Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Milton's poetic art appears to have numerous affinities with the baroque style prevalent in European painting and architecture in the mid-seventeenth century. Although the baroque had developed as a style closely associated with the Catholic faith, its power and appeal were recognized by Protestant artists too as a way of heightening and dramatizing religious experience. From an early stage Milton ventured to appropriate some of the features of baroque art for his own purposes. In this chapter we shall look at his achievements in this mode; and, since baroque was a development from a neoclassical base, we shall also survey the substantial neoclassical background of Milton's verse. The baroque style was effectively evolved by artists in the service of the Catholic Church as part of the programme to revitalize the Catholic faith after the setbacks of the Reformation. The Council at Trento, in Italy (‘the Council of Trent’), in the course of its long deliberations, lasting from 1545 to 1563, over how to combat the formidable appeal of the doctrines of the Reformed churches of northern Europe, began to encourage a more intensive manner of devotion among the followers of Rome. The faculty of wonder was invoked, greater emphasis was given to the element of the miraculous in religion, the sacraments were shown greater veneration, and the cults of saints and martyrs were favoured. The Jesuit ... log in or subscribe to read full text