From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 10:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: neglect study Carrol Cox rants against individualism to a degree upsetting to those of us who, like John Milton, believe in the primacy of the individual over the collective. It is true that people need friendship or companionship. It is not true that <> In fact, quite the opposite. The monstrosities of human history have always come from those who have attempted to eradicate individualism, calling it an illusion, and forcing humans into a collective, to serve their "fellow man." (for more, see http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF) But I write in the interest of full disclosure to suggest an example which might prove the need for social connections better than the "Soviet machine" one (which has been discussed, but of which I've not seen any actual evidence). Here in San Bernardino County in California a few years ago, sheriff's deputies discovered a house where a thirteen year old girl had been kept chained inside a closet for her entire life. She knew only a handful of words, and obviously lacked any education or manners. The deputies nicknamed her "Angel," since she had no name. This was quite a while ago--1994 or a bit before that, I think--and it would be interesting (if possible) to find out how she is doing now. Timothy Sandefur From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 9:20 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Neglect study You don't need to be human to need society. Some horribly cruel experiments were done on baby monkeys, rearing them in isolation with monkey-robot 'mothers'. They never learnt to interact with other monkeys and lived in constant fear. On this basis, I think Adam must have been a sociopath. Eve on the other hand always had to deal with Adam, so she was relatively normal. Is this why most women have more social graces than most men? (Please don't tell me the answer; I know we men are missing most of a chromosome). Philip Stewart From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 7:49 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton's God Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 08:32:44 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Tom Bishop writes, in part, that "Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass" replays the War in Heaven, during the course of which God (who has been in elder-care for many centuries suffering from an advanced case of "Ancient of Days syndrome") finally dies. However, his Regent has long since been wielding Supreme Executive Power on his behalf anyway, and is a much more formidable and ambitious figure." So James I really *was* God, then? Wow: that makes Charles the Martyr . . . no, a death to think! Cheekily, Carol Barton From: t.n.corns@bangor.ac.uk Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 10:19 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: BRITISH MILTON SEMINAR 24 THE BRITISH MILTON SEMINAR BMS 23 AUTUMN MEETING, 2001 Saturday 6 October 2001 PRELIMINARY NOTICE Venue: In Birmingham Central Library on Saturday 6 October 2001. There will be two sessions, from 11.00 am to 12.30 pm and from 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm. No particular theme has been identified for this meeting, so proposals for any aspect of Milton studies would be welcome. I should like to receive offers of papers no later than 30 June 2001. Thomas N. Corns Joint Convener 8 May 2001 From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 6:46 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu ' Subject: Milton and education Hello, There was a query recently about Milton and education. Fletcher's *The Intellectual Development of John Milton* and Ainsworth's edition *On Education, the Tractate 'Of Education'* concern Milton directly. More broadly, I find helpful Helen Jewel's *Education in Early Modern England*. For specific pupil-master relationships, *The Complete Prose Works of John Milton* contains letters through the 1650s to Milton's one-time student Richard Jones and to Richard Jones' later tutor, Henry Oldenburg. *The Complete Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg* contains some information on the nature of the relationship between Milton and Jones as well as between Milton and Richard Barry, second Earl of Barrimore, also a member of the Jones-Ranelagh-Boyle family, whom I believe Milton tutored. This last reference is helpful because it contains a series of letters by Oldenburg that provides us with a glimpse of the precarious position of the tutor during the period. Finally, I have not yet read but have heard good things about a recent book by Fran Teague that explores student-master relationships. From: Nancy Charlton [nanc67@home.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 3:11 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Commercial Milton? I got a laugh out of this banner ad that I saw a minute or two ago on Bartleby.com First screen: Paradise LOST [picture of book] Second screen: Paradise FOUND [same picture] It turns out that Paradise is @libris! Incidentally, it is good to be subscribed to Milton-L again. I really missed it. Nancy Charlton Hillsboro OR nanc67@home.com From: tom bishop [tgb2@po.cwru.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 12:13 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's God ><'death of God'?>> Possibly I missed this earlier and if so I apologize (it's been a busy week), but Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass" replays the War in Heaven, during the course of which God (who has been in elder-care for many centuries suffering from an advanced case of "Ancient of Days syndrome") finally dies. However, his Regent has long since been wielding Supreme Executive Power on his behalf anyway, and is a much more formidable and ambitious figure. It's a wild ride. The theology is, however, really the least interesting part. TB From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 11:54 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: neglect study Dan Knauss wrote: > > > > I can neither confirm nor deny the actual existence of that rather > spurious-sounding study, but the current Atlantic Monthly cover story > (Something like "Russia is Finished--Drunken Tailspin into Obscurity") > mentions a similar Soviet program. Infants were nursed by machines and > raised without human contact. They didn't die; they became sociopaths. Leaving aside nursery tales from the red-baiting lore, it is certainly true that a human individual (that is one existing, like Adam, prior to and autonomously of social relations) is rather worse than a sociopath. A post on another list recently gave passages from Clifford Geertz that are illuminating here: **** Subject: cultureless humans Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 15:13:05 -0500 From: Maureen Anderson To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com >>Nothing, ever, begins with an individual. Thought independent and >>prior to language exists (and is the basis for thought in >>language), but social thought can only come into being in language, >>and language occurs only within social relations (Milton to the >>contrary). >> >> Carrol >========= >Where/when does thought leave off and language begin? Just what is >thought prior to and independent of language? > Besides Damasio, and besides stuff by scientists like Terrence Deacon, whom I brought up here before, Clifford Geertz long ago wrote a couple of lucid articles that address these questions of language, thought, wolf-children and other feral fantasies. Though a bit dated (including early-seventies patriarchal language, preserved below), both pieces eloquently explain the basic points, on the significance of the brain's co-evolution with language/symbol/society, echoed by others more recently. (Both pieces are in his 1973 volume, _The Interpretation of Cultures_.) Geertz: "Men without culture would not be the clever savages of Golding's _Lord of the Flies_ thrown back upon the cruel wisdom of their animal instincts; nor would they be the nature's noblemen of Enlightenment primitivism or even, as classical anthropological theory would imply, intrinsically talented apes who had somehow failed to find themselves. They would be unworkable monstrosities with very few useful instincts, fewer recognizable sentiments, and no intellect: mental basket cases. As our central nervous system -- and most particularly its crowning curse and glory, the neocortex -- grew up in great part in interaction with culture, it is incapable of directing our behavior or organizing our experience without the guidance provided by systems of significant symbols. What happened to us in the Ice Age is that we were obliged to abandon the regularity and precision of detailed genetic control over our conduct for the flexibility and adaptability of a more generalized, though of course no less real, genetic control over it. To supply the additional information necessary to be able to act, we were forced, in turn , to rely more and more heavily of cultural sources -- the accumulated fund of significant symbols. Such symbols are thus not mere expressions, instrumentalities, or correlates of our biological, psychological, and social existence; they are prerequisites of it. Without men, no culture, certainly; but equally, and more significantly, without culture, no men." ["The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man"] "A cultureless human being would probably turn out to be not an intrinsically talented though unfulfilled ape, but a wholly mindless and consequently unworkable monstrosity. Like the cabbage it so much resembles, the Homo sapiens brain, having arisen within the framework of human culture, would not be viable outside of it. [...] The fact that the final stages of the biological evolution of man occurred after the initial stages of the growth of culture implies that the "basic," "pure," or "unconditioned," human nature, in the sense of the innate constitution of man, is so functionally incomplete as to be unworkable. Tools,hunting, family organization, and, later, art, religion, and science molded man somatically; and they are, therefore, necessary not merely to his survival but to his existential realization." ["The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind"] ********* That is, human social relations were in the first instance created by pre-humans -- we were always already constituted by an ensemble of social relations even prior to becoming biologically modern humans. Human society is even in a merely chronological sense prior to and constitutive of human "individuals." The illusory "independent individual" of bourgeois ideology would, if he/she existed, be a monstrosity. Making that monstrosity imaginable is perhaps the great achievement of _Paradise Lost_. The "Image of Humanity" given by Adam's account of his own creation is an image that makes human history utterly unintelligible. Carrol Carrol From: Dillingham, Tom [TomDill@wc.stephens.edu] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 8:58 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: "Death of God"? Again, this is somewhat off-topic, but following on Timothy Sandefur's comments about the Varley trilogy, I could recommend a novel and its sequel by Mary Doria Russell--_Sparrow_ and _Children of God_. In the first, a Jesuit priest who is also an anthropologist travels with an exploratory team to a distant inhabited planet where a series of horrific events leave him the last survivor and stranded on the planet (a prisoner of one faction of one ethnic group) for a number of years. The second volume portrays his relationship with the papal hierarchy after his return to earth. This would not be worth mentioning except that the real subject of the two novels is the impact of encounters with non-human species (and a variety of other experiences) on a sophisticated and highly educated man of faith. The "death of god" is only one of the moral and theological issues he faces. Russell is a better-than-average stylist in the sf field (actually, her work is being marketed as mainstream fiction, stimulating some fury among sf writers), and her work has been favorably compared with another sf writer with a serious religious theme--Walter M. Miller. (James Blish, whose _A Case of Conscience_ might come to mind in this context, is serious but far less subtle and challenging than Russell.) I might add that Russell's books are unusual in that the sequel is not a disappointment, as is so often the case. And her "projection" of what the Catholic Church (and its papal offices) might be like several hundred years from now is quite intriguing in itself. Tom Dillingham From: John D. Schaeffer [jschaeff@niu.edu] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 6:34 PM To: milton-L@richmond.edu Subject: call for papers C Dear Miltonists The following call for papers might be of interest to members of the list. John D. Schaeffer Northern Illinois University ALL FOR PAPERS: "The Regulation of Print: 1557-1700" Bibliography and Textual Studies session at the Midwest Modern Association's 43rd Annual Convention, November 1-3, Sheraton Cleveland City Centre, Cleveland, Ohio. >From the receipt of its first charter in 1557, the Stationers' Company regulated, in cooperation with the Crown, public printed expression in England, and eventually in Scotland, Ireland, and the North American colonies. This absolute control only ended with the Copyright Act of Anne in 1708-09. Papers are invited on any aspect of the control of the press during this period, and especially papers dealing with aspects of regulation directly connected with the Company. Please send brief abstracts by May 23 to: Terri Bourus Department of English Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL. 60115 From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 10:54 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: neglect study On Mon, 7 May 2001 07:15:29 -0400 (EDT) "patricia stewart" writes: > > I have often seen references to that study but never any citations. > Does anyone have any proof that such an experiment actually > occurred? > If so, I'd be interested in seeing the information. > > I can neither confirm nor deny the actual existence of that rather spurious-sounding study, but the current Atlantic Monthly cover story (Something like "Russia is Finished--Drunken Tailspin into Obscurity") mentions a similar Soviet program. Infants were nursed by machines and raised without human contact. They didn't die; they became sociopaths. -Dan Knauss ________________________________________________________________ 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: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 10:02 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's God It's not fiction, but I've recently been rereading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation and I think some of the essays in there could definitely help you think about the fiction you do study... The Island of Dr. Moreau may be of use to you too :) -- or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Don't know if that's within your parameters, though. Jim <> Well, it may be considered a bit low brow for a Milton list, but John Varley's science fiction trilogy, TITAN, WIZARD, and DEMON are about something rather similar. In the first novel, a group of astronauts discovers a space station orbiting Saturn, and they land on it, only to discover that it's actually a hollow wheel-shaped world, presided over by a god who appears in the form of a little old lady living at the hub of this wheel. At the end of TITAN, after discovering this god--who calls herself "Gaea"--the main character is given the title of Wizard, and vested with the power to control the reproduction of this world's primary species of inhabitants, called the Titanides. In WIZARD, which takes place eighty years or so later, we discover that the main character is a depressed alcoholic, crushed by the responsibility of controlling the population of this world. New characters arrive, and for a number of reasons, they all go on a trip around the rim of this world. On the course of the trip, we discover that the main character and her friends are planning a rebellion against Gaea, who has been going insane, partly as a result of constantly watching earth-produced movies. At the end, the main character kills the old lady--although of course Gaea is still alive. DEMON portrays the revolutionary war against this "god" Gaea, who, now thoroughly insane, presents herself in the form of a sixty foot tall copy of Marilyn Monroe. At the end of this very exciting--and very....IMAGINATIVE--book, the main characters have managed to defeat Gaea. It sounds very strange from my description, I see, but these books are all so well written and so imaginative that they are a real joy to read--definitely my favorite novels. I don't think that Varley was trying to say anything about God in the religious sense--although I believe he is not religious--but more a political statement, since he is a libertarian. Or rather, his primary concern is simply with the story, with the statement secondary to that. Anyway, I don't suppose it's an academically attractive book, but I very heartily recommend Varley's novels to everyone who enjoys science fiction. Timothy Sandefur >> From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 9:43 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: A nice and subtle happiness, I see/ Nothing will please the Descartes: I think therefore I am. Descartes' sister: I think therefore I am single. Adios, Angelica Duran Assistant Professor Department of English Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (765) 496-3957 > ---------- > From: John Leonard > Sent: Monday, May 7, 2001 6:11 AM > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Subject: A nice and subtle happiness, I see/ Nothing will please the > > difficult and nice > Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 08:47:09 -0400 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Raphael: "Think not I shall be nice." > Larriel: "Think not I shall be nasty." > > From: Arnold, Margaret [mjarnold@ukans.edu] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 3:42 PM To: 'Milton-L@richmond.edu' Cc: Arnold, Margaret Subject: Alice Egerton again Roy Flannagan referred us to Stephen Orgel for details about the unhappy life of Alice Egerton after the age of fifteen. I need only to mention a few details following the year of her appearance as the Lady because I am writing on some masque allusions in an A.S. Byatt novel. I've found allusions to her illness and the suspicion of witchcraft; also, Barbara Lewalski's recent critical biography of Milton supplies information about Lady Alice's marriage. If my arithmetic is right, she married after the age of 30. Does anyone know of even one piece of information in between? Please feel free to respond off line. Many thanks! Margaret Arnold Department of English University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 e-mail: or just From: Lynne1eric@aol.com Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 12:33 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Gay Angels & England's Laws Two other helpful cites for introductory overviews of sodomy laws include Crime and Punishment in England (John Briggs, Christpher Harrison, Angus McInnes and David Vincent) and Cynthia Herrup's A House in Gross Disorder. Herrup's book also has an extensive bibliography of work on sodomy in the early modern period. As per these two cites: Before 1533, sodomy was not a crime in common law. In 1533-34, the "Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggery" made buggery a capital offence without benefit of clergy (the most common means by which convicted felons avoided execution), applying equally to acts between men and women and men and animals. Edward IV's first Parliament modified this act, Mary I's Parliament repealed it, and Elizabeth I's Parliament restored it to its original and lasting form (until 1833). The category of homosexuality, "denoting a discrete group of sexual deviants whose very existence was an affront to public decency," was an invention of the closing decades of Victoria's reign. In 1885, a statute prohibiting "acts of gross indecency between two men" made homosexuality a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years of hard labour. I strongly recommend Herrup's book for background on the legislative history of these acts and discussions of the most infamous cases of sodomy. Lynne Greenberg From: Carl Bellinger; lp3 [carlb@shore.net] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 7:16 AM To: srevard@siue.edu; milton-l@richmond.edu <200105011401.JAA04507@cougar.isg.siue.edu> Subject: Re: eros as desire Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 16:31:50 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu ' didn't know that about the wider meaning in Greek of the word eros; reminds me of C. S. Lewis's climactic tribute to George MacDonald's myth-like works: >>The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live. I should have been shocked in my teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in _Phantastes_ was goodness. But now that I know I see there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round - in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of law and duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from the land of righteousness, never reveals that elusive Form, which if once seen must inevitably be desired with all but sensuous desire - the thing (in Sappho's phrase) "more gold than