Cosmological Lore in Milton

Abstract

Milton's astronomy has received more critical attention than any other of his scientific interests, and yet the story is still incomplete. Milton's prose has been relatively untapped; his very close relationship to the traditional lore of cosmology as set forth in the popular, vernacular encyclopedias of science has never been demonstrated. From the edition of Patrick Hume down to the recent challenging work of Grant McColley, the astronomy of Paradise Lost has been combed over, occasionally to prove a thesis, but usually to clarify Milton's meaning. Within the past two decades, the researches of Allan Gilbert,' Miss Marjorie Nicolson,2 and Grant McColley3 set forth the place of the new astronomy in Milton's thought and art, and particularly in Paradise Lost. Just as the earlier studies of Warren,4 Orchard,5 Masson,6 and Verity 7 suffer from brevity and omission, so do these later articles leave much unsaid. Gilbert treats chiefly those elements of astronomy paralleled in Galileo and Sacrobosco. Miss Nicolson emphasizes the contrir butions of the telescope to Milton's visual imagery. McColley has on the one hand projected Milton against a background of highly technical astronomical science and on the other sought to establish the sources of Raphael's dialogue with Adam. The