From: Richard Watkins [richard.watkins@english.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 12:44 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law My point is that when a modern critic praises Milton for being tolerant of religious difference he/she is ignoring his hatred of catholicism. Either you're tolerant of religious difference or you're not; to say that Milton tolerated people like himself and didn't tolerate people unlike himself is to say nothing. I initially responded to a colleague who announced that Milton had wanted to return church-government to the hands of the people. Only the ones who agreed with him, I think. What about all the moderate protestants who found his views outrageous? Did he want them to have power? Even when they passed an Act making certain of his beliefs capital offences? Those of you who feel the question of anti-catholic rhetoric in renaissance literature is an academic one might be surprised by the publications of Ian Paisley, the leader of the second largest unionist party in Northern Ireland and an elected member of the British and European Parliaments. His sane and moderate website can be found at www.ianpaisley.org , where you will find fully-contextualised articles on such familiar figures as Cromwell, Latimer and the Antichrist (that is, Pope John Paul ii). Let me ward off some complaints in advance by saying that I don't want renaissance literature banned from schools because its most gifted authors were often anti-catholic. I feel comfortable reading and enjoying Milton's writing without having to misrepresent him as a founding father of religious liberty or democracy or any of the other causes we anachronistically associate him with. As Johnson once observed of him, 'Those who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it'. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Rumrich" To: Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 2:27 PM Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > Well, except for the likelihood that he would consider the idiom > "patron saint" obnoxiously papist in import, Milton can be fairly > described--or this academic certainly would describe him as--a, > though not the, patron saint of religious liberty, and in many senses > of that term. True, Milton did not argue for the complete toleration > advocated by Roger Williams. That does not make him comparable to an > anti-semite or racist, any more than his differences with the > Levellers make him comparable to an advocate of rule by hereditary > aristocracy. (I'd look into Roger Williams's history a little more > closely, by the way, before holding him up as the standard of > enlightened seventeenth-century religious belief.) > > Oh, and judging them in their historical context, I do find Milton's > views and Milton himself admirable, and I teach them and him as such. > (Again, this is not to suggest that Milton was some kind of buddha: > it's admiration, not blind approval.) So whinge away; I'm here for > you with my trumpet. > > John Rumrich > > >I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious > >toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the > >patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased > >toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a > >heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, > >for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. > > > >I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or > >didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more > >than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, > >i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's > >possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way > >comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. > > > >Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th > >Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those > >views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I > >tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards > >Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. > > > >Richard > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: > >To: > >Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > > > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could > often be > > > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument > against the > > > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > > > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > > > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > > > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > > > radically divisive as they would be today. > > > > > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > > > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > > > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the > state of > > > Catholics in England at times... > > > > > > Jim > > > > > > << > > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one > either. I > > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism > >as > > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing > that > > > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't > >see > > > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such > >hagiography: > > > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > > > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > > > right. > > > > > > Seb Perry. > > > > > > > > > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > > > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > >To: > > > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > > > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review > of the > >new > > > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > > > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences > >with > > > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > > > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the > Vatican > >II > > > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty > >and > > > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that > >Catholicism > > > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > > > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > > > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 10:03 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law I guess I was wrong about no one really holding up Milton as an exemplar of religious tolerance in this discussion. :) I'm sorry, but I just can't share your views of Milton. His prose seems to go beyond disagreement at times, and the complete shutting down of the Catholic point of view that he advocated seems to exclude him, in my thinking, from being the patron saint of religious liberty. To me, this is situation similar to the fact that the person who wrote the words, "All men are created equal," was a slave owner. Milton's prose, like the prose of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, does in fact open the door for freedom for everyone, even though the people writing it did not advocate extending freedom quite that far at the time. We should praise Milton for establishing principles that transcended the limits he himself set, but we should not praise Milton for transcending those limits himself. He was just as trapped in history as we are. Jim << Well, except for the likelihood that he would consider the idiom "patron saint" obnoxiously papist in import, Milton can be fairly described--or this academic certainly would describe him as--a, though not the, patron saint of religious liberty, and in many senses of that term. True, Milton did not argue for the complete toleration advocated by Roger Williams. That does not make him comparable to an anti-semite or racist, any more than his differences with the Levellers make him comparable to an advocate of rule by hereditary aristocracy. (I'd look into Roger Williams's history a little more closely, by the way, before holding him up as the standard of enlightened seventeenth-century religious belief.) Oh, and judging them in their historical context, I do find Milton's views and Milton himself admirable, and I teach them and him as such. (Again, this is not to suggest that Milton was some kind of buddha: it's admiration, not blind approval.) So whinge away; I'm here for you with my trumpet. John Rumrich >I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious >toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the >patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased >toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a >heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, >for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. > >I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or >didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more >than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, >i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's >possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way >comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. > >Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th >Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those >views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I >tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards >Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. > >Richard >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > > radically divisive as they would be today. > > > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > > Catholics in England at times... > > > > Jim > > > > << > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism >as > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't >see > > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such >hagiography: > > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > > right. > > > > Seb Perry. > > > > > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >To: > > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the >new > > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences >with > > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican >II > > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty >and > > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that >Catholicism > > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > >> > > > > >> From: Kate Narveson [narveska@martin.luther.edu] Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 2:56 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light It's been a while since I worked in this area, and I hope someone will supplement these comments with a more substantive of how the issues relate to Milton. But here is a start at defining the context of a phrase like "inner light": The phrase emerges from English Calvinist attempts to explicate how fallen humankind could obtain divine truth. To what extent can reason be rectified by the holy spirit, is there further revelation, in what ways are experiential metaphors more adequate, etc? One common metaphor was that reason is benighted and the holy spirit must be present as that which sheds light so that reason may see. But others stress reason's blindness, and the need for the restoration of the "visive" power by the work of the Holy Spirit. Usually, the spirit is seen as providing the light, so that "inner light" for moderate Calvinists is not the person's own possession. John Morgan has a chapter in "Godly REason"---though he only goes up to 1640, it sets the context for later discussions, and is good in indicating where Perry Miller was overly rationalistic. Nathaniel Culverwell's "Learned and elegant discourse of the Candle of the Lord" reflects mid-century efforts at the universities to defend the Calvinist understanding of reason's limitations from incipient latitudinarianism and Cambridge Platonism. (The comparison of reason to the candle of the Lord is in Proverbs somewhere---I don't have the right books with me.) The issue moved front and center during and after the interregnum, as moderate nonconformists tried to counter the enthusiasm of the radical sects on the one hand and preserve a Calvinist emphasis on the fallenness of reason vs the rationalist C of E stalwarts on the other. The moderate nonconformist cause was complicated by the fact that establishment polemicists misrepresented Calvinism as enthusiasm, so congregationalist conservatives like John Owen were fighting a battle on two fronts, and statements made against one side were picked up and used against him by the other. This is the context for Owen's massive systematization of Congregationalist pneumatology (still respected by theologians now) and for Theophilus Gale's attempt to use ancient history to prove the fallenness of reason (in "the Court of the Gentiles). In short, terms like "inner light" and "right reason" were immensely controversial, and any particular author's use must be carefully set in the context of his/her works and sectarian associations. Geoffrey Nuttall's book on the holy spirit in puritanism remains the best study I know---recently reissued by Chicago with an intro by Peter Lake. Has someone done this contextualization for Milton? Is there sufficient evidence? It sounds like perhaps it needs to be given more systematic attention. I'd love to hear more. Best, Kate Narveson At 08:11 AM 02/15/2001 -0500, you wrote: > >Dear Derick, and list, > >Yes, I was teasing all of us, whenever we use easy phrases like "inner = >light" (I was sure that Derick could back it up, as he did, with solid = >evidence), but I had some serious issues in mind. Why doesn't Milton = >himself use the exact phrase "inner light?" Why does he beat around that = >bush but say the same thing, as Derick and others have already shown? = >Does that make him a Quaker? > >If I am remembering correctly from having read Thomas Ellwood's autobiograp= >hy over again about a year ago, Ellwood doesn't use the phrase "inner = >light" either. It would be interesting, to me at least, to see where = >Ellwood and Milton differed or agreed, about divine inspiration. Would = >they have talked about Milton's Muse? > >Best to all, > >Roy Flannagan > > From: Arnold, Margaret [mjarnold@ukans.edu] Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 10:38 AM To: 'Rose Williams ' Cc: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Milton, the Common Law, and Roger Williams Thank you, Rose, for the very helpful discussion of Milton and Roger Williams. This is a short query for anyone who remembers. Somewhere I read that Milton and Williams either met or corresponded, perhaps during Williams' visit to England while he was arranging for the publication of "The Bloody Tenet. . . ." The tale continued with Milton helping Williams learn Greek and