gold." ----- Original Message ----- From: To: ; "john rumrich" Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 10:01 AM > > In-Reply-To: > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > User-Agent: IMP/PHP3 Imap webMail Program 2.0.11 > X-Originating-IP: 128.252.41.92 > Subject: RE: Eros and eros > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > May I add a footnote on eros to John Rumrich\'s comments? > > The word erotic now is confined to sex. Not so in > Greek where it means desire--desire for beauty or food or > love or anything. I agree that Eros the god is mostly a sex figure. > But the word eros (as Milton would have known) can cover a > wide range of desires. > > Stella Revard > > > > Quoting john rumrich : > > > Dear Larry, > > > > Eros is a deeply Miltonic notion, and L. Schwartz and J. Leonard are > > in my view being completely pertinent and generously informative when > > they cite the Symposium and the Phaedrus in relation to Milton\'s > > ideas about love. Milton himself works to reconcile Plato and the > > Bible on the topic of eros. You might want to take a look at the > > divorce tracts, or at Milton correspondence with Diodati, where he > > uses greek vocabulary (eg. deinon erota, pterophuo) that suggest that > > he has the Phaedrus in mind when he writes of his love for his friend. > > > > That said, you make an excellent point in your posts, I think, when > > you stress the propriety of limits on interpretation and reject the > > anachronistic usage of \"gay\" to refer to angelic eroticism. > > > > CS Lewis somewhere talks about people in love identifying with each > > other to such an extent that they feel inspired to say: \"love you?! > > I am you!\" There\'s something to that and I suspect that Milton is > > working in that direction with Raphael\'s description of angel love. > > In the renaissance that sort of loving identification was often > > thought to pertain more to male-male love (or in the case of > > Katherine Philips, female-female) than male-female, which tended to > > be seen as problematic--in part, according to Montaigne, because of > > the extreme heat of sexual desire. But this is too complicated to > > pretend to address in a paragraph. > > > > John > > > > > > > > >John Leonard writes: > > > > > >\"The best comment I have ever read on the lovemaking of Milton\'s angels > > is > > >by > > >Dennis Danielson . . . (Danielson, by the way,would certainly share your > > >reverence for Romans and Leviticus.)\" > > > > > >Shouldn\'t John\'s phrase here be \"*our* reverence,\" meaning > everyone who > > >comes to Milton knowing as we all do the Bible\'s importance to him? That > > is > > >all I am pressing in my posts. Milton\'s poems must be measured quite > > >stringently by Bible standards he most likely endorsed. I do not wish > > the > > >Bible to be only my own thesis for determining Milton\'s probable meanings > > in > > >\"Fair Infant\" and Book 8 of *PL*; instead, I want us all as > investigators > > of > > >Milton to take his evidence as he would most probably like us to take it. > > > > > >To return to Bill Hunter\'s phrase that started me on all of this: > > \"actively > > >gay angels\" -- if we all agree that \"gay\" has certain modern > connotations > > >strictly forbidden as practices by the Bible, then this should serve as a > > >measuring rod for us all, not merely for me. It is not my personal > > >preference for Bible truth that matters in the slightest, but it is > > Milton\'s > > >that we must guard if we are to be true to the evidence of his life lived > > by > > >its standards. I am arguing not for a perfect and holy Milton, but for a > > >serious and consistent poet who left enough evidence in his writings and > > >poems for us to know he meant what he set out to do in PL in justifying > > the > > >ways of God to men. > > > > > >We cannot therefore use \"gay\" (or homosexual or lesbian or bisexual or > > any > > >other term resonant with practices Milton would have rejected as > > >inconsistent with his Bible) without also making Milton complicit in > > >practices described in his poems by critics as being gay. Whatever the > > >angels are doing it cannot be homosexual as we understand the term. I do > > >like John Rumrich\'s post that seeks to move eros past sex (though I would > > >dispute the word \"eros\" as non-Miltonic and non-New Testament; maybe he > > will > > >expand a bit more on his use of \"erotic\" and Milton). In Book 8 > there is > > >something transcendent going on among the angels, not something sinful > > and > > >carnal and passionate (the terms Milton has Raphael reject when he stings > > >Adam on his passion for Eve\'s beauty). > > > > > >It remains my concern and my thesis that we can never resolve this > > sensitive > > >subject of sexuality and Milton if we persist in ignoring his Bible so > > >completely as modern critics have and continue to do. > > > > > >Larry Isitt > > > > > >English Dept. > > >College of the Ozarks > > >Point Lookout, MO 65726 > > >417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > > >email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > > > > > From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 12:54 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels & the Bible Dear John, Thanks for the expansion. I take your point regarding the Greek in the prose you cite. I had made a check of Milton's vocabulary in his English poems alone and did not see "Eros" and so wrongly concluded it beyond his usage. I also had in mind *eros* as being excluded from the Greek NT. I find now, in checking Colin Brown, ed. *Dictionary of NT Theology* Zondervan, 1976 this entry which supplements your observations concerning the *Paedrus* and *Symposium*: "Plato sought to raise spiritual love above the physical. *eros* for him was the striving for righteousness, self-possession and wisdom; it is the embodiment of the good, the way to attain immortality." (Vol 2. 539). Larry -----Original Message----- From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu [mailto:owner-milton-l@richmond.edu]On Behalf Of john rumrich Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 9:04 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels & the Bible Dear Larry, Eros is a deeply Miltonic notion, and L. Schwartz and J. Leonard are in my view being completely pertinent and generously informative when they cite the Symposium and the Phaedrus in relation to Milton's ideas about love. Milton himself works to reconcile Plato and the Bible on the topic of eros. You might want to take a look at the divorce tracts, or at Milton correspondence with Diodati, where he uses greek vocabulary (eg. deinon erota, pterophuo) that suggest that he has the Phaedrus in mind when he writes of his love for his friend. That said, you make an excellent point in your posts, I think, when you stress the propriety of limits on interpretation and reject the anachronistic usage of "gay" to refer to angelic eroticism. CS Lewis somewhere talks about people in love identifying with each other to such an extent that they feel inspired to say: "love you?! I am you!" There's something to that and I suspect that Milton is working in that direction with Raphael's description of angel love. In the renaissance that sort of loving identification was often thought to pertain more to male-male love (or in the case of Katherine Philips, female-female) than male-female, which tended to be seen as problematic--in part, according to Montaigne, because of the extreme heat of sexual desire. But this is too complicated to pretend to address in a paragraph. John >John Leonard writes: > >"The best comment I have ever read on the lovemaking of Milton's angels is >by >Dennis Danielson . . . (Danielson, by the way,would certainly share your >reverence for Romans and Leviticus.)" > >Shouldn't John's phrase here be "*our* reverence," meaning everyone who >comes to Milton knowing as we all do the Bible's importance to him? That is >all I am pressing in my posts. Milton's poems must be measured quite >stringently by Bible standards he most likely endorsed. I do not wish the >Bible to be only my own thesis for determining Milton's probable meanings in >"Fair Infant" and Book 8 of *PL*; instead, I want us all as investigators of >Milton to take his evidence as he would most probably like us to take it. > >To return to Bill Hunter's phrase that started me on all of this: "actively >gay angels" -- if we all agree that "gay" has certain modern connotations >strictly forbidden as practices by the Bible, then this should serve as a >measuring rod for us all, not merely for me. It is not my personal >preference for Bible truth that matters in the slightest, but it is Milton's >that we must guard if we are to be true to the evidence of his life lived by >its standards. I am arguing not for a perfect and holy Milton, but for a >serious and consistent poet who left enough evidence in his writings and >poems for us to know he meant what he set out to do in PL in justifying the >ways of God to men. > >We cannot therefore use "gay" (or homosexual or lesbian or bisexual or any >other term resonant with practices Milton would have rejected as >inconsistent with his Bible) without also making Milton complicit in >practices described in his poems by critics as being gay. Whatever the >angels are doing it cannot be homosexual as we understand the term. I do >like John Rumrich's post that seeks to move eros past sex (though I would >dispute the word "eros" as non-Miltonic and non-New Testament; maybe he will >expand a bit more on his use of "erotic" and Milton). In Book 8 there is >something transcendent going on among the angels, not something sinful and >carnal and passionate (the terms Milton has Raphael reject when he stings >Adam on his passion for Eve's beauty). > >It remains my concern and my thesis that we can never resolve this sensitive >subject of sexuality and Milton if we persist in ignoring his Bible so >completely as modern critics have and continue to do. > >Larry Isitt > >English Dept. >College of the Ozarks >Point Lookout, MO 65726 >417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 >email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: patricia stewart [pstewart@arches.uga.edu] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 7:15 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <00eb01c0d3d2$22f13580$4414bfa8@default> Subject: Re: untouched orphans Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 16:39:04 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu From: Carol Barton . There was a study done at the turn of the > last century in which a group of orphaned infants were given everything they > needed but human contact. They died.) I have often seen references to that study but never any citations. Does anyone have any proof that such an experiment actually occurred? If