Record Number: 17375

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

[Marginalia in Keats's annotated copy of "Paradise Lost" in Book 2, lines 546-61]: Keats underlines the following: the lines from 'Others, more mild, /Retreated in a silent valley' to 'By doom of battle'; 'Their song was partial, but the harmony'; 'Suspended Hell'; 'in discourse more sweet/ (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense)/ Others apart sat on a hill retired'. He writes: 'Milton is godlike in the sublime pathetic. In Demons, fallen Angels, and Monsters the delicacies of passion, living in and from their immortality, is of the most softening and dissolving nature. It is carried to the utmost here - "Others more mild" - nothing can express the sensation one feels at "Their song was partial" etc. Examples of this nature are divine to the utmost in other poets - in Caliban "Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments" etc. In Theocritus, Polyphemus, and Homer's Hymn to Pan where Mercury is represented as taking his "homely fac'd" to heaven. There are numerous other instances in Milton - where Satan's progeny is called his "daughter dear", and where this same Sin, a female, and with a feminine instinct for the showy and martial is in pain lest death should sully his bright arms, "nor vainly hope to be invulnerable in those bright arms." Another instance is "pensive I sat alone". We need not mention "Tears such as Angels weep."'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

unknown

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

John Keats

Age:

Unknown

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

31 Oct 1795

Socio-Economic Group:

n/a

Occupation:

poet

Religion:

atheist

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

unknown

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Milton

Title:

Paradise Lost

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

17375

Source:

Print

Author:

John Keats

Editor:

John Barnard

Title:

John Keats: The Complete Poems

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1988

Vol:

n/a

Page:

522

Additional Comments:

The marginalia is transcribed in Appendix 4 of this edition.

Citation:

John Keats, John Barnard (ed.), John Keats: The Complete Poems, (London, 1988), p. 522, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=17375, accessed: 21 December 2024

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Additional Comments:

None