Can the same be said of Paradise Lost? What is “real” does not depend on the arbitrary choice of any one, but on the communis sensus, the general assent of those to whom the treatment of the assumed “real” is addressed. Is that any longer so in the case of Paradise Lost? Are the personality of the devil, the insurrection of Lucifer and the rebel angels, and their condemnation to eternal punishment, with power to tempt mortals to do that which will lead to their sharing that punishment, now believed in by any large number of Christian Englishmen or English-speaking Christians, or is it ever likely again to be so believed in? I must leave the question to be answered by every one for himself. But on the answer to it, it is obvious, the realistic basis of Paradise Lost depends. If the reply be negative, then what remains is the magnificence of the imagery and the sonority of the diction. To extol the one over the other in these respects would indeed be invidious. It is enough to place them side by side to manifest their equality. If Milton writes:
Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms;
Dante writes:
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
Parole di dolore, accenti d’ira,
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle,
Facevan un tumulto, il qual s’aggira
Sempre in quell’ aria senza tempo tinta,
Come l’arena quando il turbo spira.
Withal, it would show imperfect impartiality if one failed to allow that there is more variety in the Divina Commedia than in Paradise Lost. Milton never halts in his majestic journey to soothe us with such an episode as that of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, or closes it with so celestial a strain as that describing the interview of Dante with Beatrice in Heaven.
No third poet in any nation or tongue could be named that equals Dante and Milton in erudition, or in the use they made of it in their poetry. The present writer is himself too lacking in erudition to presume to expatiate on that theme. Others have done it admirably, and with due competency. But on this ground, common to them both, I reluctantly part with them. To each alike may be assigned the words of Ovid, Os sublime dedit, and equally it may be said of both, that, in the splendid phrase of Lucretius, they passed beyond the flammantia mœnia mundi. Finally, each could truly say of himself, in the words of Dante,
Minerva spira e conducemi Apollo.
“The Goddess of Wisdom inspires me, and the God of Song is my conductor and my guide.”