Puritanism Renaissance Milton's Poetry

Explain how Milton's poetry weds the Puritan spirit with that of the Renaissance.

The growth of Puritanism as a moral and social force was one of the most conspicuous and influential features of the Age of Milton (1625- 1660). Within its range the influence of Puritanism upon the tone and temper of English life and thought was profound. The spirit which it introduced was fine and noble, but it was hard and stern. The Puritan's integrity and uprightness were worthy of admiration, but his fanaticism, his moroseness, and the narrowness of his outlook and sympathies were deplorable. He was an intense and God-fearing man, but he was also illiberal and unreasonable. His was, on the whole, a one-sided and unwholesome view of the world. In his pre-occupation with moral and spiritual matters he generally neglected, and often denounced, the science and art, the knowledge and beauty, which give value to the secular life. To the extent of its power, Puritanism destroyed humane culture, and tried to limit literature within the field of its own particular interests. It was fatal to art, and it was almost fatal to literature. Only here and there arose a writer who absorbed all its strength and yet transcended its limitations. Such was the case chiefly with Milton.

Milton was the greatest product of Puritanism in English literature. In his genius and work, however, the moral and religious influences of Puritanism were combined with the generous culture of the Renaissance. It was this combination of elements which gave its distinctive quality to his greatest poetry. He could never have written as he did, had either of these two elements been missing. His earlier poetry shows that he began to write chiefly under the inspiration of the learning and art of the Renaissance. The Puritan element was at first found subordinate; but it gradually gained in strength and depth till it became at last the dominant element.

L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, with their charming contrasted pictures of man, Nature, and art as seen through the medium of the moods of joy and melancholy respectively, have little that is characteristically Puritan, and a good deal that is really un-Puritan; for the poet dwells frankly upon the pleasures of romance and rustic sports, upon the delights of the theatre and the Greek drama, and upon the beauty of church architecture and music- all of which were objects of hatred to the fanatical Puritans. Then Comus marks a distinct stage in the development of Milton's mind. The Puritan spirit, so far latent, now makes its influence felt, not only in the poet's increased earnestness but also in the specific quality of his moral teaching. On the literary side, this work too belongs to the Renaissance; for it is an example of that type of drama which is called the masque, which had been brought into England from Italy, and which had ever since been extremely popular at court and among the nobility. That Milton was willing to adopt it was proof that he was still far from sharing the intense hostility of the Puritans to everything connected with the drama. But though he wrote in the form of Renaissance art, he filled it with a strenuous moral spirit and meaning. The simple story of the lady lost in the woods, lured away by Comus and his band of revellers and rescued by her brothers with the help of an attendant spirit and the river nymph, is an obvious allegory of virtue attacked by sensuality and conquering by divine aid. Here, then, we see the two streams of influence ruling Milton's genius. While this masque is loaded with classical learning, the nobility of its tone and the superb faith in God which it expresses, are evidence of the growing power of religious inspiration over the poet's thought. Finally, in Lycidas, we have a Puritanism which is political and ecclesiastical as well as spiritual and ethical. A lament over the death of a college friend, it is written in the conventional style of the classical, pastoral elegy. In form, therefore, it belongs, like Comus, to the Renaissance. But the religious emphasis in it throughout is unmistakably Puritan. Its famous attack upon the corrupt church and the mercenary priests of the time openly proclaims Milton's adherence to the Puritan cause. In short, through these early poems we can trace the steady growth of the religious element in Milton's mind. The learning and the art of the Renaissance were not given up by him; but he used them more and more in the service of a Puritan philosophy of life.

It is, however, in Milton's great masterpiece that the full significance of this combination of qualities (Puritanism and Renaissance) becomes apparent. Paradise Lost has the stamp of intellectual energy and creative power. The inspiration and the subject-matter of this poem come from Milton's Puritanism. It is written as an exposition of his theology. On the foundation of that theology it undertakes to "assert Eternal Providence" and "justify the ways of God to men". But if as a thinker and moralist he now belonged completely to Puritanism, as an artist he did not cease to belong to the Renaissance. In its form and style, its machinery and method. Paradise Lost everywhere takes us back to the great epics of classical antiquity. The vast and varied learning, which is built into its fabric, shows how fondly, in the blindness and loneliness of his old age, he recalled the wide secular studies of his happy earlier days. In other words, even now the Puritan in him has not killed the humanist. Milton's zeal for righteousness and the strenuous moral purpose of the poem are here blended with the love of learning and the passion for beauty which were the characteristics of the Renaissance. It is a fact of great importance that Milton wrote the greatest regular epic poem in any modern literature and yet wrote it, not on a classical but on a theological subject, and as a vehicle of Christian teaching.

In Paradise Lost, he described the revolt of Satan against God, the war in Heaven, the fall of the rebellious angels, the creation of the world and of man, the temptation of Eve and Adam, and their expulsion from Eden. Yet, while his central purpose was to show that man's first disobedience brought sin and death in its train, he does not close on the note of evil triumphant but prophetically introduces the divine work of redemption. He afterwards added a sequel in four Books dealing with the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. But, though it has its occasional passages of sublimity and of tenderness, Paradise Regained seems a very slight work beside its gigantic predecessor. The dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (Samson the Wrestler) crowns the labours of these closing years of Milton's life. Here, as in Paradise Lost, Milton applies the form of the classical art to the treatment of a biblical subject. Samson Agonistes is fashioned strictly upon the principles of Greek tragedy, but its matter is derived from the fate of Samson among the Philistines. This subject had been in Milton's mind many years before when he had been looking for a theme for his epic, but it had then been discarded in favour of the fall of man. He returned to it now perhaps because he saw in the hero an image both of himself (blind, disappointed, and surrounded by enemies) and of the Puritan cause overwhelmed by the power of its enemies.