so, I'd be interested in seeing the information. From: John Hale [john.hale@stonebow.otago.ac.nz] Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 11:48 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton's school-keeping Does anyone know of a book, or at least essay or chapter, on why and how Milton taught pupils - his motivation for doing so, like whether it was a vocation discovered, or a compensation of some sort? Has any writer measured successes and failures in terms of announced or presumed intentions? I expect I am missing something obvious in the literature on Milton himself, but would like to pursue it in other contexts anyway. Meaning, via histories of education, or comparisons with other creative giants who felt some urge to pass it along or to have disciples or whatever else (Tolstoy). To what extent is it known whether Milton's ex-pupils stayed in touch, practised what he taught them, and helped him with projects once he went blind (or indeed irrespective of that)? Whilst I am not without ideas on all of this, I would like to hear what other people think. John Hale From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 8:36 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Divine heroism (no more angels with dirty faces) Larry (and all): To begin at the end: Tradition holds that the infernal trinity (Satan-Sin-Death) is the inverse of the Trinity (God-Paraclete-Logos), and I am positing that there is an earthly (human) trinity, too (Adam-Eve-Jesus). Milton's stated intent is to "justify the ways of God to Men," yes -- but as I have argued elsewhere, I believe (with Stanley Fish, as amplified by Sharon Achinstein) that the entire epic was in large part a counter to the disintegrating epistemology of the Renaissance and prior in the seventeenth century, and to the failure of a cause that Cromwell, Milton, and many others of the anti-Caroline persuasion had firmly believed was God's own. Further, I believe (with Steadman and Stein, et al.) that it was primarily an attempt to define the nature and limits of Christian heroism for Milton and every other human being living (in the western world) at a time when all of the important old "Truths" had been proven lies (or corrupt, as they were then understood -- beginning with the Bible and [Roman Catholic] church ), a time when the only thing one could "know" with any certainty was the Cartesian affirmation of existence. I also (pace Derek) think _Paradise Regained_ and _Samson Agonistes_ were products of this line of inquiry -- so for me, dating them specifically (chronologically) is not as important as dating them conceptually . . . and in that respect, I consider them triplets. It is Eve who undergoes the greatest (positive) transformation in _Paradise Lost_, and it is therefore Eve to whom I would accord primary hero status: Adam begins existence by seeking to know and glorify his Maker; Eve is content to worship herself, until she is all but forcibly removed from that enticing reflecting pool; then she worships Adam ("hee for God onely . . .") and at the nadir of her moral decline, the "Fruit. It is therefore Eve who must actually *learn* to love God first and best -- Adam already does, until he relinquishes that love to subordinate status at the creation of Eve. If we have to describe the relationship in terrestrial terms, I would see God more as the "patron" of _Paradise Lost_, the person to whose glory the poem is dedicated . . . but being the Father, he is undynamic, unchanging, and without potential for drama (as so many critics have shown) because he is without potential for loss (other than the voluntary sacrifice of his Son, which dramatically presents problems, too -- as Empson is notorious for demonstrating). Hope that shorthand explanation of "where I was coming from" helps? (Unfortunately, I have miles to go before I sleep, and a bunch of deadlines nipping at my heels . . .) Best to all, Carol Barton From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 3:23 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: _eros_ and sex >And I believe that Milton's _eros_ is more classical than modern, a form that lends itself to Foucauldian appreciation > more than it lends itself to modern, psychoanalytical norms of the sexual. Amen! Remember that Milton had the good fortune to live before Freud informed us that every time we eat a snack we are performing a sexual act and that physical sexuality, like breathing, is absolutely necessary to continued existence. Milton had also most likely been exposed to the bizarre Puritan notion that the true purpose of sexual activity was reproduction of the race. Rose Williams From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 9:41 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's God <> Well, it may be considered a bit low brow for a Milton list, but John Varley's science fiction trilogy, TITAN, WIZARD, and DEMON are about something rather similar. In the first novel, a group of astronauts discovers a space station orbiting Saturn, and they land on it, only to discover that it's actually a hollow wheel-shaped world, presided over by a god who appears in the form of a little old lady living at the hub of this wheel. At the end of TITAN, after discovering this god--who calls herself "Gaea"--the main character is given the title of Wizard, and vested with the power to control the reproduction of this world's primary species of inhabitants, called the Titanides. In WIZARD, which takes place eighty years or so later, we discover that the main character is a depressed alcoholic, crushed by the responsibility of controlling the population of this world. New characters arrive, and for a number of reasons, they all go on a trip around the rim of this world. On the course of the trip, we discover that the main character and her friends are planning a rebellion against Gaea, who has been going insane, partly as a result of constantly watching earth-produced movies. At the end, the main character kills the old lady--although of course Gaea is still alive. DEMON portrays the revolutionary war against this "god" Gaea, who, now thoroughly insane, presents herself in the form of a sixty foot tall copy of Marilyn Monroe. At the end of this very exciting--and very....IMAGINATIVE--book, the main characters have managed to defeat Gaea. It sounds very strange from my description, I see, but these books are all so well written and so imaginative that they are a real joy to read--definitely my favorite novels. I don't think that Varley was trying to say anything about God in the religious sense--although I believe he is not religious--but more a political statement, since he is a libertarian. Or rather, his primary concern is simply with the story, with the statement secondary to that. Anyway, I don't suppose it's an academically attractive book, but I very heartily recommend Varley's novels to everyone who enjoys science fiction. Timothy Sandefur From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 7:12 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: A nice and subtle happiness, I see/ Nothing will please the difficult and nice Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 08:47:09 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Raphael: "Think not I shall be nice." Larriel: "Think not I shall be nasty." From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 9:05 AM To: Milton List Subject: Gay Angels & England's Laws To all following this thread I had someone ask me a question off line concerning when it was in early England that laws were established punishing homosexual behavior. I did not know and the closest I could come was William Blackstone, *Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765-1769* U Chicago, 4 vols. Perhaps others on the list could help out with other references. I'll quote portions of Blackstone here. Someone who can handle the Latin will do me a service if you would translate. In the 4th vol., (Bk 4, chp 15, section 4), pp 215-16: "...another offence, of a still deeper malignity [than rape]; the infamous *crime against nature*, committed either with man or beast. ... a crime no fit to be named; 'peccatum illud horribile, inter christianos non nominandum.' A taciturnity observed likewise by the edict of Canstantius and Constans (Cod. 9.9.31); 'ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit scire, jubemus insurgere leges, armari jura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis poenis subdantur infames, qui sunt, vel qui futuri sunt, rei.' Which leads me to add a word cncerning it's punishment. This the voice of nature and of reason, and the express law of God (Levit. xx. 13.15), determine to be capital. Of which we have a signal instance, long before the Jewish dispensation, by the destruction of two cities by fire from heaven: so that this is an universal, not merely a provincial, precept. And our antient law in some degree imitated this punishment, by commanding such miscreants to be burnt to death (Brit. c. 9); though Fleta (l.l.c.37) says they should be buried alive; either of which punishments was indifferently used for this crime among the antient Goths (Stiernh. *de jure Goth*. l.3.c.2). But now the general puishment of all felonies is the same, namely, by hanging; and this offence ... was made single felony the the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 6. and felony without benefit of clergy by statute 5 Eliz. c. 17. And the rule of law herein is, that, if both are arrived at years of discretion, agentes et consentientes pari poena plectantur. From: rh1 [rh1@york.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 11:16 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: To everyone interested in John Locke (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 17:20:53 +0100 From: rh1 To: PHILOS-L@LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Subject: To everyone interested in John Locke THE LOCKE NEWSLETTER An Annual Journal of Locke Research No. 31 2000 This issue, of 264 pages - a bumper issue because it includes a 69-page detailed index to the contents of the last 30 years of the journal - was published, after production delays, on March 10 this year (2001). Copies have een sent out to all regular subscribers. Others are invited to subscribe, or to buy the current issue. If you would like this issue (No. 31), please send 9.50 pounds or $17.50 US to the Editor, and it will be mailed to you at once (surface mail free; for air mail delivery add 2 pds or $3). Make cheques out to `Roland Hall (Locke Newsletter)' -- and send them to: Summerfields, The Glade, Escrick, YORK YO19 6JH, England. Please indicate whether you wish to be entered as a regular subscriber, or just to receive the one issue. (And if you wish to pay for two issues at once, the cost of the next issue will be the same.) In case of heavy demand, copies can be reserved by e-mail to the the Editor. The address is rh1@york.ac.uk *Contents of No. 31* 1 Editorial 3 Recent Publications on Locke 11 Locke on Supposing a Substratum (Szabo) 43 Locke on the Freedom to Will (Rickless) 69 Locke and the Story of the Studious Blind Man (Gray) 79 Locke's Moral Revolution: from Natural Law to Moral Relativism (Zinaich) 115 Locke on Political Authority and Conjugal Authority (Sample) NOTES 147 Locke on Tacit and Express Consent (Ludwig) 157 _The Library of John Locke_: Some Additions (Milton) REVIEW ARTICLE 159 _John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity_ ed. Higgins-Biddle (Nuovo) REPLY TO A REVIEW 179 Locke on Private Property (Kramer) INDEX 195 Thirty-Year Index 1970-1999 (Hutchinson) ----------------------- Articles in this journal have all been refereed. Contributions are invited for the next issue, which is No. 32 (2001); it is hoped that this can be published within the year. Back issues are available on the same terms as the current issue. For institutions, the price, both for current and back issues, is 17 pounds or $30 US. Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/Philosophy/philos.html From: Harvey Wheeler [verulan@mindspring.com] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 11:35 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: The "hero" of Paradise Lost My suggestion is that Milton's God and Adam are the only heroes. God because all he does is grant Free Will (and refuses to do anything, even "good" that might undermine it.) Adam because he is constantly instructed from the mountain-top view that history, which appears to chronicle disaster, can become the arena of progress. HW From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 10:22 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton's God Being new to this list, I don't know what I've been missing, but I hope the following is new. I first fell for PL aged 15, when I found it the ideal thing to read between exams, sitting on a log in the middle of a forest. I didn't understand why I liked it so much, given that I was already full of suspicions about Christianity. Then I read 'Milton's God' by William Empson. For a while I believed his contention that the poem was so good because it made God so bad, but I ended up uncomfortable with the idea that anyone could write a book that was great because it said the opposite of what the author intended. Seven years later, following a degree in Arabic and Hebrew, I translated a novel by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, published as 'Children of Gebelaawi' (Passeggiata Press - ISBN 1-57889-0381-1). It is a religious allegory, in which successive generations of young men in a Cairo Alley relive the lives of Adam, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, while the fifth represents modern science. Brooding over the whole book is the figure of Gebelaawi, their immensely long-lived ancestor, who dies at the end thanks to the activities of the fifth hero. It caused an outcry and was banned after its serialization in a newspaper. After Mahfouz had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, he received death threats on account of the book, and an attempt was made on his life in 1994. Comparing this novel with PL, I became convinced that what both books do is not to show how bad the true, transcendent God is, but to show how terrible an anthropomorphic god can be. Rather than William Empson, I would now quote G B Shaw in the introduction to Back to Methuselah, where he says that Blake's Nobodaddy, the vengeful god with 'body, parts and passions' has to lose his hold on us if we are to perceive his transcendent namesake. It seems to me that Mahfouz's vision is far more profound that that of Philip Pullman, who seems to have got away lightly with a far more irreverent and unproductive 'death of God' in his trilogy 'His Dark Materials'. Incidentally does anyone know of any other modern fiction that portrays the 'death of God'? From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 3:15 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Gay angels (and divine heroism) Carol Barton writes in response to me, in part: "I disagree--strenuously--with your pronouncement that God is the hero of _Paradise Lost_, for exactly the reasons you cite: Man is,the third trinity of Eve, Adam, and Jesus, in that (sequential) order, and that too, is according to Milton's plan. . . . But I think it as important to Milton's theology that Man, and not God, is the hero of _Paradise Lost_ . . . lest we grant Empson his 'stacked deck.' God is omnipotent, deathless: he cannot be a 'hero' in the sense that we understand it . . . because he risks nothing, and can lose nothing, no matter what he does. Not so Jesus -- until he becomes in fact the Christ." Carol, When I say that God, not Satan, is Milton's hero in PL, I mean only that he is the central figure around which the poem vindicates itself in accord with Milton's stated intention to justify the ways of God to men. God is the protagonist, Satan the antagonist. I mean hero more in the sense OED gives in one of its definitions: "The man who forms the subject of an epic; the chief male personage in a poem, play, or story; he in whom the interest of the story or plot is centred." I do see where this fits Adam, but I think that Adam is Milton's subplot towards his goal of glorifying God. All of Adam's thoughts and questions of Raphael center on who it is who has made him and the universe and to what purposes. The fact that God is omnipotent and cannot therefore "struggle" as do Satan and Adam, does not for me mean we cannot take him as the hero, the central figure of the epic. On what is probably another strand we need not necessarily pursue now, I sometime would like to hear more from you on "third trinity": is there a second? a first? Are these trinities related to Trinity (capital T) or are you suggesting merely a convenient set of "threes" the third of which is Adam-Eve-Jesus? I am sorry that I have not read your source for this part of your discussion and so am missing what may be readily apparent to others. Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu -----Original Message----- From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu [mailto:owner-milton-l@richmond.edu]On Behalf Of Carol Barton Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 7:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Gay angels (and divine heroism) Larry Isitt writes, inter alia, that "valid evidence should, in principle, lead to valid conclusions. I reject the notion entirely that Satan overwhelms PL (as a whole). It may *appear* that he does so from the evidence of the first two books, but this is illusion and distortion, for Milton knew perfectly well who the hero is in his account--it was the God he knew from the Bible." I can agree with this statement in principle, Larry, but not in detail. Yes: it is true that, as I and others before me have argued elsewhere, there is a good psychological *reason* why Satan is as magnificent as he is in the first two books of _PL_ (he figures only tangentially in III, and in IV, begins a moral degeneration paralleled by his physical one). His presence is part of what Stanley Fish once called Milton's "programme of entrapment"--and entrap us it does, as this thread has so clearly demonstrated. But I disagree--strenuously--with your pronouncement that God is the hero of _Paradise Lost_, for exactly the reasons you cite: Man is, the third trinity of Eve, Adam, and Jesus, in that (sequential) order, and that too, is according to Milton's plan. Adam is given the opportunity to prefigure his Saviour at Eve's fall: he could (1) intercede; (2) trust in God to set things right, knowing how dearly Adam loves her; or (3) offer to die in her place, emulating Christ's intercession for Man; Jesus's assertion of complete faith in the Father at Gethsemane ("let this cup pass from me"); or the Crucifixion. He fails to do any of the three. It is *Eve* who begins the resurrecting process for humankind, with her cry "on mee, mee only let thine anger fall"--though as Adam tells her, she is too weak to bear the full weight of their sin alone, it is her *desire* to do so that inspires contrition in Adam ("then let us repair to the place where we were judged"), and Jesus who completes the act of supreme heroism that will reunite the fallen (except the reprobate) with God. Had Adam emulated Jesus, there would be no need for Christ; because Jesus obeys as Adam didn't, all humans are given a second, more merciful, chance. Tradition holds that the wood of the Cross came from the Tree of Knowledge. And as for why the devils are not restored to grace by mercy? the reason is simple: they never ask. But I think it as important to Milton's theology that Man, and not God, is the hero of _Paradise Lost_ . . . lest we grant Empson his "stacked deck." God is omnipotent, deathless: he cannot be a "hero" in the sense that we understand it . . . because he risks nothing, and can lose nothing, no matter what he does. Not so Jesus -- until he becomes in fact the Christ. Best to all, Carol Barton From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 11:52 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: The "hero" of Paradise Lost <00b101c0d301$3df888a0$9c14bfa8@default> Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > (And by the way: just to set the record straight, you only get "hero" credit > as an undergraduate for finding and reading the last six books of the > _Faerie Queene_!) > > Excelsior! > > Carol Barton Or the first seven! dw From: Seb Perry [sebperry@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 8:25 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Hyacinth On the subject of Milton's aesthetic ineptitude in accidentally introducing homoeroticism into an elegy on the death of a child, - such a blunder isn't utterly inconceivable, is it? I forget which poem it is now, but didn't Browning once refer to a nun's "twat", thinking it referred her wimple? No one had the heart to tell him what the word really meant. Seb. