The Project Gutenberg EBook of Milton's Comus, by John Milton

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Title: Milton's Comus

Author: John Milton

Editor: William Bell

Release Date: November 15, 2006 [EBook #19819]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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{Transcriber's notes:
~Bold~ text is surrounded by tildes ~, _italic_ text by underscores _.
+Greek+ text is transliterated and surrounded by plus signs +.
oe ligatures have been unpacked.
Letters with overscores are represented as {=a}, {=e}, {=o}.
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the use of ae ligatures. No changes have been made to the original.
}

MILTON'S COMUS

WITH
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY
WILLIAM BELL, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC, GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE

London
MACMILLAN AND CO
AND NEW YORK
1891

[_All rights reserved_]

First Edition, 1890.
Reprinted, 1891.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION, vii
COMUS, 7
NOTES, 38
INDEX TO THE NOTES, 113

INTRODUCTION.

Few poems have been more variously designated than _Comus_. Milton
himself describes it simply as "A Mask"; by others it has been
criticised and estimated as a lyrical drama, a drama in the epic style,
a lyric poem in the _form_ of a play, a phantasy, an allegory, a
philosophical poem, a suite of speeches or majestic soliloquies, and
even a didactic poem. Such variety in the description of the poem is
explained partly by its complex charm and many-sided interest, and
partly by the desire to describe it from that point of view which should
best reconcile its literary form with what we know of the genius and
powers of its author. T