Comus Literary Elements

Because the masque is a dramatic text, there is no singular speaker who narrates for its entirety. However, the Attendant Spirit becomes a de facto narrator of the events of the masque. He is the first to appear in the performance, and his opening speech provides contextual information that helps frame the rest of the performance for the audience. He also recapitulates major plot points when he visits the two brothers. Finally, the Attendant Spirit is the last to speak in the performance, as he cautions the audience to follow God's word above all else if they wish to ascend to heaven. The Attendant Spirit, sent by Jove and therefore outfitted with the knowledge of the celestial world, lends the masque an omniscient perspective that helps readers and audiences better understand the events that take place.

The primary form of the poem is blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter. Occasionally, the masque employs iambic and trochaic tetrameter to suggest lightheartedness and mirth.

Simile: "Of every salt flood, and each ebbing stream, / Took in by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove, / Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles / That like to rich and various gems inlay / The unadorned bosom of the deep" (19-23).

Here, the Attendant Spirit compares the various lakes and rivers of the area to jewels on a woman's neck, suggesting their beauty and importance to maintaining Neptune's power.

Simile: "They left me then, when the grey-hooded Even / Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed / Rose from the hindmost wheels of of Phoebus' wain" (188-190).

Here, the Lady informs the disguised Comus that her brothers left her at dusk to look for food. She compares the arrival of evening to a solemn pilgrim traveling to the Holy Land.

Simile: "If those you seek / It were a journey like the path to heaven, / To help you find them" (302-304).

Here, Comus assures the Lady that he has seen her brothers and offers to help her locate them. He compares the search to the path to heaven, implying that he is happy to accompany her. Comus, at this point in the masque, is disguised as a courteous shepherd. His allusion to the path to heaven is ironic because of his resemblance to Satan in the book of Genesis.

Metaphor: "'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity; / She that has that, is clad in complete steel" (420-421).

Here, the Elder Brother tells the Second Brother that their sister has a hidden strength in her chastity. He equates chastity with a soldier's armor, suggesting that this inner virtue is actually a powerful form of protection against sin.

Metaphor: "For swinish gluttony / Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, / But with besotted base ingratitude / Crams, and blasphemes his feeder" (776-779).

Here, the Lady defends the notion of temperance. She equates Comus to a pig who gorges itself on food without thinking about who provided it. This swine metaphor is common in Milton's work, as he often used the figures of gluttonous pigs to describe those he saw as corrupt and self-indulgent (namely, members of the English clergy).

As a skilled rhetorician, Comus is the character who relies on poetic devices like alliteration most frequently. He uses linguistic manipulations to encourage his followers and to tempt the Lady into joining him. Examples of such moments include his goading his hoard to "Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, / In a light fantastic round" at the beginning of the masque (143-144). When speaking to the Lady, he employs alliteration while disguised as a shepherd, hoping to convince her to accompany him to his palace: "I know each lane, and every alley green, / Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, / And every bosky bourn from side to side / My daily walks and ancient neighborhood" (311-314). The masque suggests that Comus's rhetorical skill renders him more dangerous to the Lady, as he represents temptation to sin just as Satan does with Eve in the book of Genesis and, eventually, Milton's epic Paradise Lost.

That the primary protagonist of the masque is a woman rather than a man is a central form of irony in the text. Making the Lady Comus a formidable force, Milton introduces an alternative form of heroism that departs from traditional masculine portrayals of heroes from antiquity. Instead, Milton uses the masque to underscore the importance of Christian virtues, which he represents through the Lady's chastity, constancy, and devotion. In so doing, Milton suggests that heroism can be quietly achieved as long is one is loyal to God.

A similar form of irony exists in the brothers' assault on Comus, which proves unsuccessful as Comus is able to escape. The brothers attack Comus with swords and do not heed the Attendant Spirit's instructions to seize Comus's wand. As such, their infiltration of Comus's palace fails to free their sister completely, and it is Sabrina the river nymph who must finish the job. Here, Milton once again replaces masculine force with feminine virtue, suggesting that the latter is more efficacious in combatting sin.

Masque/Drama

The action of the poem takes place in an unnamed wooded area at an unspecified time, and includes elements from both antiquity and contemporary Christianity.

The tone of the masque shifts frequently depending on the action. Notable tones include anxious, ominous, critical, ironic, hopeful, and celebratory.

The Lady is the protagonist and Comus is the antagonist.