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 9:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Gay angels (and divine heroism) I have already answered the ever-witty Dr. Leonard and the very serious Dr. Isitt offline, but will recapitulate the gist of the latter response here just for the sake of clarification. I think John Shawcross makes a reasonable case for there having been *some* homoerotic (non-physical) attachment between Milton and Diodati, and from a psychological standpoint, I accept that phenomenon as a normal part of the maturation process: the ideal male who replaces the rejected father in the mind of a growing boy who is trying to establish his "otherness," separate from the parental identity (hence Mark Twain's comment about how smart his father got when Twain turned 21)-- not so much a sexual attraction as a "wow! he's just what I'd like to be!" reaction. (John Leonard is right to deconstruct "not so much" in this context as he did: I recognize that there may have been elements of physicality involved, though I don't think they were predominant. Hence, "homoerotic" rather than "homosexual": I don't think terrestrial love comes in pink or blue -- love is love, and to some degree, in the human psyche anyway, that involves the need to touch, and be touched, non-sexually or sexually. There was a study done at the turn of the last century in which a group of orphaned infants were given everything they needed but human contact. They died.) I was trying to extrapolate from that the idea that Milton could understand same-sex love (in the higher sense) and even the kind of intellectual/spiritual excitement I was trying to describe (which is a lot like sex, in terms of the euphoria it engenders, but is *not* sex, because it involves nothing physical) between members of the same gender -- my usage of "homoeroticism" would be more in keeping with Stella's definition, on that basis. My resistance to John Leonard (et al.)'s characterization of angelic sex as corporeal is not a function of homophobia, but of validity, in the context of both the Miltonic canon, and the accommodative discussion of angelic "intermingling" that must, of necessity, come down to Adam's level for Adam to comprehend it in the only terms he understands. Adam knows about limited penetration, of a very small percent of his being into a very small percent of Eve's being: Raphael is trying to explain what happens when entire entities merge, and (forgive the vulgarity) become, not the human "beast with two backs," but literally "one" in all aspects of their being. It helps to remember, perhaps, that they aren't "two" in the sense that we know that term in the first place. There is, according to doctrine, no need for opposites, or opposition, in heaven, which in our fallen state is another concept that it is difficult for us to understand. The bottom line is that, for me, angelic "intermingling" has nothing to do with gender, physical sexuality, or "one on one" or orgiastic love -- it isn't *about* any of that. By the same token, it is not entirely devoid of eros -- it still quacks something like a duck. I am off to research how many angels can copulate on the head of a pin, for the next round. I'm glad we can disagree, and still retain our senses of humor. Best to all, Carol Barton From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 9:50 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: _eros_ and sex "Jesse G. Swan" wrote: " a somaticization of emotional states, perhaps, if we need to use scientistic terms." This won't do, since as William James suggested a century ago and the neurologist Antonio Damasio and his colleagues have developed in great detail, "emotional states" _are_ body states (as opposed to "feelings," which are the recognition of the bodily states which constitute emotions). See his, _Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain_ and _The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness_. You can't somaticize what is soma from the beginning. The error of Descartes, Damasio writes, of separating mind and brain is reduplicated in modern thought by separating brain and body. Consider those science fiction plots in which a "brain" is kept alive in some kind of apparatus separate from the body. This is absurd because thinking and feeling are embodied in a continuous two-way traffic (both in the nervous system and through chemical signals carried in the blood) between brain and body. No feeling of the body -- no thought. Carrol From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 1:25 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Hyacinth Anthony, I certainly appreciate your remarks here, especially this very nicely worded section: "What I value about John Leonard's initial post is that it reminds us Milton may not be wholly in control of his materials at all times, and it allows that these materials can have a life of their own without implying either deliberate sabotage or aesthetic ineptitude. I think it's to Milton's credit that his poetry sometimes plays with fire. His allusions bring their own tangled histories with them, histories that no poet could completely stifle" This is balanced; this is just. You strike just the right note since you do not rule out Milton's biblical frame of reference. I would only continue to rule out of whatever methodology is used discuss the angels the diction to which I have objected since these terms have inescapable modern exclusively sexual meanings that only muddy the discussions : "gay," "homosexual," "lesbian," and "homoerotic." Best to you, Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu -----Original Message----- From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu [mailto:owner-milton-l@richmond.edu]On Behalf Of Anthony Welch Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 9:59 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Hyacinth Larry, Thanks for your responses. And let me retract that word, "icky." The Bible was doubtless central to Milton's thinking, and I agree with you that we should not be whimsically anachronistic about Renaissance gender definitions (or non-definitions). The Hyacinth reference in "Fair Infant" is of course not enough to topple our sense of Milton's commitment to Holy Writ. What I value about John Leonard's initial post is that it reminds us Milton may not be wholly in control of his materials at all times, and it allows that these materials can have a life of their own without implying either deliberate sabotage or aesthetic ineptitude. I think it's to Milton's credit that his poetry sometimes plays with fire. His allusions bring their own tangled histories with them, histories that no poet could completely stifle, and I'm not prepared summarily to rule their meanings out of court even when their context (or even a Bible gloss) might render their presence disturbing. The evidence in the present case is not particularly strong but I think the approach is sound. Best, Anthony Welch On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Larry Isitt wrote: > Anthony Welch writes: > > "Like John Leonard, I'm not yet convinced that Milton's Sparta should be a > no-go area. Perhaps a homoerotic twinge in "Hyacinth" is [not] . . > 'degrading'" > > "Donne's elegy for Elizabeth Drury imagines the corpse of the world > dissecting itself before our eyes;is it so very icky for Milton's elegy to > linger over Spartan pride?" > > Anthony, > > Yes, I do find it degrading to "linger over Spartan pride," but perhaps for > reasons you do not share with me. (I am , however, personally offended, as > your word, "icky" may suggest, as though I cannot speak of such subjects > without blushing). > 1) "Homoerotic twinges" are out of place in an elegy for a child, however > carefully they may be couched. He is a poor poet indeed who so ungracefully > and unfeelingly would have knowingly put in such a reference. And if > unknowingly, then a clumsy poet. > 2) Homosexuality is a sin, and Milton and his readers would have said that > it is, whether practiced "intercrurally" (to use John Leonard's borrowing > from Dover)or penetratingly. > 3) The Bible is that reference to which we should all resort for sorting out > such matters as this, for that is Milton's own standard. If we cannot agree > that this is so, then I concede and have no other way to speak that I would > defend as Milton's. To make of his work a bed of secret desires forbidden > strictly by the Bible seems to me to make of Milton someone other than the > man we know by literally dozens of Bible allusions, quotes, echoes in PL and > thousands in *Christian Doctrine*. > From: Jesse G. Swan [jesse.swan@uni.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:51 AM To: Milton Listserve Subject: Re: _eros_ and sex Hello Colleagues, Love the thread. Quickly, though, _eros_ now, I believe, if now involves Foucault's influence, means something quite like the classical sense of generalized pleasurable experience, a somaticization of emotional states, perhaps, if we need to use scientistic terms. See "Scientia Sexualis," for instance (in _History of Sexuality_, vol 1). And following Foucault's renascence of _eros_, queer studies understands the historicity of the sexual (see the popular expression of it, Katz, _The Invention of Heterosexuality_) and has been exploring the possibilities of the erotic in its Foucauldian or, I might say, renascence sense (see perhaps the best effort so far in Renaissance/early modern English studies, Jeffrey Masten's _Textual Intercourse_). Reading Leonard's contributions, I interpreted them through this genealogical relation, even if sometimes the expressions seemed more intuitively informed than self-consciously so (something, in fact, I always admire and often, perhaps shamefully, even envy). And I believe that Milton's _eros_ is more classical than modern, a form that lends itself to Foucauldian appreciation more than it lends itself to modern, psychoanalytical norms of the sexual. Cordially, jesse From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:46 AM To: Carol Barton; milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Carol Barton writes: > > I have, on rare occasions, experienced that phenomenon, and all of the > ecstacy I described above and in my previous e-mail, with male colleagues, > and with at least one homosexual colleague, and one female colleague, too. I > will invoke Bill Clinton's defense: I may have known rapture as good as sex > (perhaps even better than sex!) with all of them, but I promise you, I never > had sex with that woman --or with any of those men. Neither did the > experience convert my gay friend to a heterosexual -- even temporarily. Our > essences mingled: our bodies didn't have to -- we were well past "membrane, > joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs." > Yes, I've heard about the goings-on in American English Departments, though I have had no personal experience of the kind you describe. I hope that this is a reflection on Britain and Canada rather than on me. The Cambridge English Faculty would rather get at each others' throats than past each others' membranes. As for the Canadians, they don't have any exclusive bars (though this is generally seen as a liability rather than an asset). John Leonard From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Gay angels (and divine heroism) Carol writes: "the hot, sweaty union of writhing bodies you gentlemen seem to be insistent on envisioning" (referring to John Leonard and myself). Carol, I am trying as mightily as I can to dissociate from such a vision, not endorse it. As I said previously, I