4. Features of his Poetry. (a) The Puritan Strain. All through his life Milton’s religious fervor was unshaken. Even his enemies did not deny his sincerity. It is seen even in one of his earliest sonnets:
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.
It persists even to the end, when it runs deeper and darker. In Paradise Lost, for example, his chief motive is to “justify the ways of God to men.”
This religious tendency is apparent in (1) the choice of religious subjects, especially in the later poems; (2) the sense of responsibility and moral exaltation; (3) the fondness for preaching and lecturing, which in Paradise Lost is a positive weakness; (4) the narrowness of outlook, strongly Puritanical, seen in his outbursts against his opponents (as in Lycidas), in his belief regarding the inferiority of women, and in his scorn for the “miscellaneous rabble.”
(b) The Classical Strain. Curiously interwoven with the severity of his religious nature is a strong bent for the classics, which is pagan and sensuous. His learning was wide and matured; he wrote Latin prose and verse as freely as he wrote English. His classical bent is apparent in (1) his choice of classical and semi-classical forms—the epic, the Greek tragedy, the pastoral, and the sonnet; (2) the elaborate descriptions and enormous similes in Paradise Lost; (3) the fondness for classical allusion, which runs riot through all his poetry; (4) the dignity of his style, and its precision and care. His very egoism takes a high classical turn. In his blindness he compares himself with
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.
In his choice of diction we have the classical element abundantly apparent; and, lastly, the same element appears in the typical Miltonic grandeur and frigidity, the arrogant aloofness from men and mortals.
(c) His Poetical Genius. As a poet Milton is not a great innovator; his function is rather to refine and make perfect. Every form he touches acquires a finality of grace and dignity. The epic, the ode, the classical drama, the sonnet, the masque, and the elegy—his achievements in these have never been bettered and seldom approached. As a metrist he stands almost alone. In all his meters we observe the same ease, sureness, and success.