The Milton is uncomfortable with its slaughtered Scots (BTW who got slaughtered at Darwen Lancashire?) and reference to King Charles's neck (Charles was beheaded, remember) but I think less so to Milton for whom beheading kings and slaughtering Scots were sacred duties. But Wordsworth is all over the place, those last 2 lines are just lame...
We remember W the revolutionary (bliss was it in that dawn to be alive) but in 1802 he was in a v different place. Peace of Amiens and now disillusioned with French Revolution and returning to France to break off with his French erstwhile lover and mother of hils daughter. Did he write this before or after that visit of August 1802? Do we know?
All that said. Respect. Any poet who can pull off Petrarchan sonnet in English.
Milton's church was limited to The Church of England, he dealt with the Catholic Church, including some of its monks in the opening few pages of Paradise Lose, particularly to the Franciscans and Capuchins. There he was little less bloody than Cromwell, which is perhaps what allowed him to write such a bloody sonnet.
The Milton is uncomfortable with its slaughtered Scots (BTW who got slaughtered at Darwen Lancashire?) and reference to King Charles's neck (Charles was beheaded, remember) but I think less so to Milton for whom beheading kings and slaughtering Scots were sacred duties. But Wordsworth is all over the place, those last 2 lines are just lame...
We remember W the revolutionary (bliss was it in that dawn to be alive) but in 1802 he was in a v different place. Peace of Amiens and now disillusioned with French Revolution and returning to France to break off with his French erstwhile lover and mother of hils daughter. Did he write this before or after that visit of August 1802? Do we know?
All that said. Respect. Any poet who can pull off Petrarchan sonnet in English.
Milton's church was limited to The Church of England, he dealt with the Catholic Church, including some of its monks in the opening few pages of Paradise Lose, particularly to the Franciscans and Capuchins. There he was little less bloody than Cromwell, which is perhaps what allowed him to write such a bloody sonnet.