was trying (by, admittedly, descending to physical description)to get Bill Hunter and others to stop using the word "gay" because of its modern homosexual emphasis which is completely at variance with Milton's Bible and therefore most likely with his own intentions. If I was "insistent on envisioning" the angels as "hot" and "sweaty," it was with this end in view. If I have been distasteful in the process, it was in the hope at arriving at the tastefulness you exhibit in your own posts, which generally I take to be much more in keeping with the Milton I think we have abundant evidence for knowing. I admit to a certain puritanical zeal when I here object to even your nuanced use of "homoerotic" as opposed to "homosexual." The word cannot escape its association with homosexuality, however you cast it and I would strongly urge its abandonment. Otherwise, I am in agreement with your thoughts on sexless stimulation. And I accept your distancing of homosexual activity among the angels. My entire line of posts to this discussion has been to try to establish a family of objectionable words that need not any longer encumber critical discussion of angels in PL or other poems. "Gay," "homosexual," "lesbian," and "homoerotic" comprise that family (so far). I do so because they cannot escape their modern associations and therefore they compromise Milton's stated purpose in PL to justify his God. One can establish the point of male to male love without resorting to this lexicon of terms. You have done so yourself in your posts and do not need "homoerotic" to help make your point. Larry English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu -----Original Message----- From: Carol Barton [mailto:cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 6:37 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: <001201c0d183$3f7495e0$91636481@jleonard> Subject: Discursive Intercourse Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 08:44:01 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu In response to John Leonard and Larry Isitt, et al., I'm afraid I must insist that (a) my use of the term "homoerotic" distinguishes same-sex emotion from "homosexual" copulation, and that (b) because I allow for *some* homoerotic potential in the hero-worship of one male adolescent for another, it does not mean I extend that potential to Milton's angels. I was making a distinction between the union of mind with mind and soul with soul that occurs when two intellects (though it is more than that) unite in common apprehension of some Truth or Beauty that is beyond the pale of everyday reflection: the excitement, the electricity, the exhiliration that one feels in such circumstances certainly has aspects that one might consider "erotic" (for want of a more appropriate term -- like "transcendent"). If angels unite, essence with essence, in some "corporeal" fashion it is (in my estimation) far more like Whoopi Goldberg's medium in "Ghost" embodying other entities than it is the hot, sweaty union of writhing bodies you gentlemen seem to be insistent on envisioning. There is, John, no need for "thrust" -- since there is no potential for friction, which only occurs when "obstacle [there is some] / Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs"; and such friction is only necessary because of the nature of human physiology -- not angelic: not to descend to the absolutely vulgar, the equipment does not function without such stimulation. But please note the IF in your citation, John: "If Spirits embrace, / Total they ix." --- which is to say that, if -- IF -- dear Adam, angels could be said to embrace in the terrestrial way you understand the term, instead of being separated by membranes, joynts, and limbs, their union would absolute, one completely "marrying" with the other, rather than only one's sexual organs penetrating the other. That is a BIG "if," in this context. I repeat my original assertion, that Raphael's discussion is an *accommodation,* an imperfect analogy rendered inadequate because, as Raphael also tells Adam, the latter lacks the referents to comprehend the angel's answer completely. There is no need for male and female, yin and yang, "penetrating" or "penetrated" members in heaven. When angels "copulate" they join essences, as in the meeting of two minds. I have, on rare occasions, experienced that phenomenon, and all of the ecstacy I described above and in my previous e-mail, with male colleagues, and with at least one homosexual colleague, and one female colleague, too. I will invoke Bill Clinton's defense: I may have known rapture as good as sex (perhaps even better than sex!) with all of them, but I promise you, I never had sex with that woman --or with any of those men. Neither did the experience convert my gay friend to a heterosexual -- even temporarily. Our essences mingled: our bodies didn't have to -- we were well past "membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs." Finally, to answer your question about "one on one," John: unless we insist on the limitations of adolescent obsession with the *bodily* aspect of sex as related to the Thrones, Powers, Dominions, and all the rest of the angelic crew, what possible difference could it make? Could an intellectual/spiritual/ psychoemotional epiphany occur with more than two contributors to an earnest discussion? Of course it could. Would that be considered orgiastic? Only by someone with a very one-track mind. Tell you what: before we turn this into "how many angels can copulate on the head of a pin?", I will do a Houdini, and promise to send further word on the subject when I get there. For now, can we be content with being "lowly wise"? Best to all, especially John and Larry, and that little devil who started all this, Dr. Hunter, Carol Barton From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:09 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's Political Beliefs I don't think Milton CONFORED, really. He did publish political pamphlets after the Restoration, which belies the image of Milton as some sort of walking martyr to the cause. And there's quite a bit of politics in PARADISE LOST. In the last book, where Adam recites his John Locke to Michael (decades before John Locke!) and Michael response with his Thomas Hobbes, it seems more that Milton himself despaired about the possibility of republican liberty. I suspect that he gave up, rather than conformed. Timothy Sandefur In a message dated 5/2/2001 4:48:13 AM Pacific Daylight Time, dameonf@hotmail.com writes: > John Milton's political beliefs are well outlined. We all know he was a > Republican, but did his beliefs changed once he was considerd an "outcaste" > by the Restoration? Charles II did not allow Milton to enjoy the fame his > last three works brought him. I was wondering did Milton begin to conform > at the end of his life to regain popularity? > From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:21 AM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu ' Subject: RE: PL Congratulations on finishing up and on discovering that you are a hero/heroine. Angelica Contenta -----Original Message----- From: salcostanzo To: milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: 5/2/01 8:41 PM Subject: PL Dear Carol, I am a third and final year student of literature at Deakin University = in Melbourne, Australia. =20 Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is one of the modules set in the Myth and = Ideology Unit. Although there are many 'softer' options available, I = decided that, as a matter of completion, I should tackle the novel. I = am glad I did. One of the assignment questions that I can choose to answer is "Is Satan = the true hero of 'Paradise Lost', as some have suggested, or is he = really the embodiment of evil? Examine his character and role, drawing = comparisons, if you wish to the Son of God on the one hand or Adam on = the other". My first naive response was that the reader is actually the real hero of = PL, for merely just getting through it! (It did give me a good deal of = satisfaction. In this day and age of instant gratification, Milton is = simply bypassed by a lot of students.) I would like to put forward the = view that as well as mankind in general, mankind in particular, namely = me, is a hero/heroine for getting to the point where I can actually = nearly grasp what is going on in this poem. The articles and discussion on this website have been particularly = helpful in formulating and considating the ideas that I wish to put = forward in my essay. Regards, Zina, the Worrier Princess. =20 From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:13 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: salcostanzo@bigpond.com Subject: Re: The "hero" of Paradise Lost In response to my comment to Larry Isitt that Adam and Eve (not necessarily in that order) are, with Jesus, the "hero" of _Paradise Lost_, "salcostanzo" of Deakin University writes, in part: ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ "My first naive response was that the reader is actually the real hero of PL, for merely just getting through it! (It did give me a good deal of satisfaction. In this day and age of instant gratification, Milton is simply bypassed by a lot of students.) I would like to put forward the view that as well as mankind in general, mankind in particular, namely me, is a hero/heroine for getting to the point where I can actually nearly grasp what is going on in this poem." ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ To which I respond: Brava, Zina the Worrier Princess! You are exactly right! Since Milton can't say so for himself, I will say so for him: welcome to the "fit audience, though few"! (And by the way: just to set the record straight, you only get "hero" credit as an undergraduate for finding and reading the last six books of the _Faerie Queene_!) Excelsior! Carol Barton From: Dameon Franklin [dameonf@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 1:52 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton's Political Beliefs John Milton's political beliefs are well outlined. We all know he was a Republican, but did his beliefs changed once he was considerd an "outcaste" by the Restoration? Charles II did not allow Milton to enjoy the fame his last three works brought him. I was wondering did Milton begin to conform at the end of his life to regain popularity? Dameon Franklin South Carolina State University Orangeburg, SC 29580 dameonf@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: srevard@siue.edu Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 10:02 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu; john rumrich In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: IMP/PHP3 Imap webMail Program 2.0.11 X-Originating-IP: 128.252.41.92 Subject: RE: Eros and eros Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu May I add a footnote on eros to John Rumrich\'s comments? The word erotic now is confined to sex. Not so in Greek where it means desire--desire for beauty or food or love or anything. I agree that Eros the god is mostly a sex figure. But the word eros (as Milton would have known) can cover a wide range of desires. Stella Revard Quoting john rumrich : > Dear Larry, > > Eros is a deeply Miltonic notion, and L. Schwartz and J. Leonard are > in my view being completely pertinent and generously informative when > they cite the Symposium and the Phaedrus in relation to Milton\'s > ideas about love. Milton himself works to reconcile Plato and the > Bible on the topic of eros. You might want to take a look at the > divorce tracts, or at Milton correspondence with Diodati, where he > uses greek vocabulary (eg. deinon erota, pterophuo) that suggest that > he has the Phaedrus in mind when he writes of his love for his friend. > > That said, you make an excellent point in your posts, I think, when > you stress the propriety of limits on interpretation and reject the > anachronistic usage of \"gay\" to refer to angelic eroticism. > > CS Lewis somewhere talks about people in love identifying with each > other to such an extent that they feel inspired to say: \"love you?! > I am you!