The Language Of Language In Milton's Paradise Lost

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17/PELA/034 Language in Milton’s Paradise Lost Milton is an English poet and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, which is written in blank verse. William Hayley’s 1796 biography called him the “greatest English author” (McCalman 605). His poetry and prose reflects his self-determination and need for freedom. For a long time Milton served as a Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. His main job in this position was to compose the English Republics Foreign correspondence in Latin. The epic poem Paradise Lost deals with the major theme of Man’s disobedience to God’s will. Therefore in a way it documents the history of mankind and its relationship with God. By attaining the status of an epic, it serves as a guide for the moral. Milton in his epic poem, uses the grand style or the elevated style. He did this to show justice the issues he discusses there. The grand or the elevated style of Milton refers to the use of complex and long sentences with learned allusions and unusual words. In Paradise Lost he uses number of allusions and archaic vocabulary. The diction, the prosody and the syntax ,the subtle co-operation of the meaning and music, are all of them token of an underlying permanence, the sweep of the grand style towards its destiny. According to Addison, “It is requisite that the language of a heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime”(38). Milton maintained sublimity by using

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