AG: Now, Milton, in the “Preface” to Paradise Lost “doth say”, (on his verse form) – “The measure is English heroic verse, without rhyme, as that in Homer in Greek or Virgil, in Latin, rhyme being no longer necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age…” – ((He’s) talking about rhyme here) – “..to set off wretched matter and lame meter, graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worst than else they would have expressed them.” – (Because they had to fix it into rhyme) – “Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself to all judicious ears trivial and of no true musical delight, which consists only…” – ( now he’s going to define what he feels is true musical delight in verse. This is Milton talking) – “in apt numbers” – (numbers, the counting of the syllables) – “fit quantity of syllables” – (quantity, count the number of syllables, the quantity of them, the “fit quantity” – that is to say, length of syllable, as in classic verse, Latin and Greek). The count of the syllable length. Here showing that Milton, one of our great sensitives of poetics of all time in England, was also concerned with this notion of quantity that Ezra Pound in the 20th century returned to our attention. Quantity (equals) length of vowel)” – “…and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings.” – “sense variously drawn out from one verse into another,” – just as, remember, you hesitated but then there was that run-on line?
AG: “(T)he sense variously drawn out from one verse to another and not cut short to make a rhyme, and not in the jingling sound of like endings..” – (Rhymed endings (or) like endings. endings alike) – “…a fault avoided by the learned ancients, both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it is rather to be esteemed and an example set; the first in English”- says Milton – “of ancient liberty recovered to the heroical poem.” – “ancient liberty recovered to the heroical poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of writing.”
Peter Orlovsky: What does “ancient liberty” mean?
AG: The liberty of the classical writers of Greek and Latin who didn’t have to use rhyme also. But instead fit number, apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, in a sense variously drawn out from one verse to another. In fact, for those who have not read Milton, the first sentence in Paradise Lost is then necessary as a comment on his non-rhyme, or his aesthetic, or his verse-line and his rhetorical sound. So you should hear that in your ear once to know where Blake goes (with it) – how Blake comes from Milton.
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit/ Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste/ Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/ Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/ Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top//Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire/ That shephered who first taught the chosen seed/ In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth/ Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill/ Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed/ Fast by the oracle of God, I thence/ Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,/ That with no middle flight intends to soar/ Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues/ Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”
Well, that’s pretty good. To start off your epic that way – “Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”
The, first, was the invocation to the Heavenly Muse that inspired Moses on Sinai. Or, if the reader is more delighted by the Muse of “Sion’s hill” or “Siloa’s brook”, that would be … what is that there? – “(T)o soar above th’ Aonian mount,” that would probably be Mount Parnassus, so that would be the Greek Muses. You’re going to soar above the level of nature (and) above the level of the pagan Muses.
So that’s Milton’s sound, and Blake’s comes from that or Blake’s takes off from there, except the Miltonic verse is shorter – [Allen reads, emphasizing the line breaks] “Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste/ Brought death into the world, and all our woe/, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/ Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/ Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top..” – Five-five-five. They’re all blank verse, five beat., basically five beat – “Brought death/into/the world/and all/our woe,” – or “Brought/death/into the world/and all our/woe” – “Brought/death/ into the world/and all/our woe.” – That would be the five heavies. And if you did it mechanically, “Brought DEATH inTO the WORLD, and ALL our WOE,” or if you counted the actual accented words — if you were counting the rhetorically-accented words, the words that were accented in actual speech – (it would be) “BROUGHT DEATH into the WORLD and ALL our WOE.” So that’s how you could count the Milton line. (Any) way you (count) it, you get five.
Is this making sense? You know the old high school way of duh-dah duh-dah duh-dah duh-dah duh-dah. So if you did it just mechanically it would be “Brought DEATH inTO the WORLD, and ALL our WOE,” and if you did it according to speech you’d have to figure out what are the elemental words in the line and count those – Milton’s is five; Blake’s is, as I said, a seven-beat line. Just to get him back
We might get to what Blake has to say about that oratory. Is anybody interested (in) this verse form shot?
[Audio for the above can be heard – here – beginning at approximately twenty-one-and-a-half minutes in and concluding at approximately thirty-three-and-a-half minutes in]