For Milton, the poet was polemicist, patriot, pastor, and priest. His audience was the nation, and his muse nothing less than almighty God. If he knew he must prepare for his calling by “industrious and select reading, steddy observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affaires,” he knew also that such preparation could not in itself be enough. The complex role demanded something more: “devout prayer to that eternall Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallow’d fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he
...more
R12301152143
This harks back to Dante and his similar appraisal of poetry in the Divine Comedy, if I recall correctly.
