- Sep 2018
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www.dartmouth.edu www.dartmouth.edu
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how deficient they are in the regulating of their own family; not only in what may concerne the vertuous and decent composure of their minds in their severall places, but that which is of a lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the outward vessell, their body
Milton is really fired up about this issue, probably because he views the people he's speaking about as as morally corrupt as possible, since he claims they have no control over their family, virtues, or bodies because they lack self control. I'm curious what in particular he counts as not taking care of the body or the household
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For there is not that thing in the world of more grave and urgent importance throughout the whole life of man, then is discipline.
This fits with what Milton seems to think is important, as evidenced with his whole argument about how people need to have a form of discipline (self-discipline) to be truly virtuous people.
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www.dartmouth.edu www.dartmouth.edu
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But com thou Goddes fair and free
The tonal shift between the preceding line and this one is interesting; it could draw a connection between the feeling of mirth and escapism.
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www.dartmouth.edu www.dartmouth.edu
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Where I may sit and rightly spell, [ 170 ] Of every Star that Heav'n doth shew, And every Herb that sips the dew; Till old experience do attain To somthing like Prophetic strain.
This section makes me think that Milton embraced melancholy more because of the opportunity to endow importance onto less fanciful things, as the opposing poet may have done; he is content to study the stars, herbs, and other small things and attribute to them "somthing like Prophetic strain"
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