Williams teaching Milton some Dutch. Is there any evidence for the point, or is their meeting one of the fine Old Scholars' Tales? Margaret Arnold University of Kansas -----Original Message----- From: Rose Williams To: milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: 2/16/01 6:51 AM <00ba01c09687$fb801340$cbe501a3@ox.ac.uk> On the question of Roger Williams: Someone asked if we are discussing "the same Roger Williams who emigrated to America." I think so, since he and Milton were at Cambridge at the same time, though in different colleges. Williams finished Cambridge two years before Milton. I would point out that they were two reformers who took totally different tacks. Milton tried to reform what Americans sometimes called the "Old World;" Williams threw up his hands on that one and set out for the new. In Massachusetts Bay Colony his ideas were so radical that the founders of that New Jerusalem threw him out, and the only folk who helped him keep from starving were the Indians (Native Americans if you prefer, even though it seems to me that that title could refer to anyone born in the Western Hemisphere). The following quotes from Williams' "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience" sound good to modern ears; to the 17th Century they sounded outrageous. "First, that the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace." ...Sixthly, it is the will and command of God, that, (since the coming of his Son, the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries:and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God." Williams also said that the King of England had no right to grant Massachusetts Bay Colony a charter, since the land belonged to the Indians. He was minister of a church in Salem, Massachusetts, but not for long. Salem was not noted for its toleration of "radicals." Fleeing into the forest, he bought land from the Indians and set up a settlement which became Rhode Island. Other "radical" English colonists soon joined him. As I have said before, he and Milton followed a principle in two very different ways. I think each lived in the light that he had; Milton could not have accomplished the things he did had he followed Williams' path. Rose Williams From: Norman Boyer [boyer@sxu.edu] Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 2:13 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments At the end of last semester I was the recipient of several plagiarized papers from the internet in my survey course and (horrors!) in my Milton class. Finding plagiarized papers on the internet turned out to be very easy. I did a search. I used Google, but other search engines should probably work. All I had to do was to type in a suspicious phrase (in quotation marks), and I got the correct paper every time. (I took the phrases from early in the paper, which might make a difference.) I even got a hit on the summary page of one of the term paper mills. This semester, I let my students know that it was easier for me to find the paper that had been used than it was for them to find it in the first place, and I also announced that I would be doing lots of checking in the future, perhaps even random checking. That made an impression. I also had plagiarism on a take-home passage exam, which I found in the same way (aided by the fact that two students had the same answers!) The source was, I believe, SparkNotes. This sure beats having to find sources in the Library! Norman Boyer Saint Xavier University, Chicago At 11:41 AM 02/13/2001 -0800, you wrote: >Many thanks to those who shared writing assignments. Your ideas are excellent, >and I'm sure I'm not the only one who will find them useful. > >John Leonard does well to mention the possibility of plagiarism via the >internet. It's an issue we should all consider when assigning essays, on >Milton >or any other subject. The problem can be contained by altering the assignments >we borrow from our colleagues, so that a paper written for another course and >posted online won't fit the bill. It's also good to set parameters which limit >students' chances of finding a suitable paper online without unduly limiting >their choice of subject. In my introductory Shakespeare course, for example, I >assign a close analysis of a single scene; I offer students a choice of a >half-dozen scenes, and choose different scenes and different plays each >semester. Small adjustments such as these can greatly reduce the chance of >online plagiarism. >Other approaches? > > >Tobias Gregory email: tobias.gregory@csun.edu >Assistant Professor of English phone: 818 677 3563 >California State University, Northridge fax: 818 677 3872 From: Wiznura, Robert [wiznurar@ADMIN.GMCC.AB.CA] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 12:58 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light To open up another can of worms, there is, of course, references to light in relation to conscience are made in CD. Regarding the good conscience, "an approval of them [one's own deeds] which is directed by the light either of nature or of grace" (Carey 652)/"et approbatio ex lumine vel naturae vel gratiae" (Sumner 406). Regarding a bad conscience, "the judgment and disapproval of its own evil actions which each individual mind performs by the light either of nature or of grace. It should really be called a consciousness of evil" (Carey 653)/"lata quidem significatione accepta, ex lumine scilicet vel naturae ve gratiae judicium mentis cujusque de operibus suis malis, eorumque improbatio; quae mali potius conscientia dicenda est" (Sumner 406). Of course, if one rejects CD, these are irrelevant. Rob Wiznura > Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 08:11:02 -0500 > From: "Roy Flannagan" > To: > Subject: Re: Inner light > Reply-to: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Dear Derick, and list, > > Yes, I was teasing all of us, whenever we use easy phrases like "inner = > light" (I was sure that Derick could back it up, as he did, with solid = > evidence), but I had some serious issues in mind. Why doesn't Milton = > himself use the exact phrase "inner light?" Why does he beat around that = > bush but say the same thing, as Derick and others have already shown? = > Does that make him a Quaker? > > If I am remembering correctly from having read Thomas Ellwood's autobiograp= > hy over again about a year ago, Ellwood doesn't use the phrase "inner = > light" either. It would be interesting, to me at least, to see where = > Ellwood and Milton differed or agreed, about divine inspiration. Would = > they have talked about Milton's Muse? > > Best to all, > > Roy Flannagan > > From: Batsis Manolis [xcircuit@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 1:52 AM To: www-style@w3.org Cc: www-style@w3.org Subject: Re: the time load-rendering order >From what i know (please do share your lights anyone) you cannot control rendering order. It seems that rendering is kind of random and depends from a variety of factors, while the purpose of this "algorithm" is to render the whole as soon as possible. The ability of controling importance sounds very usefull but the situation behind it is too complicated so i don't think we are going to see something like this anytime soon. All these are just my thoughts of cource, based on my rather small knowledge base on the subject. --- Ignacio Javier wrote: > Is it possible to include an object's load > importance attribute in HTML a > la: > > loadimportance="1"/> > > so objects could be loaded preferently in a simple > numeric algorithm... > (same number same probabilities, default behavior, > bigger attr values > preferently loaded > later) > > ... or is this a more related css problem? > > * {rendering-policy:strict} > img[id="first"] {rendering-importance: important; > rendering-order: 1} > img {rendering-importance: normal; rendering-order: > 2} > object[type="audio/midi"] {rendering-importance: > low; rendering-order: 99} > > this allows more *interesting* control > > I think it's a merely estructural problem to pretend > to > give emphasis, be this spatial (em, f.e.) or > temporal (like in this case), > so it's an more html fact, but from a practical use > pow, it seems to fit > better in css. > > I should thank feedbacking on this topic. > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From: Margaret Thickstun [mthickst@hamilton.edu] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 10:35 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: inner light Milton associated with Quakers--Pennington and Ellwood--and with Roger Williams. Others can answer in more detail. From: James Dougal Fleming [jdf26@columbia.edu] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 11:55 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu I agree with every word of your un-nuanced critique. I asked my question because it seems to me quite important to separate a "psychological" or "psychiatric" mode of criticism from "psychoanalysis" as such. All too often, in lit-crit thinking, the separation seems not to be made. JDF On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Carrol Cox wrote: > > > James Dougal Fleming wrote: > > > > > > > > > Is manic-depression a "psychoanalytic" -- c'est a dire, proper to the > > school of Freud -- category? Obsession-compulsion, I guess from Rat Man > > etc, is. JDF > > Psychoanalysis is to any serious psychiatric or psychological > thinking as peachpit therapy is to oncology. Fewer and fewer > medical schools have psychoanalysts on their faculties. > Chiropracters at least are relevantly harmless if not very > useful. Psychoanalysis is simply vicious when allowed to > meddle in the treatment of mental illness. Probably in the > last century The Unconscious has been a more significant > source of intellectual silliness & superstition than the > Holy Ghost. > > See Sebastiano Timpanaro, _The Freudian Slip: Pschoanalysis > and Textual Criticism_, London: Verso, 1976, 1985. > > Carrol Cox > > P.S. I'd be a bit more nuanced but I have a broken right > wrist & have to peck this out one letter at a time with > my left hand. > From: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 6:43 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink Two points: 1. "Inner light" and the "testimony within" were both phrases used by the Digger Gerard Winstanley between 1648 and 1652. If memory serves me right, even earlier William Walwyn, the Leveller, also discusses the "inner light." And a number of Behmenists of the early 1650s talked about receiving something like an inner light after having first meditated their minds into a state of "the true nothing." Nigel Smith's book on Radical Religion (1989) is good on this. 2. From my perspective--as someone who has off and on been intimately involved in the business--we should think twice about evoking the cultural authority of psychologists and psychological language of any stripe. At the same time as bio-psychology is making enormous strides in the psycho-pharmacology of the brain, and contributing to mental health with its new generation of "anti-depressants" (which are no such thing), the field of psychology (pro- and anti-anything, including Freud) is more disharmonious than a thousand roomfuls of Miltonists could ever try to be. Freudianism had its limits (as did the no-longer-standard term "manic depression")--but nothing has really taken its place and the discourse of psychology is a muddle. Moreover, it is premature to pronounce the death of some version of depth psychology, and hence some version of Freudianism, because it is still all but impossible to discuss psychological realities without some recourse to depth psychology concepts and terms. Have a nice ego. With best wishes, ===== Robert Appelbaum English Department University of San Diego San Diego, CA 92110-2492 Visit my home page: www.geocities.com/r_appel/Robert.html And please forgive the commercial intrusion below: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ From: Carol Barton, PhD [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 8:43 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FW: Announcement of the Milton Window Project Cynthia (and all), the Foundation is suffering under the strain of mid-fiscal year budget cuts, so they are a little behind the 8-ball at the moment, but all donors receive two letters of acknowledgment: one from the Foundation, acknowledging the amount of the gift (which is not disclosed by individual donor to the Committee) and one from the Committee, thanking you for your participation. I will forward this message intact to UMiss as a gentle reminder, but I'm sure that, if you contributed before 31 December 2000, you will have something from them soon. Thanks very much for your patience -- and your generosity! Carol Barton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cynthia Gilliatt" To: Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 7:30 PM Subject: Re: FW: Announcement of the Milton Window Project > I sent money to the Milton window project and know it got > there, as I have the cancelled check - but I would like to > have a letter affirming that this is deductible and that I > received no benefits etc etc - I'm gathering my tax stuff - > is there an e-mail for the folks doing this that I could > use ? I do have the phone and fax number, but can e-mail > more cheaply.... > Thanks, > Cynthia Gilliatt > > ------------------- > Cynthia Gilliatt > Member JMU Safe Zones > > > English Department > James Madison University > MSC 1801 > Harrisonburg VA 22807 > gilliaca@jmu.edu > > * This e-mail message was sent with Execmail V5.0 * > > From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 1:03 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink Carrol Cox writes > >P.S. I'd be a bit more nuanced but I have a broken right >wrist & have to peck this out one letter at a time with >my left hand. You're in good company, Carrol. Doesn't Milton make the same excuse for his own prose? Cheers, John Leonard From: Carol Barton, PhD [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 6:39 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Donor Acknowledgments Dear Past and Potential Donors to the Milton Quadricentenary Window Project, I have been in contact with the very helpful people at USM. The reason Cynthia Gilliatt (and some others) have not received acknowledgments is because their checks do not have addresses on them: when they become separated from the outer envelope, there is no way for the Foundation to tell whence they came. (Those diligent souls have been contacting Jameela and me on a case by case basis, obtaining addresses where we had them.) If you have sent a donation, and your check does not bear your preprinted