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Bodmer and Milton Once More

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2021

C. H. Ibershoff*
Affiliation:
University of Iowa

Extract

Biblical epics like Milton's Paradise Lost, Klopstock's Messias, and Bodmer's Noah, must necessarily give prominence to the hostile, destructive spirits of evil, and inasmuch as these poems are all based on Biblical tradition it is natural that there should be a general similarity in the treatment of them. Several European scholars have maintained that Bodmer's infernal characters were influenced solely by Klopstock. The purpose of this paper, however, is to show that Bodmer borrowed repeatedly, at times almost literally, from Milton's descriptions in Paradise Lost. The evidence which I have presented elsewhere as to Bodmer's indebtedness in other respects to Paradise Lost, would seem to make it probable on general grounds that he was also indebted to Milton for his descriptions of the spirits of evil.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 1928 , pp. 1055 - 1061
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1928

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References

page 1055 note 1 Cf. my papers, “Bodmer's Indebtedness to Klopstock,” PMLA, XLI, 151-160, and “Bodmer and Klopstock Once More,” JEGPh., XXVI, 112-123.

page 1055 note 2 Cf. my paper, “Bodmer and Milton,” JEGPh., XVII, 589-601.

page 1055 note 3 Cf. Noah, p. 125; quotations from Bodmer's poem are from the edition of 1765.

page 1059 note 4 Concerning this airship see my article “Bodmer's Borrowings from an Italian Poet,” Mod. Lang. Notes, XL, 80-84.