John Milton 1667 https://mustardfox.org/zzhaoe-003G/ zzhaoe-003G /zzhaoe-003G/ Milton's advice for those engaging in poetry quote Paradise Lost The great Poem is prefaced with a diatribe against Rime: The measure is English Heroic Verse, without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by theuse of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint, to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have exprest them. Not without cause, therefore some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note, have rejected Rime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also, long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of it self, to all judicious ears, triveal and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing. References Context Backlinks Related John Milton 1667 https://mustardfox.org/milton-paradise-lost/ milton-paradise-lost /milton-paradise-lost/ Paradise Lost reference Contributions