The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-04-11

literature. 1t ts so powerful in beauty,
in melody, in Intellectual presentment,
that for generations it fairly imposed
on the English Imagination, and al
though it bore little relation to the
mysterious, brief account of paradise
and the fall in holy writ we still today
mix up Milton and the Bible. And yet,
with all the beauty of the description
we do not feel as if Milton had Wis
tied the place. I am quite sure that
Dante, in his own person, wandered
in that little wood. where the breeze
was blowing and the brook was flow
ing, on the top Of the Mount of Pur-
gatory. ! am never confess, certain
that Millions own feet had strayed
through the winding paths Of his Eden.
The noblest part of the Paradise
Lost IS the marvelouSly exalted yet
somber treatment Of hell and of Luci-
fer. Every one knows the magnificent
description Of that dreary but impress
sive region of the shades: of Iucifer.
with faded splendor wan" presiding,
in dignity great as his anguish, over
his coneourse of grand though SHINING
demons, winging his way in awful
Hight through chaos, tempting Eve, de-
spite momentary visiting of remorse-
full agony, and returning TO his dark
realm, only TO find that he presides by
poetic justice splendidly conceived no
longer over internal princes, but over
Internal serpents. 1t is glorious work.
Dante has nothing like it. There is
famous passage in Macaulay's youth
full essay on Milton, comparing the con-
ceptions of hell in Milton and in Dante,
in which Macaulay says that Milton is
far the greater because less definite.
| leaving more scope for his imagination:
and it has been pointed out again and
again that Millions hell and his devil
have an unfailing dignity and grand
! eur. While Dante'S are often almost alb
/ surdly grotesque It is true. Nothing
| could be more strangely different for
! instance, than the conceptions of Luci-
/ fer. Dante'S Bucifer is no magnificent
/ ly tragic. impressive, though fallen an
! gel; he is helpless, monStrOus crea-
! ture. He sticks forever. motionless, at
| the lowest point Of hell, in the exact
| center of the earth; the weight of the
whole material world pressing upon
| him from every side. From his three
! horrible heads flow tears that perpetu-
! ally freeze, he gnaws three chief sin
ners in his three jaws, and the slow
waving of his bat-like wings diffuses
an icy wind Of death throughout the
nethermost hell; for to Dante, cold. not
IRE. is the supreme expression of the
second death. All this is very strange;
/ far less appealing than Milton; yet if
we think we may discover that Dante
/ had special meaning and had brooded
long over the nature and function of
evil before he presented Lucifer as he
did.
Meanwhile, when we turn to compar-
ing the heavens Of the two poets, Ma
caulay's distinction becomes entirely
| false; one questions if he had ever read
anything in Dante beyond the Infer
| no. For Millions heaven is a large,
definite country, with precise geogra-
ply, up somewhere in the sky. Dante S
is infinite though ordered space The
heaven Of Paradise Lost" is surround
ed by crystal battlement; the rebel
| angels have their country seats in the
northern part Of the land; when they
are in the final conflict routed by the
| Messiah they are driven back TO the
battlement, and. breaking through 1t.
| fall down, down. through the material
universe Of chaos. till they tumble
into hell The denizens Of this country
are as clearly visible TO US as the seem
cry. They are magnificent creations,
Milton's angels; it is well TO compare
them with Dante's, which are quite
differently and far more mysticaiiy
conceived-less loquacious, less intelh-
! gent statesmen on a heroic scale; more
Ike spiritual forces. focused ana made
visible There is one point, at all
events. and this most important, where
no one can question which or our TWO
poets is the greater-the treatment OF
the Deity. Here Milton made great
mistake, for he brought God directly