Sublime

John Milton—later the author of Paradise Lost—published a pamphlet in which he argued against a law passed by Parliament requiring printers to secure licenses from the government for everything they printed. No book should be censored before publication, Milton argued (though it might be condemned after printing), because truth could only be establ

Tom had read aloud a Seamus Heaney poem, ‘Blackberry Picking’, and was talking about landscape as a source of allegory, as well as political and social commentary. The challenge was to find fresh ways to describe nature, he said, to see its potential for secrets, for clues.

‘I’m uncommonly glad to be here – I was never so proud and happy in my life – never so happy, you know.’ This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing; for, unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away – even couplets from Pope may be but ‘fallings from us, vanishings’,215 when fear clutches us, and a glass of sherry is hurrying