Note on Milton's Poetic Style.

Among the greatest artists the world Literature has produced Milton is one of them. In sublimity of thought and majesty of expression, both sustains at almost super-human pitch, he has no competent superior and no rival equaled in English Literature.

Milton's Poetic Style:

Milton is conscientious artist; he chooses and weighs every word before he sets it for his composition. He faxes every line to its fullest capacity and rings the last drop value from each word. In this respect he is different from Shakespeare whose art lies in its artlessness.

Another essential quality of Miltonic style is allusiveness. The whole treasury of poetry and whole storehouse of learning are at Milton's command, he assumes that they are also at the command of his reader and so he loads his poetry with myth and legend historical literary and scientific facts. Of no other English style is erudite, so integral a part, classical and Biblical allusion is, of course, the most plentiful. It serves as a kind of current coin of expression with which Milton conveys a meaning in poetic and cultural suggestion.

One of the features of Miltonic style, described as inversion occurs in English poetry before the Renaissance. There is one of the natural orders of words and phrases in the poetry. Sometimes Milton places a noun between adjectives "temperate vapours  bland," and verb between nouns "Firm peace recovered soon and wanted calms". Suspension as a trait of style is differentiated from simple suspension as a matter of syntax through its greater artificiality and elaborateness. In Paradise Lost, such suspensions recur at frequent intervals:

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into world, an all our owe

With loss of Eden,"

Milton's poetry is suggestive; in Milton more is meant than meets the ear. Much is left for the imagination of the reader. Milton throws out hint about Heaven, Hell, Chaos, God, and Devils and invites the readers to fill in the blanks. Satan's huge feature is described with a few suggestive stroke, "Head uplifted above the wave," eyes that sparkling blaze and other parts is bulk as large, "As whom the fables name of monstrous sized." The effect of Milton's poetry is produced not by what is expense as by what it suggests. Lord Macaulay says, "He sketches and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note and expect his hearers to make out the melody."

Milton uses Latin words and phrases to elevate his style and meaning. This has led to the common charge that Milton has made, English foreign language. There are also other charges against him that his poetry is at the furthest remove from prose and he shows a feeling for words rather than a capacity for feeling through words. Keats, T. S. Eliot and F.R Leavis make these charges but Marvell, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others praise Milton for his great style. On this Mathew comments "Milton from one end of Paradise Lost to the other is in his diction and rhythm constantly a great artist in the great style.