I am rereading Paradise Lost because I picked it for my book club book when it was my turn. A while back I posted about Tennyson borrowing from Milton in his poem Ulysses. I just found another such borrowing I(or influence). I don't see this as plagiarism. Milton's poem was so famous (back in the day) that I'm guessing the more modern poets expected their readers to get the reference. When Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in God's Grandeur
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
he was referencing the Bible (I forget the chapter and verse). He (a Catholic priest) probably expected his readers to know that.
I've always loved George Meredith's "Lucifer in Starlight". Here it is:
On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.
Here's Milton, from chapter 2 of Paradise Lost:
"Satan... Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of hell
Explores his solitary flights; sometimes
He soars the right-hand coast, sometimes the left,
NOw shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
UP to the fiery conclave tow'ring high...."
The comparison isn't as exact as it was with "Ulysses", but I wonder if Meredith was influenced in his choice of words ("soars") by Milton. Perhaps he thought his readers would infer the Satan of "Paradise Lost" as He who sank before the army of unalterable law.
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