The major conflict of the masque is that between the Lady and Comus. Comus attempts to convince the Lady to drink from his magic cup. He also argues in favor of luxurious and indulgent living. The Lady rejects both of these temptations, advocating instead for a life of temperance and the role of chastity as a protector. Thus, like the book of Genesis, the central conflict in the masque is that between virtue and temptation, or God's word and sinfulness.

The climax of the masque occurs when Comus dispels with the argument he is having with the Lady and raises his magic cup to her lips. The brothers rush in to Comus's palace as they attempt to free their sister. They are able to break Comus's glass, but he eventually escapes. As the masque reaches its resolution, the Attendant Spirit must call on the river nymph Sabrina to release the Lady from Comus's charms.

The masque does not rely heavily on foreshadowing. Instead, the Attendant Spirit's presence at the beginning of the performance helps make the audience aware of what conflict is likely to come. He announces that he has been sent to earth by Jove in order to protect those who are virtuous, and explains that the Lady and her brothers are traveling through unfamiliar territory and require his assistance. He also explains Comus's genealogy and why he is considered a threat. By the end of the Attendant Spirit's first speech, the poem foreshadows that the siblings will likely encounter and be tempted by Comus as they make their way to their father's house.

Comus speaks in an understated way when he firsts encounters the Lady, attempting to convince her that he is a homely shepherd. He asks her a number of questions and speaks humbly of himself. Finally, when he entreats her to follow him, he invites her to "a low / But loyal cottage," which instead turns out to be an elaborate palace (319-320). By using the language of understatement, Comus deceives the Lady into thinking he is courteous and genuine.

Milton is well-known for his use of allusions in his work, and Comus is no exception. The masque is dominated by two central allusive modes - that of antiquity or Paganism and that of contemporary Christianity. The general framework of the masque comes from antiquity, or ancient Roman and Greek mythology: Comus is the offspring of the god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe, the Attendant Spirit is sent to earth by Jove, and the setting of the text makes frequent reference to nymphs and local deities. However, the masque also makes use of Christian ideology in the form of the Lady's chastity, the Attendant Spirit as guardian angel, the temptation by Comus (which parallels the temptation by Satan in the bible), and the commitment to virtue at the end of the performance. These allusions lend the text flexibility to remark on the current political and social climate of early modern England while at the same time remaining distant from these critiques by appearing to depict familiar characters from the literary past.

Comus's wand becomes a metonymical object in the masque, as it comes to stand in for his power as a sorcerer. The Attendant Spirit encourages the two brothers to destroy the wand in order to release their sister from Comus's charms. When they fail to do so, Comus escapes with his powers in tact.

The magical cup is also a metonymical representation of temptation and desire. Signifying indulgence in food and drink, the cup comes to represent all luxury and excess that Comus condones. It therefore serves as a symbol of temptation that the Lady must reject in order to save herself from becoming part of Comus's hoard.

"But their way / Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood, / The nodding horror of whose shady brows / Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger" (36-39).

At the beginning of the masque, the Attendant Spirit remarks that anyone who travels through this wooded setting is vulnerable because of its winding and confusing pathways. He characterizes the woods as having "shady brows," suggesting that the setting is enveloped in darkness and danger.

"Shall I inform my unacquainted feet / In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?" (180-181).

Here, the Lady attributes blindness to the woods through which she travels, underscoring her own sense of confusion as she attempts to navigate through the surroundings to find her brothers.

"And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake, / Till all thy magic structures reared so high, / Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head" (797-799).

Here, the Lady threatens Comus with what will happen to him if she relies on her chastity and virtue to protect herself. She lends corporeal attributes to the earth, a common form of personification that characterizes Nature as a woman with creative power.

"Rigour now is gone to bed, / And Advice with scrupulous head, / Strick Age, and sour Severity, / With their grave saws in slumber lie" (107-110).

In his first appearance in the masque, Comus encourages his followers to enjoy themselves because the austerity of the daytime has been replaced wit the cover of nightfall. Here, he speaks hyperbolically, declaring that the need for virtue has disappeared with the sun and that debauchery can roam free.

"But Beauty like the fair Hesperian tree / Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard / Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye" (393-395).

These lines, spoken by the Second Brother, imply that their sister's beauty requires supernatural power to defend it. The brother speaks hyperbolically by alluding to a dragon that stands guard, but ultimately it is the Lady's chastity that acts as her protector against Comus.

N/A