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Article: The narrator as chorus in 'Paradise Lost.'
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- January 1, 1993
- Author:
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Milton's narrator invokes his muse to aid the "advent'rous Song" that is Paradise Lost, "while it pursues / Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme" (1:12-16).(1) Its attempt, I suggest, is to incorporate the choric voice of tragedy into the narrative structure of epic, as well as to incorporate Christian subject matter. The Trinity manuscript and Edward Phillips's biography provide evidence that Paradise Lost was conceived as tragedy and, in part, written as tragedy many years before it was published as epic. I propose that during its long gestation, the chorus became the narrator, retaining nevertheless, by conscious choice of the author, the personality and roles of a ...