address, please e-mail that information to me, and I will collate everyone's data, and forward it on to USM. If you are planning to send a donation, and your check does not bear your preprinted address, please either put an address label on it (perfectly legal), or hand-write your return address. In either case, your support of the Project is very much appreciated. I will be in London in April, and will be pleased to be able to assure the candidate window manufacturer that we now have a viable (funded) program. That will make negotiations as to the final price much more earnest on their part, I'm sure, and I will give you all a status report when I return. Thanks again, on behalf of the Committee, and please do let me know if you have not yet received an acknowledgment of your gift. Best to all, Carol Barton From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 9:34 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: errant message I added my two cents to the cascade on the question of Milton and anti-Catholicism. (I had read only the last few messages, so apologies to list if I've repeated things already said better.) I noticed when it arrived this morning that the date was wrong (January 1, 1904). Ahead of my time, or computer challenged? This note is to direct anyone who might be interested to that date in the in-box. What will happen in the future when scholars comb e-mails as we now comb letters? A smaller date error could have interesting consequences on the reconstruction of time lines. Steve Fallon From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 3:00 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton, Toleration, and Catholicism Jim wrote: >1. Milton was a "religious xenophobe" of some sorts and his actions are >inexcusable. Two wrongs don't make a right (this seems terribly >self-righteous and assumes we transcend history in our own moral >judgments >today. Take my word for it -- we don't. History will tell). Steve Fallon wrote: >By 17th-c standards, Milton is remarkably tolerant, and our >disappointment >that he did not advocate toleration of Catholics is >anachronistic; Perhaps I'm being dim, but if it's self-righteous and anachronistic to call Milton's intolerance of Catholics "wrong", does it not follow that to call Milton's tolerance of other denominations, his republicanism or his belief in liberty "right" or "admirable" is equally self-righteous and anachronistic? If we can't make moral judgments on the past, then why are these beliefs held to be a good thing, and why have many people on this list been talking about the need to commemorate them? Incidentally, I do agree that it's silly to compare his anti-Catholicism to anti-Semitism. But, as a Catholic, I do find his anti-Papism more troubling than Steve Fallon does. Seb. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: whunter [whunter@mymailstation.com] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 8:27 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Plagiarism It has been many years now, but besides assigning quite specific essay areas I warned classes that in reading their papers I might sometimes question their originality. If so--just to ckear up my mind--I would call the individual in to define a few words he or she had used, or to paraphrase an idea in an important paragraph. It worked. W.B. Hunter From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2001 1:07 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light In a message dated 2/16/2001 7:06:48 AM Central Standard Time, jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu writes: I had always thought that "inner light" was a term "belonging"--if anything can be said to do so--to the Quakers. It would appear from the discussion that the idea of inner illumination was much more generally current in the seventeenth century. But can anyone illuminate the Quaker history of the term? The basic reference book in the bibliographies on this subject and its relation to Puritanism I have checked appears to be Nuttall, Geoffrey, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Practice, Oxford: Blackwell, 1946. There's also a bibliography in the Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings, New York: Paulist Press, 1984, which has a generous selection of writings by Quakers on the subject. The crystallization (if that can be the case in such a fluid approach) of the concept seems to start as a reflection on Fox's initial somewhat Boehmian (Jacob Boehme) experiences (I believe Fox had some contact with Boehme's writings, can this be verified?) in contemporaries of Fox such as Francis Howgill, Isaac Penington, and Alexander Parker. It is important to note that the imagery and approach is fluid: terms like the Light of Christ, inner light, Seed, and Spirit are used interchangeably without much theological definition in the traditional sense. Here's an early statement by Howgill, one of Fox's earliest companions: "and God, out of his great love and great mercy, sent one unto us, a man of God ... to instruct us in the way of God more perfectly; which testimony reached unto all our consciences and entered into the INMOST PART OF OUR HEARTS, which drove us to a narrow search, and to a diligent inquisition concerning our state, through the LIGHT OF CHRIST JESUS." (emphasis in all caps is mine). In the writings of later Quakers such as Caroline Stephen and Thomas R. Kelly is the inner light more specifically defined, but again the approach is more experiential. Note the linking of the light concept which can too often turn into a kind of an over-optimistic quietist wallowing in special favors to a traditional evangelical process of salvation from sin: "When questioned as to the reality and nature of the inner light, the early Friends were accustomed to return to ask the question whether they did not sometimes feel something within them that showed them their sins, and to assure them that this same power, which was made manifest, and therefore was truly light, would also, if yielded to, lead them out of sin. This assurance, that the light which was revealed was also the power which would heal sin, was George Fox's gospel. The power itself was described by him in many ways. Christ within, the hope of glory, the light, life, Spirit, and grace of Christ; the Seed, the new birth, the power of God unto salvation ..." This may be a simplistic statement, but it seems to me that the inner light of Quaker spirituality and in similar radical Protestant movements seems to taking the old Augustinian-Neoplatonist topos (filtered through John and Paul) to its "furthest" expression in Christianity. I say furthest to mean furthest from both Roman Catholic orthodoxy structures, both internal and external. Light and seed images of course appear quite often in the works of Vaughan and Traherne, the late Commonwealth and early Restoration periods, the same time as the beginnings of the Quaker movement. Traherne in particular shares something of this sensibility in both the poems and the Centuries. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: melsky [melsky@email.msn.com] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 12:27 PM To: MILTON-L Subject: CUNY Renaissance Lecture [with apologies for cross-posting] CUNY Graduate School 365 Fifth Avenue (34-35 Streets) New York City The Renaissance Studies Certificate Program in collaboration with the=20 Italian Specialization in the Ph.D. Program in Comparative Literature Thursday, March 22, 2001 6:30-8:00pm Room C201/C202 Lauro Martines Cruelty in Renaissance Florence: A Bloody Tale Admission is free and open to the public For further information, contact Martin Elsky, Coordinator, CUNY = Renaissance Studies Certificate Program melsky@gc.cuny.edu From: Paula Loscocco [ploscocc@Barnard.EDU] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:58 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law It may be useful to broaden the discussion temporarily from Milton & put it wider critical as well as historical context. Frances Dolan's excellent *Whores of Babylon: catholicism, GEnder, & 17th-Century Print Culture* (Cornell, 1999) jumps immediately to mind. Best wishes, Paula Loscocco / Barnard College At 01:13 PM 2/14/2001 -0000, you wrote: >I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious >toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the >patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased >toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a >heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, >for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. > >I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or >didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more >than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, >i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's >possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way >comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. > >Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th >Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those >views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I >tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards >Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. > >Richard >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > > radically divisive as they would be today. > > > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > > Catholics in England at times... > > > > Jim > > > > << > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism >as > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't >see > > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such >hagiography: > > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > > right. > > > > Seb Perry. > > > > > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >To: > > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the >new > > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences >with > > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican >II > > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty >and > > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that >Catholicism > > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > >> > > > > > > > From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 8:48 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light I had always thought that "inner light" was a term "belonging"--if anything can be said to do so--to the Quakers. It would appear from the discussion that the idea of inner illumination was much more generally current in the seventeenth century. But can anyone illuminate the Quaker history of the term? Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax From: Cynthia Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 7:31 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FW: Announcement of the Milton Window Project I sent money to the Milton window project and know it got there, as I have the cancelled check - but I would like to have a letter affirming that this is deductible and that I received no benefits etc etc - I'm gathering my tax stuff - is there an e-mail for the folks doing this that I could use ? I do have the phone and fax number, but can e-mail more cheaply.... Thanks, Cynthia Gilliatt ------------------- Cynthia Gilliatt Member JMU Safe Zones English Department James Madison University MSC 1801 Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu * This e-mail message was sent with Execmail V5.0 * From: Conrad Bladey ***Peasant**** [cbladey@mail.bcpl.net] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:44 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Exactly! The intolerance toward catholics in Miltons time was just that! It was intolerance of the violation or potential violation of rights freedoms personal safety under the guise and with the justification of religion. The counter reformation was serious business and until the peace with spain it involved a potential for open warfare supported from within england. Catholic thinking was evolving, do doubt about it but it had not firmly enough bought into the new nationalism to avoid persecution. IMHO the gunpowder plot was an attempt by Cecil and James to test the evolution of Catholic thinking along these lines. That is if in fact they were involved (not entirely proven). I think they were inclined toward tolerance but not at the expense of the evoluton and maintenance of the state. Tolerance is a good thing but blind tolerance can be very dangerous. Conrad Tmsandefur@aol.com wrote: > > Dan Knauss writes > > < tolerant societies simply have to live with it. >> > > If you mean this, then I don't think we disagree. My point is that the open > society must prevent these conflicts from growing into open warfare, and it > must do this by preventing intolerance--where intolerance is defined as the > violation of other individual's rights; i.e., the same thing as "warfare" in > the sense Locke used that term. You don't tolerate robbery, even if the > robber claims some ideological purpose for his robbery. But you don't > prosecute someone for saying that he thinks robbery should be legalized > (i.e., the socialist). > > $ -- @#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@#@@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@ Looking through mhy bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the uneding smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept!-Dylan Thomas #################################################################### From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 7:52 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <00ba01c09687$fb801340$cbe501a3@ox.