“Against... the Bishops” 1639–1642episodic plot like Ariosto’s, beginning ab ovo. He is still committed to a national
subject, but having abandoned unhistorical Arthur, he now wonders “what K[ing]
or Knight before the [Norman] conquest might be chosen in whom to lay the
pattern of a Christian Heroe” and, following Tasso, he invites suggestions from
some potential learned patron. “The instinct of nature” leads him to epic, but he
fears that such high achievement might be frustrated by the cold English climate or,
he now worries, by “the fate of this age.” He also thinks of writing drama (as the
lists in the Trinity manuscript reaffirm), and speculates whether that kind might be
“more doctrinal and exemplary to a Nation” than epic. The models he points to are
classical tragedy, “wherein Sophocles and Euripides raigne,” the Song of Solomon as
a “divine pastoral drama,” and the Apocalypse of St John as “the majestick image of
a high and stately Tragedy.”^102 And he is still attracted to the high lyric like his own
Nativity Ode, finding models in “those magnifick Odes and Hymns” of Pindar and
Callimachus, worthy for art though faulty in matter, and especially in the Psalms
and other biblical songs which he ranks far above all other lyric poetry, “not in their
divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition” (815–16). Such
linkage of biblical with classical models – a constant in Milton’s poetic practice –
indicates his sense of the Bible as a compendium of literary genres and poetic art.
Next he turns to the subjects and the effects of the various kinds of poetry. It serves
to “allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune” (trag-
edy); to celebrate God and his works (“Hymns”); to “sing the victorious agonies of
Martyrs and Saints” (odes); to treat “the deeds and triumphs of just and pious Na-
tions doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ” (epic); and to
“deplore the general relapses of Kingdoms and States from justice and Gods true
worship” (jeremiad).^103 The jeremiad is an unusual addition to the list of genres, but
one that Milton evidently thought relevant to the times.
He also emphasizes the moral and civic uses of poetry. Invoking the Horatian
formula that poetry should teach by delighting, he expounds that formula as Sidney
did, to mean dressing Truth elegantly and making the rugged paths of virtue seem
easy. He supposes that poetry, so conceived, might supplant “the writings and
interludes of libidinous and ignorant Poetasters” that now corrupt the English youth
and gentry (818), and help reform English culture. He also proposes a national
cultural program to reform “our publick sports, and festival pastimes” – the Sunday
games, dancing, maypoles, and other festivities promoted by the king’s Book of
Sports and vehemently denounced by Prynne and other Puritans.^104 Milton would
reform, not abolish, public recreation, in keeping with his long-held belief that
leisure is a necessary respite from arduous labor. One element in his projected
cultural program involves “wise and artfull recitations” of poetry in various public
assemblies as a means to entice the citizenry to the “love and practice of justice,
temperance and fortitude, instructing and bettering the Nation at all opportunities,
that the call of wisdom and vertu may be heard every where” (819). Another ele-
ment involves academies on the Florentine model to “civilize, adorn, and make