Turning Milton's Prose into Poetry

John Savoie

A few days back, I quoted from Milton's Areopagitica, breaking Milton's prose and making it look like poetry:

And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose
to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field,
we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting
to misdoubt her strength.
Let her and Falshood grapple;
who ever knew Truth put to the wors,
in a free and open encounter.
Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

I borrowed my Milton quote from Dartmouth's Milton Reading Room site, but I broke the prose into the free verse that you see just above. I received this prose-broken-into-poetry response from John Savoie on the Milton List:

Of late I too have grown fond of linebreaking prose;
Milton's prose especially rewards the segmentation.

Note that John Savoie is also a poet and a Milton scholar, so he's a voice to listen to . . .