interesting and often actually amazing, but their special claim on our attention has to do with the ways they allow us to apprehend symbolic values at the same time as we enjoy actual events.This combination of figurative and factual power is something that all creative artists aspire to--which helps to explain why one of the best-known myths, the story of Orpheus, should have been so often retold through the centuries.
from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: Foreword
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All we can say for sure is that in the late 1630s Milton "almost single-handedly created the identity of the writer as a political activist, [and] of writing as a political vocation"--developing his remarks in "Lycidas" into a fully armed assault on church corruption, and then adding a pamphlet on divorce which immediately became (and to some extent remains) notorious for its insistence that "meet and happy conversation" rather than sexual fidelity be the foundation of a good marriage.
from Andrew Motion: The Guardian: The mystery of genius
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