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:49:45 -0000 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu . > > Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th > Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those > views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I > tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards > Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. On the question of Roger Williams: Someone asked if we are discussing "the same Roger Williams who emigrated to America." I think so, since he and Milton were at Cambridge at the same time, though in different colleges. Williams finished Cambridge two years before Milton. I would point out that they were two reformers who took totally different tacks. Milton tried to reform what Americans sometimes called the "Old World;" Williams threw up his hands on that one and set out for the new. In Massachusetts Bay Colony his ideas were so radical that the founders of that New Jerusalem threw him out, and the only folk who helped him keep from starving were the Indians (Native Americans if you prefer, even though it seems to me that that title could refer to anyone born in the Western Hemisphere). The following quotes from Williams' "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience" sound good to modern ears; to the 17th Century they sounded outrageous. "First, that the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace." ...Sixthly, it is the will and command of God, that, (since the coming of his Son, the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries:and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God." Williams also said that the King of England had no right to grant Massachusetts Bay Colony a charter, since the land belonged to the Indians. He was minister of a church in Salem, Massachusetts, but not for long. Salem was not noted for its toleration of "radicals." Fleeing into the forest, he bought land from the Indians and set up a settlement which became Rhode Island. Other "radical" English colonists soon joined him. As I have said before, he and Milton followed a principle in two very different ways. I think each lived in the light that he had; Milton could not have accomplished the things he did had he followed Williams' path. Rose Williams From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:33 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink James Dougal Fleming wrote: > > > > > Is manic-depression a "psychoanalytic" -- c'est a dire, proper to the > school of Freud -- category? Obsession-compulsion, I guess from Rat Man > etc, is. JDF Psychoanalysis is to any serious psychiatric or psychological thinking as peachpit therapy is to oncology. Fewer and fewer medical schools have psychoanalysts on their faculties. Chiropracters at least are relevantly harmless if not very useful. Psychoanalysis is simply vicious when allowed to meddle in the treatment of mental illness. Probably in the last century The Unconscious has been a more significant source of intellectual silliness & superstition than the Holy Ghost. See Sebastiano Timpanaro, _The Freudian Slip: Pschoanalysis and Textual Criticism_, London: Verso, 1976, 1985. Carrol Cox P.S. I'd be a bit more nuanced but I have a broken right wrist & have to peck this out one letter at a time with my left hand. From: John Rumrich [rumrich@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Well, except for the likelihood that he would consider the idiom "patron saint" obnoxiously papist in import, Milton can be fairly described--or this academic certainly would describe him as--a, though not the, patron saint of religious liberty, and in many senses of that term. True, Milton did not argue for the complete toleration advocated by Roger Williams. That does not make him comparable to an anti-semite or racist, any more than his differences with the Levellers make him comparable to an advocate of rule by hereditary aristocracy. (I'd look into Roger Williams's history a little more closely, by the way, before holding him up as the standard of enlightened seventeenth-century religious belief.) Oh, and judging them in their historical context, I do find Milton's views and Milton himself admirable, and I teach them and him as such. (Again, this is not to suggest that Milton was some kind of buddha: it's admiration, not blind approval.) So whinge away; I'm here for you with my trumpet. John Rumrich >I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious >toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the >patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased >toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a >heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, >for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. > >I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or >didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more >than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, >i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's >possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way >comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. > >Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th >Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those >views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I >tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards >Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. > >Richard >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > > radically divisive as they would be today. > > > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > > Catholics in England at times... > > > > Jim > > > > << > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism >as > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't >see > > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such >hagiography: > > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > > right. > > > > Seb Perry. > > > > > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >To: > > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the >new > > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences >with > > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican >II > > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty >and > > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that >Catholicism > > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > >> > > > > From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 8:11 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light Dear Derick, and list, Yes, I was teasing all of us, whenever we use easy phrases like "inner = light" (I was sure that Derick could back it up, as he did, with solid = evidence), but I had some serious issues in mind. Why doesn't Milton = himself use the exact phrase "inner light?" Why does he beat around that = bush but say the same thing, as Derick and others have already shown? = Does that make him a Quaker? If I am remembering correctly from having read Thomas Ellwood's autobiograp= hy over again about a year ago, Ellwood doesn't use the phrase "inner = light" either. It would be interesting, to me at least, to see where = Ellwood and Milton differed or agreed, about divine inspiration. Would = they have talked about Milton's Muse? Best to all, Roy Flannagan From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 10:27 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: inner light Of course the first connotation that pops into my mind is George Fox and the Quakers, but I do wonder if Milton interpreted the inner light at that more radical level in terms of church structure (in the case of the Quakers, quite loose) and the relation of the light to Scripture (the light illuminates Scripture, and Scripture is often secondary to the inspiration of the light, though Fox is not as radical in his interpretation of that relationship as later Quakers). Which brings to mind another question, what did Milton think of the Quakers? Are there any specific references in his writings? Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:35 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law I may be misunderstanding some of the posts, then, but I don't really see anyone that's been defending Milton's attitudes as saying they were admirable in some way. So far as I can tell, behind every defense is a sense that his actions need to be explained. The options I see presented before us are: 1. Milton was a "religious xenophobe" of some sorts and his actions are inexcusable. Two wrongs don't make a right (this seems terribly self-righteous and assumes we transcend history in our own moral judgments today. Take my word for it -- we don't. History will tell). 2. Milton was a "religious xenophobe" of some sorts, but his actions and attitudes need to be understood within the context of English history. In other words, we may not share his attitudes today, but back then we may have seen them as a more reasonable option. I have to admit there's a quality to Milton's prose about Catholics that goes far beyond merely adopting the prejudices of his readers (even if he naturally shared them) and goes into personal vendetta and deep bitterness. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a personal history driving this attitude something like the one you described. But at the same time, his specific positions about freedom of speech and expression are something I can understand given the historical context. In a state of war, we declare martial law. Jim << I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > radically divisive as they would be today. > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > Catholics in England at times... > > Jim > > << > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't see > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such hagiography: > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > right. > > Seb Perry. > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > >To: > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the new > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences with > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican II > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty and > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that Catholicism > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > >> > > >> From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Friday, January 01, 1904 12:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton, Toleration, and Catholicism Interesting question, perhaps especially for a Miltonist who is a Catholic. It makes a good deal more sense, if one has to choose, to present Milton as a patron saint of liberty than as analagous in his anti-Catholicism to a racist or anti-semite. One obvious difference, and far from an extrinsic one, is that anti-Catholicism can have little to do with race or ethnic group. As Richard himself notes, Milton's family was Catholic. It may well be true that Milton's views on toleration were informed by his own 'heretical' beliefs, but the fact that a position may have been influenced by what he calls "the spur of self-concernment' does not by itself preclude the possibility that the position is held on reasoned principle. If it did, ML King, Jr., would not be a patron of liberty, nor would gays and lesbians arguing against anti-gay discrimination. I don't think that Tmsandefur is right in suggesting that we have a case here of a radical picking his battles or getting a half loaf when he can't get the whole. It would have been inconsistent for Milton to have advocated toleration of a religion that called for and promoted implicit faith and reliance on authority. It would have been odd if Milton, who pushed the priesthood of all believers as far as one might, then turned around and supported toleration for a church that required and enforced the opposite. One might object that Milton did argue for toleration of various Protestant groups with whom he had disagreements , but his argument assumes the sharing of essential and fundamental principles (e.g, again, the priesthood of all believers, the reliance on Scripture and Spirit and the rejection of tradition and authority as normative). Milton moreover saw Catholic doctrine as explicitly endorsing and instituting idolatry. If some Protestant churches flirted with the dangers of idolatry, at least they did not make it a matter of doctrine. We should remember that Milton in OTR is arguing for toleration of "true religion," and that he does not argue for toleration for Moslems or Jews. We should also remember that, as the subtitle tells us, he writes OTR as a bulwark in the defense against popery. It is not as if Milton argued for universal toleration and then omitted illogically or from private prejudice. Conrad Bladey reminds us wisely that Catholicism was not merely viewed as having political foundations and expansionist aspirations, but did in fact have them. One needs always to be cautious in making role models or villains of historical figures by measuring them against our standards, as Richard acknowledges. Recasting them in our terms will always involve adjustment and analogy that we should not overlook. That said, we can in good faith compare one historical figure with others of his or her period on questions like toleration, republicanism, heresy, etc. By 17th-c standards, Milton is remarkably tolerant, and our disappointment that he did not advocate toleration of Catholics is anachronistic; it ignores the argument for why toleration should be instituted--so that the spirit can work in the individual believer, unhampered by civil power. As a Catholic who, however paradoxically,agrees with Milton on many of his arguments, I've never been disturbed by his failure to include Catholics. (NB I'll admit to being a "cafeteria Catholic." The sense of the faithful is far more compelling to me than the decisions of the hierachy, from the pope all the way down to the parish priest. Most of the Catholics with whom I find common ground are the kind whose flourishing was predicted by Tocqueville in Democracy in America, deeply skeptical about hierarchy and disinclined to follow it.) On the question of inner light, the responses to Roy's question have been excellent. I've long found very useful Geoffrey Nuttall's The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, where Milton and the Quakers, vocal advocates of the inner light, converge as the limit cases of the unfolding of Puritan imperatives. Steve Fallon >I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious >toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the >patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased >toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a >heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, >for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. > >I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or >didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more >than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, >i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's >possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way >comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. > >Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th >Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those >views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I >tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards >Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. > >Richard >----- Original Message ----- >From: < >To: < >Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > > radically divisive as they would be today. > > > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > > Catholics in England at times... > > > > Jim > > > > <<<< > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism >as > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't >see > > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such >hagiography: > > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > > right. > > > > Seb Perry. > > > > > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >To: < > > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the >new > > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences >with > > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican >II > > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty >and > > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that >Catholicism > > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > > > >> > > > > From: Conrad Bladey ***Peasant**** [cbladey@mail.bcpl.net] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 10:36 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Seb Perry wrote: Anti-Catholic legislation went a lot further than > excluding Catholic 'thugs' from peaceful discussions. Milton's intolerance > of Catholics was not limited to his demanding their exclusion from public > office; he denied that they had any right to practise their religion in > private: While to us this seems a simple ban on religion in Miltons time the practice of the Catholic religion carried additional baggage that many scholars today choose to ignore. To the Loyal Englishman or politician intent on keeping the country strong and united the practice of religion also meant support of the pope as a secular leader and support of the counter reformation. Yes, it would be much nicer if we could give the english nationlists the ability to segregate the more modern thinkers from the supporters of the jesuits, counter reformation and primacy of the Pope in secular national maters (counter terrorism etc...) but unfortunately all catholics did look alike. The plotters involved in the gunpowder plot looked not so much differently than the peaceful loyal citizen catholics. Some clothed in the mass, its artifacts, prayers and ways of the Catholic church were very dangerous wolves. This is far from simple religion. One of the big problems with the Catholic english was that they sheltered the wolves and as Henry Garnet demonstrated even the top jesuit was vacellating between his english citizenship and loyalty to rome. With such a problem there is little one can do but tar them all with the same brush and of course reward them all with sanctions based upon the behavior of the wolves in cathoic skins which persisted in their counter reformation efforts. Tollerance is always far easier and less risky than persecution. But while you would like to tollerate an infection tollerance in this case could lead to greater difficulties in the long run. Some thoughts... Conrad @#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@#@@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@ Looking through mhy bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the uneding smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept!-Dylan Thomas #################################################################### From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 11:26 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink I have question for you -- in conducting psychoanalysis on the literature, are you analyzing the man? Is any human being really reducible to words on a page? Jim > I have another more mischievous query: in psychoanalyzing Milton, has = > anyone asked seriously if he was a manic/depressive (without what = > psychiatrists call "breaks" or "exacerbations," in which fantasy becomes = > reality)? Or was he just obsessive/compulsive about details such as the = > spelling of "parlament"? I don't think William Kerrigan addresses those = > recognizable mental conditions. > > From: Ben Faber [BFaber@ABU.NB.CA] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 11:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink Although neither the connotation nor the context of the following use of "inner light" suggests exactly the sense in which the phrase is normally used, it nevertheless sounds like the phrase in question: "And divine favor not infrequently is wont to lighten these shadows again, once made, by an inner and far more enduring light." Second Defence, Riverside Milton, p.1108 Earlier in The Second Defence, Milton conveys a similar idea in a different metaphor, referring to "the sound of a certain more divine monitor within" (p.1107). Ben Faber Atlantic Baptist University Moncton, New Brunswick Canada E1C 9L7 >>> roy@gwm.sc.edu 02/13/01 11:13AM >>> I was wondering: it's a cliche of Milton criticism (Derek Wood just repeated it) to say that he or his fellow puritans believed in "inner light." Where do we get that idea? I think it is accurate, but I don't remember the precise phrase being used by Milton, though he certainly asks "Celestial light / [to] Shine inward" so that he "may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight." Is that exactly the same as "inner light"? Roy Flannagan From: James Dougal Fleming [jdf26@columbia.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 9:26 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink > I have another more mischievous query: in psychoanalyzing Milton, has = > anyone asked seriously if he was a manic/depressive (without what = > psychiatrists call "breaks" or "exacerbations," in which fantasy becomes = > reality)? Or was he just obsessive/compulsive about details such as the = > spelling of "parlament"? I don't think William Kerrigan addresses those = > recognizable mental conditions. > > Roy Flannagan > Is manic-depression a "psychoanalytic" -- c'est a dire, proper to the school of Freud -- category? Obsession-compulsion, I guess from Rat Man etc, is. JDF From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:05 AM To: Milton-l list Cc: Milton-l list Subject: Re: writing assignments I try to prevent problems by spending time in every class I teach explaining what plagiarism is, why we document our use of other peoples' work, how to avoid the appearance of plagiarism, and what it means to do honorable work. I spend some time explaining that in my classes, each student is responsible for her or his work; I do not assign "collaborative learning projects," although these are very popular on my campus. I also tell students that academic dishonesty is the one unforgivable sin in the university and that I will always tunr in suspected plagiarists. One way I also try to prevent students' getting papers on line - besides custonmizing assignments - is to remind them that if they can find a paper online, so can I. I also warn them that those who offer such work on-line frequently have inflated ideas of just how good the work is and what grade it will earn. Wouldn't it be sad to turn in a plagiarized paper, riskiing your academic life, and having it earn only a C minus? Eager to hear of others' ideas. Cynthia G. -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT Cynthia A. Gilliatt English Department MSC 1801 James Madison University Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ 540-568-3762 or 6202 From: James Dougal Fleming [jdf26@columbia.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 9:23 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > Milton's solution to the disputes within the Protestant church was to give > the various sects a common enemy. I.e. 'We may have differences of opinion, > but we should all join together to weed out the Papists.' In the late _Of True Rel_, yes. Not, I think, earlier. JDF From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 9:30 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law <> Oh, true, and I wouldn't defend that position myself. I just think it must be understood in the context of an era when Catholicism was a great threat to religious toleration--and of course, when it would have been very dangerous for Milton to argue for toleration of Catholics. A radical picks his battles, and has to deal with the sort of criticisms which threaten his chances of convincing an audience; in the 17th century if you go around saying "I believe in a free press," the first thing someone will say is, "Yeah, but then the Catholics will publish their tracts," and if someone says that, you'll never convince the audience. So--well, as Jefferson said, half a loaf is better than no bread. I think those two things together explain Milton's writings on Catholicism and toleration. $ From: Derek Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 3:33 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Inner light Roy Flannagan wrote: > I was wondering: it's a clich=E9 of Milton criticism (Derek Wood just = > repeated it) to say that he or his fellow puritans believed in "inner = > light." Where do we get that idea? Roy, Isn't he speaking of this inner light when Michael tells Adam, f rom heaven He to his own a Comforter will send, The promise of the Father, who shall dwell His Spirit within them, and the Law of faith Working through love, upon their hearts shall write, To guide them in all truth.... (PL 12. 485-90) With this come "inward consolations" (495). The "written Records pure" are "not but by the Spirit understood" (514); i.e. Bible + inner light: that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know. In TCP, where he defines the essence of protestant faith, he writes of the centrality of "the holy scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that scripture as warrantable only to our selves...." (CP 7:242). He speaks again on that page of "divine illumination." Isn't its existence also implied when he writes: "divine illumination...no man can know at all times to be in himself, much less to be at any time for certain in any other"(CP 7: 242). He was very hesitant about inferring its guidance in any other human being apart from himself. Speaking of Samson, he says tentatively, "whether prompted by God or by his owne valor, [he] slew at one stroke not one but a host of his country's tyrants" ( CP 4.1: 511-12). I had this in mind when I slipped into the cliche phrase "inner light".With other puritan preachers, especially the radicals, it's easier to find evidence We find the extreme radicals speaking of "the Christ within" which is more important to them than even the "Christ man." Burrough writes: "I was in the Light, and I grew up to know to know high things." For Mr. Randall " a man baptized with the Holy Ghost knew all things." Lord Wariston rejoices because he feels "all the Lord's unquaestionable, immediat, felt directions and assistances in al the passages of this chairge [and is forced] with a great light of conviction, without contradiction, to acknouledge that (albeit the Lord sould presently cut the thread of my lyfe) yet he had heard my petitions, graunted my prayers, fulfilled my hopes, satisfyed my very wisses and praeveined my fears, performed his promises..." At times he is wonderfully comforted and confident, "since in the motions of thy Sprit within my heart thou assurs me that befor I was formed in the belly thou kneuest me; and befor I came forth of the womb thou sanctifiedst me (both by thy apoyntment and my mothers thou eraysed in hir heart be thy Sprit) and ordeaned me ane advocat to plead, speak, wryte in thy cause...." But you knew all this, Roy. Are you just teasing me? Best wishes, Derek Wood. St. Francis Xavier University. From: Richard Watkins [richard.watkins@english.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law I'm not trying to judge Milton by today's standards of religious toleration - I'm simply whingeing about academics who trumpet him as the patron saint of religious liberty. I think his support for increased toleration was partly motivated by concern about his own status as a heretic. What's more, he hated catholicism: narrow grounds, I would argue, for his canonisation by 21st century critics of religious bent. I agree with Derek Wood about Milton disliking the way Catholics thought (or didn't think) about religion, but I've always felt there's something more than that in his anti-catholicism. Especially given his family history, i.e. his father being disinherited for turning protestant. I think it's possible Milton was, unfortunately, brought up to despise catholics in a way comparable to modern anti-semitism or racism. Again, I'd like to stress that it's not Milton or the views of C17th Englishmen I'm complaining about; it's the consequences of taking those views and presenting them to modern readers as admirable in some way. As I tried to argue with reference to Roger Williams, even by C17th standards Milton was no saint, though no doubt more enlightened than many. