The Arch Antagonist

Abstract

The recognition that Milton in his maturer phase belongs within a baroque context is, as was noted earlier, of only academic interest unless it can offer some deeper insights into the literary quality of his epic. Indeed, for those readers who remain suspicious of attempts to relate literature to contemporary changes in the visual arts, there is often a feeling that the very establishing of such cultural affinities detracts in some way from the achievement of the individual writer. It is as though he has been relegated from the status of an independent and original creator to that of a mere purveyor of current fashion.¹ As so often, perhaps here too Shakespeare can prove illuminating. In a well-known passage defining the function of drama—a definition which should be extended to include all creative art—Hamlet informs the players that its purpose is not only universal (‘… to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature’) but also of immediate contemporary relevance (to show ‘… the very age and body of the time his form and pressure’). It is the task of the writer or artist, in addition to speaking to all generations, to present to his contemporaries, by means of his greater insight and sensitivity, the true image of his own era, often before they are aware of it.