"With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves..."

Ugh, indeed! Matthew is right! I shouldn't have mentioned Milton in my earlier post.

 

Someone, I think it is Graves, has a right old bash at Milton's Lycidas, and damns the whole thing from beginning to end; the main point being that its emotions are false through and through, and all Milton is really interested in his own fame.

 

It's intensely memorable and absolutely stuffed with quotes, however.

 

Empson also has a terrific go at Paradise Lost, devoting an entire book to Milton's appalling God. As a schoolboy I once wrote an essay unequivocally asserting that Paradise Lost was a tedious old bore. The master said he respected the honesty of my sentiments, but disagreed with my conclusion, and said that the poem wasn't boring in the slightest. Later on I changed my mind, quite considerably, but I'm still not able to take the thing in one gulp. It eventually forces one's admiration, but rather in the manner of a multi-tiered wedding-cake. One or two small slices suffice.

 

Charles