Keywords
Classical Tradition, Homer, Virgil, Milton, Poetry, Emotion.
Abstract
In his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, T. S. Eliot famously asserts that very few can actually access "significant emotion" in poetry, and do so by understanding where relics of the classical tradition assert their immortality. In my article, I support Eliot's claims by demonstrating two (previously undiscussed) occasions where Milton, via Paradise Lost, inserts Christianity into the classical world: Satan and Abdiel alluding to Virgil's Remulus and Ascanius, and then Eve and Adam with Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus. Ultimately it will be apparent that not only does Milton's poetry obtain Eliot's "significant emotion" and its associated immortality, but also by its methods, offers a strong contrast to some inferior modern habits.
Issue and Volume
Volume 16, Issue 2
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Gorner, Aaron BY
(2024)
"Milton, Immortality, and Obtaining Eliot's "Significant Emotion","
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 16:
Iss.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol16/iss2/3