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Article: Milton's 'Comus.'
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- June 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Much seventeenth-century seduction poetry relies on multivalent language to underscore the significant difference in perspective between the poet and the created voice, the seducer. Thus, the language of seduction often resounds a moral schema antithetical to the ostensible intent of the persona. Such is the case with Comus's seductive speeches in Milton's masque, especially lines 743-44. Comus attempts to seduce the virtuous Lady by using an argument from Nature: "If you let slip time, like a neglected rose / It withers on the stalk with languish't [head.".sup.1] Yet while Comus allures, Milton encodes within the language of temptation the rationale for rejecting the ...