddering horror pale
View’d first thir lamentable lot, and found
No rest: A Universe of death where Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things
While more efficiently conveying the same meaning, much of the poetic beauty is lost. This highlights how much of the poeticism of Paradise Lost lies in Milton’s descriptive work, capturing the imagination while giving us hints to slow down and consider, or to speed up and become enthralled in his magnetic language.