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:51 PM Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > radically divisive as they would be today. > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > Catholics in England at times... > > Jim > > << > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't see > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such hagiography: > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > right. > > Seb Perry. > > > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > >To: > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the new > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences with > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican II > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty and > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that Catholicism > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > >> > > From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 9:33 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Dan Knauss writes <> If you mean this, then I don't think we disagree. My point is that the open society must prevent these conflicts from growing into open warfare, and it must do this by preventing intolerance--where intolerance is defined as the violation of other individual's rights; i.e., the same thing as "warfare" in the sense Locke used that term. You don't tolerate robbery, even if the robber claims some ideological purpose for his robbery. But you don't prosecute someone for saying that he thinks robbery should be legalized (i.e., the socialist). $ From: Tobias Gregory [tobias.gregory@csun.edu] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 2:41 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments Many thanks to those who shared writing assignments. Your ideas are excellent, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who will find them useful. John Leonard does well to mention the possibility of plagiarism via the internet. It's an issue we should all consider when assigning essays, on Milton or any other subject. The problem can be contained by altering the assignments we borrow from our colleagues, so that a paper written for another course and posted online won't fit the bill. It's also good to set parameters which limit students' chances of finding a suitable paper online without unduly limiting their choice of subject. In my introductory Shakespeare course, for example, I assign a close analysis of a single scene; I offer students a choice of a half-dozen scenes, and choose different scenes and different plays each semester. Small adjustments such as these can greatly reduce the chance of online plagiarism. Other approaches? Tobias Gregory email: tobias.gregory@csun.edu Assistant Professor of English phone: 818 677 3563 California State University, Northridge fax: 818 677 3872 From: Norman Burns [nburns@binghamton.edu] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 10:10 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and [Roman Catholics] Thank you, Derek, for a useful and clarifying post. It is splendid in its penetration to the core of the matter, splendid in its parts, and splendid in its lucidity. This Miltonic insistence that consciences not be oppressed was also at the heart of his objections to the English bishops and finally to the Presbyterians; in fact, it made him suspicious of all clergy. Toland may be right when he suggests that Milton eschewed church membership because he considered all churches oppressive to consciences. I will save your post and doubtless someday appropriate it as my own insight. --Norm Burns At 03:53 PM 2/12/01 -0400, you wrote: >Seb Perry wrote: > > > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see > Catholicism as > > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance .... > >In this discussion of Milton and Roman Catholicism, it sounded at times as if >Milton disliked Catholics in the way anti-semites or racists dislike >groups of >people for what they are. I wonder if there hasn't been a misunderstanding >here. >It isn't what Catholics believed in that he particularly disliked.. What >mattered >to him in Christianity was the personal interrogation of Scripture with the >guidance of one's God-given inner light. That was what earned and deserved >toleration, and that could not and must not be forced. If it was guided >by the >inner light, the process must be honest, and if it was not, no one could >tell, >so force was futile. One could be a heretic even in the truth. A 17th century >Catholic, on the other hand, must believe what the Church decided was the >truth >-- and I think my local bishop would hold that that was true of a 21st century >Catholic, too. A Church which did the interrogation on one's behalf was >invading >the space that was the sacred space of Christian liberty. A Protestant >conscience >would tell the believer whether he or she was behaving rightly; a Catholic >conscience would tell the believer whether he or she was following the >teaching >of the Church. Liberty seemed impossible to Milton under that kind of >spiritual >and intellectual authority.He did not dislike people for being "Catholics." He >found that out on his visit to Italy. It was not so much that he "disliked" >transubstantiation, the Trinity etc. as well as the rituals, litanies, >vestments, >statues of the Church.. That was not what really mattered about >Catholicism. It >was how Catholics believed that disturbed him. I think. > Best wishes, > Derek Wood, > St. Francis Xavier University. From: Conrad Bladey ***Peasant**** [cbladey@mail.bcpl.net] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 11:23 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law In Million's time it is important to realize that religion covers many bases and is infused into many different players who play on different dimensions of the entire game. Oppression is after all hard work and it hampers political progress. All too often scholars consider oppression a cultural/character flaw or a tool selected without consideration of strategy. Oppression is however a tool which is generally selected when it is felt that it is necessary and worth the risks involved. The same is true of the tool of terrorism. While irrationality is out there it is far too often employed as an explanation in analysis. Oppression is rarely used only for religious reasons. It is used in reaction to actions of persons and nations who are identified by the colors of the religion which they wear. No state has a monopoly on either saintliness or oppression but, for some reason due to a combination of factors states do tend to have personalities and national interests and goals. England in Miltons time seems to be generally interested in tolerance but is reluctantly moved toward oppression by the forces of the counter reformation and the imperfect development of a universal sense of the primacy of loyalty to the nation/state. This is the confusion which lead Henry Garnet for example to wonder rather than to know what he should do about the Gunpowder Plotters. It is unfortunate that he was in his general philosophy so close to this universal sense of the primacy of loyalty to the nation/state yet, continued to obscure political obligations with religious allegiances. Some thoughts! Conrad AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote: > > Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be > just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the > fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of > oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or > Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and > response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as > radically divisive as they would be today. > > Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should > opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a > largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of > Catholics in England at times... > > Jim > > << > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't see > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such hagiography: > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a > right. > > Seb Perry. > > >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com > >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > >To: > >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > > > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the new > >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading > >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences with > >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > > > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican II > >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty and > >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that Catholicism > >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of > >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS > >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > >> -- @#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@#@@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@ Looking through mhy bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the uneding smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept!-Dylan Thomas #################################################################### From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 10:52 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Seb is still correct that two wrongs don't make a right. Sure, intolerance that threatens the order of a tolerant society cannot be tolerated, but intolerance in the form of the thug is pretty easy to deal with. Intolerance most threatens the tolerant society when it presents itself as more tolerant, or the truly tolerant. Once this happens, nobody gets out clean. A "right" is not the result. Even though we are now more of an open society than in the past, this problem has only grown more acute. Someone will always challenge their society as intolerant, and they will be called intolerant themselves. Both will have legitimate arguments to make, and until the rival claims are settled (which is unlikely), there will be division and conflict. As long as this conflict can be kept from growing into open warfare, tolerant societies simply have to live with it. -Dan Knauss On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 09:48:50 EST Tmsandefur@aol.com writes: > > While I agree with the rest of this post, I must disagree with the > response > to Popper that > > < right.>> > > Actually, Popper is quite correct, that intolerance in a tolerant > society can > not itself be tolerated--or rather, intolerant actions can not be > tolerated > in a tolerant society. Were it otherwise, thugs would quickly take > over the > society, and eliminate the tolerance which the society sought to > permit. We > don't allow thugs to come into a discussion meeting and make a > ruckus that > destroys the chance for people to share ideas--well, at least, we > don't allow > that except on University of California campuses..... > > $ > > < of > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one > either. I > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I > think it > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see > Catholicism as > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without > noticing that > non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also > can't see > why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such > hagiography: > the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the > word. > *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make > a > right. > > Seb Perry.>> > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 10:13 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Inner light, and Milton and his shrink I was wondering: it's a clich=E9 of Milton criticism (Derek Wood just = repeated it) to say that he or his fellow puritans believed in "inner = light." Where do we get that idea? I think it is accurate, but I don't = remember the precise phrase being used by Milton, though he certainly asks = "Celestial light / [to] Shine inward" so that he "may see and tell / Of = things invisible to mortal sight." Is that exactly the same as "inner = light"? I have another more mischievous query: in psychoanalyzing Milton, has = anyone asked seriously if he was a manic/depressive (without what = psychiatrists call "breaks" or "exacerbations," in which fantasy becomes = reality)? Or was he just obsessive/compulsive about details such as the = spelling of "parlament"? I don't think William Kerrigan addresses those = recognizable mental conditions. Roy Flannagan From: Ingram, Randy [raingram@davidson.edu] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 4:14 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: writing assignments Now that the students in my Milton course have taken their pre-epic exam, I can share an essay question that seems to have worked well this time. The question is based on the formula of WWJMD? (what would John Milton do?): In Statesville, a town about twenty miles north of Davidson, an artist has been commissioned to paint a mural on a city building. The mural includes, among other figures, Greek goddesses. A collection of local Protestant ministers has protested that by including these goddesses, the mural "promotes paganism." Based on specific passages from Milton's works, how would Milton respond to this controversy? I can see inherent problems in the formula, but I wonder whether the most provocative threads on this list are not often some version of WWJMD?--e.g., how would Milton want to be commemorated? Students will have read poems thick with mythology, but they will also have read a section of _Eikonoklastes_ and heard lectures about political aesthetics. I'm not hoping for any particular response, but for responses that cite the works specifically and that are sensitive to the competing possibilities. I'm hoping, in short, for good arguments. Thanks to all for the fine suggestions, Randy Ingram Davidson College From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 2:32 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law >Actually, Popper is quite correct, that intolerance in a tolerant >society >can not itself be tolerated--or rather, intolerant actions can >not be >tolerated in a tolerant society. Were it otherwise, thugs would >quickly >take over the society, and eliminate the tolerance which the >society >sought to permit. We don't allow thugs to come into a >discussion meeting >and make a ruckus that destroys the chance for >people to share >ideas--well, at least, we don't allow that except on >University of >California campuses..... Far be it from me to pooh-pooh Popper's paradoxes, but the analogy you're using doesn't apply here. Anti-Catholic legislation went a lot further than excluding Catholic 'thugs' from peaceful discussions. Milton's intolerance of Catholics was not limited to his demanding their exclusion from public office; he denied that they had any right to practise their religion in private: "As for tolerating the exercise of their Religion, supposing their State activities not to be dangerous, I answer, that Toleration is either public or private; and the exercise of their Religion, as far as it is Idolatrous, can be tolerated neither way: not publicly, without grievous and unsufferable scandal giv'n to all consciencious Beholders; not privately, without great offence to God, declar'd against all kind of Idolatry, though secret. ...But first we must remove their Idolatry, and all the furniture thereof, whether Idols, or the Mass wherein they adore their God under Bread and Wine.... If they say that by removing their Idols we violate their Consciences, we have no warrant to regard Conscience which is not grounded on Scripture[.]" (YP 8:430-2) Milton's solution to the disputes within the Protestant church was to give the various sects a common enemy. I.e. 'We may have differences of opinion, but we should all join together to weed out the Papists.' Now perhaps Popper didn't have a problem with this either, but I would be interested to see how one would reconcile these opinions with Milton's reputation as champion of Liberty and rejecter of those who thought they owned God. Seb Perry. