PREFACE In this edition of selected minor poems of Milton I have endeavored to keep clearly in mind the purpose for which it is primarily intended, that of providing proper materials for the careful study, under the immediate direction of a teacher, of one of the English Classics prescribed by the uniform requirements in English which have been generally adopted by our colleges. In other words, I have endeavored to furnish an apparatus of Introductions and Notes which, in the hands of competent teachers, may be useful in fostering and developing the literary appreciation of the pupil. I have chosen to point out the poetic beauty of an epithet rather than to discuss its etymology, and to trace the genesis of the category of literature to which a poem belongs rather than to dwell upon a point of historical grammar. I have tried, too, to interest the pupil in the interpretation of disputed passages, and to enable him to follow the transmission of thought and expression from poet to poet and from age to age by means of abundant, but, I trust, not too diffuse quotation. To avoid confusion, the introductory matter relating to each of the poems has been placed directly before it. I had intended to prefix to the volume a biographical sketch of Milton, but several reasons have induced me to abandon my purpose. The main design of the book is to aid in the study of Milton's work rather than in that of his life. The latter line of inquiry, scarcely less valuable in itself, can be most readily followed by the young student in another volume of this series, Mr. Croswell's edition of Macaulay's Essay on Milton. I need hardly add that I have drawn freely upon previous editors, giving them credit where it seemed proper to do so. I have, too, made use of several editions in the endeavor to obtain a correct and reasonably punctuated text, and I have tried by the use of accents to help the pupil in the pronunciation of unfamiliar proper names and in the sounding of syllables that are necessary to the correct reading of the verses. SEWANEE, TENN., September, 1895. W. P. T. |