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PARTISAN REVIEW
or "or" where the sentence needs more detailed logical structure, be–
cause he aims at both a compact and weighty style (which involves
short clauses) and a sustained style with momentum (which involves
long clauses). It's hard to say which is the most confusing part of
this tangle, the fact, the motive, or the consequence. The basic fact
is doubtful or worse; for Milton's grammatical looseness is more
often a matter of the verb or the modifiers than of the connectives.
Bentley devotes much of
his
energy to separating verbs from inap–
propriate subjects, and to adding new verbs and new subjects where
he thinks they are needed. By contrast, he spends little time strength–
ening connectives; and where he does, it's hard to see how a con–
fusion of style as between long and short clauses is behind Milton's
difficulty. A special Miltonic fondness for "or" as a connective perhaps
derives from the frequently unresolved character of Milton's allegory,
mythology, and cosmology. Sometimes he doesn't want us to inquire
too closely into the ways and means of a process (IV 805) or a
mode of existence (X 1001) ; and he often wants us to keep in mind
three or four swift, glancing comparisons at once (IX 392). But this
balancing and aggregating of ideas is not a matter of long or short
clauses, of compact or sustained style, since Milton, like Homer, Vergil,
Dante, Lucan, and every other poet knew that the epic manner in–
volved both elements, according to the dramatic occasion.
Finally, Empson delights in bits and scraps of evidence wire–
drawn in arbitrary directions to excessive lengths. This isn't quite the
familiar complaint that what Empson sees in a passage nobody else
including the author could ever have seen. Whether or not one can
see too much in a poem is, in emphasis at least, another question from
whether or not one sees accurately. Empson doesn't always see accur–
ately. To support the point that Satan was justified in thinking him–
self the equal of God, he cites Milton's own language in II 108 as
speaking of the angels as Gods. But Milton says only that the war
Moloch denounces will be dangerous "to less than Gods," and the '
war is certainly dangerous to the angels, particularly the fallen angels,
who are therefore less than Gods. The obvious sense of the passage
is directly opposite to that which Empson gives it. His reading is
often arbitrary in this way; and when the contrary sense isn't posi–
tively indicated, it's frequently possible. With regard to XI 102, the
passage where God foresees that Satan may raise new troubles