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: Derek Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 2:54 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and [Roman Catholics] Seb Perry wrote: > I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of > libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I > do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it > takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as > the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance .... In this discussion of Milton and Roman Catholicism, it sounded at times as if Milton disliked Catholics in the way anti-semites or racists dislike groups of people for what they are. I wonder if there hasn't been a misunderstanding here. It isn't what Catholics believed in that he particularly disliked.. What mattered to him in Christianity was the personal interrogation of Scripture with the guidance of one's God-given inner light. That was what earned and deserved toleration, and that could not and must not be forced. If it was guided by the inner light, the process must be honest, and if it was not, no one could tell, so force was futile. One could be a heretic even in the truth. A 17th century Catholic, on the other hand, must believe what the Church decided was the truth -- and I think my local bishop would hold that that was true of a 21st century Catholic, too. A Church which did the interrogation on one's behalf was invading the space that was the sacred space of Christian liberty. A Protestant conscience would tell the believer whether he or she was behaving rightly; a Catholic conscience would tell the believer whether he or she was following the teaching of the Church. Liberty seemed impossible to Milton under that kind of spiritual and intellectual authority.He did not dislike people for being "Catholics." He found that out on his visit to Italy. It was not so much that he "disliked" transubstantiation, the Trinity etc. as well as the rituals, litanies, vestments, statues of the Church.. That was not what really mattered about Catholicism. It was how Catholics believed that disturbed him. I think. Best wishes, Derek Wood, St. Francis Xavier University. From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 11:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law Yep, there's no question Protestant states in Milton's time could often be just as oppressive as any other state, and there's no argument against the fact that Catholics in England suffered an unfortunate level of oppression. My point isn't so much to elevate either Catholicism or Protestantism, but to see Milton's attitudes as the products of, and response to, his time, rather than seeing his attitudes as being as radically divisive as they would be today. Each group in each area would tend to fear for its own freedom should opposition groups rise in influence. It would also seem reasonable for a largely Catholic area to fear the rise of Protestantism given the state of Catholics in England at times... Jim << I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't see why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such hagiography: the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a right. Seb Perry. >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the new >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences with >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican II >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty and >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that Catholicism >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > >Timothy Sandefur > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com >> From: jherz [jherz@vax2.concordia.ca] Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 10:36 PM To: Milton list Subject: Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS REMINDER Donne at the MLA in New Orleans: 2001 Please send papers or very detailed proposals for a session on "Donne and Others" to Judith Scherer Herz by March 5 at the latest. The "other(s)" can be contemporaries, antecedents, successors; they can be writers, readers. . . time past, time present. Please send them to: Judith Scherer Herz Department of English Concordia University 1455 deMaisonneuve Blvd., West Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 email inquiries are welcome (I'm away from Feb 14 to Feb 20). Please note that the MLA requires all participants to be MLA members by April 1. There is also an open topic session. Papers for this should be sent to Noralyn Masselink English New York SUC Cortland, NY 13045 From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 9:49 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law While I agree with the rest of this post, I must disagree with the response to Popper that <> Actually, Popper is quite correct, that intolerance in a tolerant society can not itself be tolerated--or rather, intolerant actions can not be tolerated in a tolerant society. Were it otherwise, thugs would quickly take over the society, and eliminate the tolerance which the society sought to permit. We don't allow thugs to come into a discussion meeting and make a ruckus that destroys the chance for people to share ideas--well, at least, we don't allow that except on University of California campuses..... $ <> From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 8:33 AM To: Milton-l list Subject: Re: writing assignments Filming the war in heaven sounds like a great assignemnt for books that are difficult to teach - thanks! Cynthia G. -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT Cynthia A. Gilliatt English Department MSC 1801 James Madison University Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ 540-568-3762 or 6202 From: Dedalus [dedalus204@mediaone.net] Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2001 9:35 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments I use this writing assignment with my A.P. English Lit. students. We read Books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9 together, then the students read the remaining books in groups of 3-4 and present the books to the class in presentations. This writing assignment requires that I speak in "half-truths" to my students, but at least it gets them reading critically and writing by using outstanding textual support: I tell my students that some literary scholars have argued that each of the twelve books of PL represents a single concept (for example, one book illustrates the concept of "justice," another exemplifies the concept of "loyalty," etc.). In groups, students are assigned a particular book from PL to read, and they must determine (with their partners) what the overall concept is for that particular book. In their presentations, they must discuss how they arrived at that concept, and provide textual support to justify that interpretation. Their group discussions are fruitful, and their presentations are always fascinating, because they somehow find a cohesive concept that works for their book. And the practice of locating textual support for their interpretation is excellent. (After the assignment, I fess up . . . but they think I'm kidding, because their "interpretation" is so evident! Funny, really.) Tim Strzechowski Argo Community High School Tobias Gregory wrote: > Fellow Miltonists, > > What writing assignments have you found particularly effective in > undergraduate Milton courses? I'm sure that among the many experienced > teachers on this list there must be many good ideas. If you would like > to share them, I would be most interested, and I imagine others on the > list would benefit as well. > > Many thanks, > > Tobias > -- > Tobias Gregory email: tobias.gregory@csun.edu > Assistant Professor of English phone: 818 677 3563 > California State University, Northridge fax: 818 677 3872 From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2001 3:06 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law I wasn't suggesting that pre-Vat2 Catholicism offered some sort of libertarian utopia; my point was that Milton wasn't offering one either. I do hope this isn't going to start a thelogical flame-war, but I think it takes a pernicious blindness to look back on history and see Catholicism as the summit of oppression, censorship and intolerance without noticing that non-Catholic states were guilty of exactly the same things. I also can't see why Milton's religious/political thinking should earn him such hagiography: the 'liberty' he believed in was clearly not what we mean by the word. *Pace* Popper, perhaps we should remember that two wrongs don't make a right. Seb Perry. >From: Tmsandefur@aol.com >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law >Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:37:34 EST > >"Anti-Utopia" is exactly right. Check out the interesting review of the new >book on Yeats at www.reason.com, which I just happened to be reading >yesterday, which has some interesting passages on Yeats' experiences with >the theocratic controls in early 20th Century Ireland. > >We may think Milton intolerant, what with our experience of the Vatican II >church. But in his own day, Catholicism was a great threat to liberty and >toleration, and Milton was not inconsistent when he argued that Catholicism >should not be tolerated in the free state. This is the "paradox of >toleration" which Karl Popper refers to in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS >ENEMIES--the tolerant state can not tolerate intolerance. > >Timothy Sandefur > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: David Norbrook [dn44@umail.umd.edu] Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 5:19 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Miltoniana One fact of interest in the Restoration burial fate of radical writers: the Leveller William Walwyn was buried at St Giles Cripplegate in 1681. His will specifies only that 'I give my body to the Earth to be buried according to the discretion of my Executor... provided that no mourning be worne for me'. No specification of St Giles but none of Bunhill Fields either. Perhaps closer study of his later connections would throw further light on the meanings of burial practices in this remarkable parish. David Norbook J W Creaser wrote: > > During the recent discussions of memorials to Milton in England, it has > been pointed out that he is commemorated in a stained-glass window in > Harris Manchester College, Oxford, which was founded in the > nineteeth-century as a centre for Unitarianism. It might be added that 200 > yards along the road is Mansfield College, which was founded in the 1880s > as a centre for Congregationalism (and which, like Manchester, is now a > full college of the university). Prominent on the tower of Mansfield's > lovely Victorian Gothic buildings by Basil Champneys--where a saint or king > might normally stand, or the Virgin Mary in a Catholic foundation--is a > statue of Milton. Would the poet have thought such placing a fitting irony > or a 'bad eminence'? > > For anyone who might want to pursue the more dubious stretches of the > Milton trail, prominently displayed in the High Church setting of > Tewkesbury Abbey there is a 17th-century organ which, it is proudly > claimed, comes from Hampton Court, where it was played by Milton in the > presence of Cromwell--no doubt with 'volant touch'. > > John Creaser From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2001 8:05 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Richard Watkins wrote: > I'm not sure that Milton's opposition to episcopacy makes his rabid > anti-catholicism ok! It's not often enough appreciated that Milton is > deeply offensive, from his very earliest writings, about catholics and the > Roman church. Of course, you expect a certain amount of anit-Papist > rhetoric in any protestant writer of the time, but Milton seems to me to > harbour a nastier grudge than most. There is evidence that some of the > 'friends' he made in Italy were profoundly irritated by his insensitive > remarks about their faith; I think it's equally insensitive for a modern > critic to champion Milton's bigoted views as the cornerstone of religious > liberty. > > A more truly tolerationist attitude was that of Milton's friend Roger > Williams, who would have readmitted the Jews and allowed Catholics to > practice their religion openly. Milton, by contrast, seems to me to have > argued for disestablishment because he personally held some rather bizarre > and heretical opinions which, under the Long Parliament's presbyterian > government, were punishable by death. > > Richard Watkins > St. Hugh's, Oxford As much as I agree with Richard Watkins's second paragraph, it seems to me that the terms "insenstive," "offensive" and "grudge" in the first are anachronistic, suggesting that Milton is living in our time when religious issues have little impact rather than in his own, when the proposed or actual method of re-Catholicizing a region might be genocide. While it may be that Milton's Protestant stand disturbed his Italian hosts, I'm not sure that the irritation went beyond what would be faculty-meeting level for us. In any case, his stated practice was only to defend Protestantism if someone else brought up the subject. To let someone else thus choose the time and the place for a discussion--the advantageous ground, as it were, when the odds would have already been against Milton--seems to me to be not only sensitive but also courageous. Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax From: Kimberly Latta [lattak@SLU.EDU] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 7:26 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments Thanks to Tristan Saldana. These are wonderful paper topics! Kimberly Latta St. Louis University ---------- >From: tristan saldana >To: Milton >Subject: Re: writing assignments >Date: Fri, Feb 9, 2001, 12:20 AM > >Dear Dr. Gregory, > >Though I do not speak from the perspective of an "experienced teacher," I >can say that I do have some experience as a student creating essays in >response to effective Milton writing assignments, ones that I particularly >enjoyed because I thought that they were simple yet sophisticated, >sophisticated in their simplicity, ones that, in my opinion, allow the >reader to enter the enoromous universe of Milton through nice, narrow, >focused, little topics. (They are managable topics for a 1,500-2,000 word >essay.) All of the topics specifically treat _Paradise Lost_. > >The following writing assignments were given by Jonathan F. S. Post in his >Milton undergraduate seminar and Paul Douglas Sheets in hiw Wordsworth >undergraduate seminar, both at UCLA. > >Post gave a range of seven topics: > >1) Take any simile or pair and analyze how it (they) function. This means >tracing down the allusions, working through the imagery and the comparison >in detail, interpreting its effect on the reader, and finally determining >its meaning in a wider thematic or stylistic context supplied by the book >in which it appears or by _Paradise Lost_ as a whole. > >2) Solitude and its problems: analyze the different kinds of "aloneness" >in _PL_. You might begin by looking up the several meanings of "alone" in >the _OED_ and then see how different figures in the poem (i.e., God, >Satan, Abdiel, or Adam and Eve) compare to each other in the different >kinds of solitude they manifest. > >3) Imperialism/Colonization: as epic, Milton's poem is frequently said to >participate in Renaissance colonialist discourse, a discourse made >especially acute and resonant with the discovery of the "new" world. How >does Milton's poem make use of these linked ideas? What metaphors of >exploration does he adopt? Who are the imperialists and colonizers? How >are they described? What defines an Imperialist? A Colonizer? > >4) Milton might well be the most deeply political poet in English >literature. In what way does an understanding of Milton's politics help >with a reading of _Paradise Lost_? You might begin by gathering >references from the poem to the subject of monarchy, for instance. Do you >find the poem manifests a consistent political attitude? > >5) Adam and Eve waking: Compare the different ways Milton represents the >first responses-the births-of our "Grandparents." How is each described? >What does it tell us about their "subjectivity," that is, their sense of >self? Who is the more assured? Why? And how does this difference >manifest itself in the scene and elsewhere in the poem? > >6) Milton and the Visual Arts. Many scenes from _PL_ have inspired >artists, of whom William Blake is the most famous. He made a series of >illustrations for many of Milton's poems, including _PL_. Take one or two >of these and compare visual and verbal representations. Many have now >been conveniently collected in Robert N. Essicks recent _William Blake at >the Huntington_ (1994). > >7) _Paradise Lost_ is an epic of erotic and spiritual love, with many >kinds of love described: male-female; male-male; angel to angel; man to >God; father to son; God to his Creation; poet and his muse. Which do you >think is the most important to Milton? > >Sheets's assignment is to write 500-word essay comparing Eden's moon rise >in _Paradise Lost_ (IV.597-609) to Wordsworth's "A Night-piece" (1798). >His suggestion is to look carefully at how the writer's choice of words, >use of figurative language, and selection and presentation of images >effect the representation of "nature" and its relation to the reader. >(This topic is perhaps designed more to evoke a more Wordsworthian >response than one which gets at issues that are fundamental to >comprehending Milton.) > >I hope these are useful. I also have, if anyone is interested, a list of >the graduate course readings, and a mixture of other pedagogical devices >that Post had chosen for the Milton graduate seminar. (One such device >was a handout of the last two pages of Edward Snow's introduction to >_Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children's Games_ in which Snow >contextualizes Nietzsche's advocation of "lento," slow reading, as the >prime act of the philologist.) > >But if there was one critical reading that Post kept returning to, and has >always continued to return to, in so far as it concerns Milton, it is Dr. >Johnson's account in the _Lives_. Post believes that any student who wants >to begin to learn about Milton ought to read Johnson's "life of >Milton." I quote Post's syllabus: > Although it may not be apparent from a look at current > criticism generated by the Milton industry, Samuel > Johnson's "life of Milton" remains the single > indispensible introduction to Milton, and I assume > everyone will, at some point, curl up with a copy > and treat themselves to one of the great critical reads of > a lifetime. > >Tristan Saldana > >On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Tobias Gregory wrote: > > > Fellow Miltonists, > > > > What writing assignments have you found particularly effective in > > undergraduate Milton courses? I'm sure that among the many experienced > > teachers on this list there must be many good ideas. If you would like > > to share them, I would be most interested, and I imagine others on the > > list would benefit as well. > > > > Many thanks, > > > > Tobias > > -- > > Tobias Gregory email: tobias.gregory@csun.edu > > Assistant Professor of English phone: 818 677 3563 > > California State University, Northridge fax: 818 677 3872 > > > > > From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 3:05 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law I don't believe that Milton's views on other people's religion were "O.K." I do believe that his quarrel was with the ways in which Christianity was governed. He wanted the churches in England, as Root and Branch demanded, "returned to the people." If we are looking for views with which we can personally agree, I opt for my distant ancestor Roger Williams. His views, however, are rare enough today; how much rarer they were in Milton's day. Williams had a gift for seeing the rights of all, but he did not have Milton's genius. If he had, we might be building memorials to him. Rose Williams > I'm not sure that Milton's opposition to episcopacy makes his rabid > anti-catholicism ok! It's not often enough appreciated that Milton is > deeply offensive, from his very earliest writings, about catholics and the > Roman church. Of course, you expect a certain amount of anit-Papist > rhetoric in any protestant writer of the time, but Milton seems to me to > harbour a nastier grudge than most. There is evidence that some of the > 'friends' he made in Italy were profoundly irritated by his insensitive > remarks about their faith; I think it's equally insensitive for a modern > critic to champion Milton's bigoted views as the cornerstone of religious > liberty. > > A more truly tolerationist attitude was that of Milton's friend Roger > Williams, who would have readmitted the Jews and allowed Catholics to > practice their religion openly. Milton, by contrast, seems to me to have > argued for disestablishment because he personally held some rather bizarre > and heretical opinions which, under the Long Parliament's presbyterian > government, were punishable by death. From: Gardner Campbell [gcampbel@mwc.edu] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 1:57 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments Here's an exam question that could also be a paper topic; I got some interesting and thoughtful responses to it. I didn't get as many fuzzy overgeneralized answers as you might expect, perhaps because I warned the students to support their arguments with plenty of close analysis of specific passages. "Truth is beauty, beauty truth," Keats writes. Anachronism aside, how might Milton respond? In a clear, well-written essay full of specific examples, discuss the relationship of truth to beauty in Paradise Lost and at least three of the following four works: A Masque, Areopagitica, the companion poems, the Nativity Ode. Gardner Campbell Mary Washington College At 05:37 PM 2/7/01 -0800, you wrote: >Fellow Miltonists, > >What writing assignments have you found particularly effective in >undergraduate Milton courses? I'm sure that among the many experienced >teachers on this list there must be many good ideas. If you would like >to share them, I would be most interested, and I imagine others on the >list would benefit as well. > >Many thanks, > >Tobias >-- >Tobias Gregory email: tobias.gregory@csun.edu >Assistant Professor of English phone: 818 677 3563 >California State University, Northridge fax: 818 677 3872 From: Margaret Thickstun [mthickst@hamilton.edu] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 10:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments In response to Cynthia Gilliatt's wonderful suggestion about writing a grant proposal for a new production of Comus, I might also suggest asking students how they might film Books 6 & 7--it makes them visualize the poem in a concrete way, and it may raise the question of whether the War in Heaven is meant to be a glorious war, or an absurdity. When I address this topic, all I can think of is roadrunner cartoons. And, recognizing John's concern about plagiarized papers, I will only say that unless you craft a topic so restrictive that no undergraduate professor and no undergraduate has ever addressed the topic before, it will be very difficult to render plagiarism impossible.--Margie From: Kimberly Latta [lattak@SLU.EDU] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 7:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law How close was Milton to Roger Williams? Are we talking about the same Roger Williams who moved to America? Kimberly Latta St. Louis University ---------- >From: Richard Watkins >To: milton-l@richmond.edu >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law >Date: Thu, Feb 8, 2001, 12:49 PM > >I'm not sure that Milton's opposition to episcopacy makes his rabid >anti-catholicism ok! It's not often enough appreciated that Milton is >deeply offensive, from his very earliest writings, about catholics and the >Roman church. Of course, you expect a certain amount of anit-Papist >rhetoric in any protestant writer of the time, but Milton seems to me to >harbour a nastier grudge than most. There is evidence that some of the >'friends' he made in Italy were profoundly irritated by his insensitive >remarks about their faith; I think it's equally insensitive for a modern >critic to champion Milton's bigoted views as the cornerstone of religious >liberty. > >A more truly tolerationist attitude was that of Milton's friend Roger >Williams, who would have readmitted the Jews and allowed Catholics to >practice their religion openly. Milton, by contrast, seems to me to have >argued for disestablishment because he personally held some rather bizarre >and heretical opinions which, under the Long Parliament's presbyterian >government, were punishable by death. > >Richard Watkins >St. Hugh's, Oxford >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Rose Williams" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 8:10 AM >Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > > > > So far as I know, he never > > > >rejected God, just all the people on earth who thought they owned >Him. > > > > > > Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Milton's open-minded attitude to religion: > > > > > > "Popery is the only or the greatest Heresie: and he who is so forward >to > > > brand all others for Hereticks, the obstinate Papist, the only >Heretick... > > > > He was also part of the "Root and Branch" faction which > > petitioned Parliament to abolish EPISCOPACY and to restore the government >of > > the Church to the people (Allen, ENGLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT, 346f). > > > > Rose Williams > > > > > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 9:45 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton and antiCatholicism This is a complex question for me, but I think it's a bit anachronistic to judge Milton's anti-Catholicism as if he were reacting to the current Catholic church. Anti-Catholicism today (that I've experienced among fundamentalist groups) is generally ignorant of Catholic doctrine and practice, tends to exaggerate some elements of the Catholic faith that are more subdued in practice, and tends to disregard wide areas of agreement between Catholics and Protestants. But anti-Cathlicism in Milton's day was strongly politically motivated (for good reason), and perceived what was probably a legitimate threat in Rome. I really appreciate the post about Galileo. . .that's almost too obvious. Truth is, many Catholics today would have been antiCatholic in Milton's time, even if they still held to the doctrines of transubstantiation, the authority of the church, etc. Their rhetoric would be a bit different (certainly not as rabid as Milton's, and yes, he did seem especially mean about it), but their stance -- perhaps not. When evaluating Milton's anti-Catholicism, it's best to keep in mind the actions of the Catholic church during that period. . .would you really feel that differently? For that matter, what do many American Catholics today say about the church's stand on the ordination of women, abortion, and birth control? :) Jim << I'm not sure that Milton's opposition to episcopacy makes his rabid anti-catholicism ok! It's not often enough appreciated that Milton is deeply offensive, from his very earliest writings, about catholics and the Roman church. Of course, you expect a certain amount of anit-Papist rhetoric in any protestant writer of the time, but Milton seems to me to harbour a nastier grudge than most. There is evidence that some of the 'friends' he made in Italy were profoundly irritated by his insensitive remarks about their faith; I think it's equally insensitive for a modern critic to champion Milton's bigoted views as the cornerstone of religious liberty. A more truly tolerationist attitude was that of Milton's friend Roger Williams, who would have readmitted the Jews and allowed Catholics to practice their religion openly. Milton, by contrast, seems to me to have argued for disestablishment because he personally held some rather bizarre and heretical opinions which, under the Long Parliament's presbyterian government, were punishable by death. Richard Watkins St. Hugh's, Oxford ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rose Williams" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 8:10 AM Subject: Re: Milton and the Common Law > So far as I know, he never > > >rejected God, just all the people on earth who thought they owned Him. > > > > Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Milton's open-minded attitude to religion: > > > > "Popery is the only or the greatest Heresie: and he who is so forward to > > brand all others for Hereticks, the obstinate Papist, the only Heretick... > > He was also part of the "Root and Branch" faction which > petitioned Parliament to abolish EPISCOPACY and to restore the government of > the Church to the people (Allen, ENGLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT, 346f). > > Rose Williams > > >> From: Peter C. Herman [herman2@mail.sdsu.edu] Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 3:18 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: writing assignments Would the professor from Hamilton College please do me the favor of reposting to me privately her suggestions for writing assignments? I accidentally deleted them. Many thanks in advance, Peter C. Herman