\" There\'s something to that and I suspect that Milton is > working in that direction with Raphael\'s description of angel love. > In the renaissance that sort of loving identification was often > thought to pertain more to male-male love (or in the case of > Katherine Philips, female-female) than male-female, which tended to > be seen as problematic--in part, according to Montaigne, because of > the extreme heat of sexual desire. But this is too complicated to > pretend to address in a paragraph. > > John > > > > >John Leonard writes: > > > >\"The best comment I have ever read on the lovemaking of Milton\'s angels > is > >by > >Dennis Danielson . . . (Danielson, by the way,would certainly share your > >reverence for Romans and Leviticus.)\" > > > >Shouldn\'t John\'s phrase here be \"*our* reverence,\" meaning everyone who > >comes to Milton knowing as we all do the Bible\'s importance to him? That > is > >all I am pressing in my posts. Milton\'s poems must be measured quite > >stringently by Bible standards he most likely endorsed. I do not wish > the > >Bible to be only my own thesis for determining Milton\'s probable meanings > in > >\"Fair Infant\" and Book 8 of *PL*; instead, I want us all as investigators > of > >Milton to take his evidence as he would most probably like us to take it. > > > >To return to Bill Hunter\'s phrase that started me on all of this: > \"actively > >gay angels\" -- if we all agree that \"gay\" has certain modern connotations > >strictly forbidden as practices by the Bible, then this should serve as a > >measuring rod for us all, not merely for me. It is not my personal > >preference for Bible truth that matters in the slightest, but it is > Milton\'s > >that we must guard if we are to be true to the evidence of his life lived > by > >its standards. I am arguing not for a perfect and holy Milton, but for a > >serious and consistent poet who left enough evidence in his writings and > >poems for us to know he meant what he set out to do in PL in justifying > the > >ways of God to men. > > > >We cannot therefore use \"gay\" (or homosexual or lesbian or bisexual or > any > >other term resonant with practices Milton would have rejected as > >inconsistent with his Bible) without also making Milton complicit in > >practices described in his poems by critics as being gay. Whatever the > >angels are doing it cannot be homosexual as we understand the term. I do > >like John Rumrich\'s post that seeks to move eros past sex (though I would > >dispute the word \"eros\" as non-Miltonic and non-New Testament; maybe he > will > >expand a bit more on his use of \"erotic\" and Milton). In Book 8 there is > >something transcendent going on among the angels, not something sinful > and > >carnal and passionate (the terms Milton has Raphael reject when he stings > >Adam on his passion for Eve\'s beauty). > > > >It remains my concern and my thesis that we can never resolve this > sensitive > >subject of sexuality and Milton if we persist in ignoring his Bible so > >completely as modern critics have and continue to do. > > > >Larry Isitt > > > >English Dept. > >College of the Ozarks > >Point Lookout, MO 65726 > >417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 > >email: isitt @ cofo.edu > > From: Boyd M Berry [bberry@mail1.vcu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 1:55 PM To: John Leonard Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: your mail I have not seen all of this string, but I'm a bit puzzled by John Leonard's remarks and terms which apparently have been used elsewhere. John say the whole argument concerning angels' love "is not to scorn bodily love as low and contemptible." It seems to me the body takes a pretty serious drubbing in much of Milton's writing. "God doth not principally take care for such cattle," in DDD; true, no doubt part of the effort is to create a high-minded sense of divorce and quite possibly rhetorical exaggeration. Still. Then there is The Passion and the related way that Jesus' body is abstracted in PL with "to the cross he nails thy sins." Then there are the striking bodily metaphors in Samson's lament for his discredited condition. These off the top of my head only. Generally, when we abstract, we take out, and generally what we take out is the persons. It would seem grammatically that the angels are not removed. I won't use the verb transcend in my writing, but if here we are talking about transcending human limitation (a phrase which generally makes no sense), the verb would seem to apply. That is, we are being gotten past "membrane, joint and limb." It is not an area which interests me since, despite my gout and decaying knees, I am far from unhappy about mine and others' bodies. About the only way I can think of practically to transcend human limitation is to get dead. But ice is nice and angels will suffice. Boyd Berry On Tue, 1 May 2001, John Leonard wrote: > <00fb01c0cf34$343966c0$5416bfa8@default> > Subject: "Not as much . . . as it is" (was gay angels) > Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 10:37:36 -0400 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > Carol Barton's excellent contribution contains the following: > > > > I would like to know why we are insisting on concretizing the abstract in > > this case? See John Shawcross's _Self and the World_ for a > > characteristically genteel and elegant treatment of Milton's boyhood crush > > on upper-classman Diodati -- which is not, in his characterization, as > much > > homoerotic as it is emotional and intellectual, > > The problem with the rhetorical formula " Z is not so much X as it is Y" is > that it acknowledges that Z is a little bit X even though it is primarily Y. > I suspect that this will matter to Larry Isitt who is passionately committed > to his belief that Milton's Z is wholly Y without even the faintest trace of > that God-cursed, sinful abomination X. Carol may well be right to argue > that Milton's love for Diodati (or the angels' love for each other) is "not > so much homoerotic as it is emotional and intellectual," but Carol's formula > still allows it to be a teensy weensy bit homoerotic. There's the (body?) > rub. > > I say "(body?)" because the issue is whether Milton's angels have bodies. > We know that they eat real food with real hunger, not "in mist, the common > gloss of theologians." What then of their lovemaking? Carol warns us not > to "concretize the abstract" and argues that Milton's account "begs to be > described as 'transcendent.'" "Abstract" and "transcendent" are not words > that usually fit Milton. But they neatly focus our problem here. As Adam > asks, do angels employ "Virtual or immediate touch?" Virtual touch would > involve no touching at all. Just "looks only." "Immediate touch" would be > getting together "in eminence." Which do we have here? > > Larry is right to insist that there isn't any "backsiding" or "intercrural > grabbing". When angels embrace they > > obstacle find none > Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs. > > But the whole thrust (no pun intended) of this line of argument is not to > scorn bodily love as low and contemptible or merely irrelevant. "If > Spirits embrace, / Total they mix." The answer to Adam's question "Virtual > or immediate touch?" is "immediate touch." Unlike Henry More's angels, who > in *The Immortality of the Soul* (1659) are "mutual spectators of the > perfect pulchritude of one anothers persons" (III ix 4), Milton's angels are > not content with "looks only." They really get together. Their love is > "unlibidinous" (5.449) but not abstract. They interpenetrate. Robert West > in *Milton and the Angels* (172) could find no hint of angelic > interpenetration in any of Milton's predecessors. More's angels look from > afar; Milton's flow into each other. > > I have already said too much on this topic, but before I go I shall ask one > last question. Do angels make love one on one (as most critics assume) or > do they get together in groups? Angels, after all, are not given in > marriage (Mark 12. 25) and Milton probably alludes to human polygamy at > 4.762 (as Alan Rudrum long ago informed us). > > John Leonard > > > From: salcostanzo [salcostanzo@bigpond.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 9:41 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: PL Dear Carol, I am a third and final year student of literature at Deakin University = in Melbourne, Australia. =20 Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is one of the modules set in the Myth and = Ideology Unit. Although there are many 'softer' options available, I = decided that, as a matter of completion, I should tackle the novel. I = am glad I did. One of the assignment questions that I can choose to answer is "Is Satan = the true hero of 'Paradise Lost', as some have suggested, or is he = really the embodiment of evil? Examine his character and role, drawing = comparisons, if you wish to the Son of God on the one hand or Adam on = the other". My first naive response was that the reader is actually the real hero of = PL, for merely just getting through it! (It did give me a good deal of = satisfaction. In this day and age of instant gratification, Milton is = simply bypassed by a lot of students.) I would like to put forward the = view that as well as mankind in general, mankind in particular, namely = me, is a hero/heroine for getting to the point where I can actually = nearly grasp what is going on in this poem. The articles and discussion on this website have been particularly = helpful in formulating and considating the ideas that I wish to put = forward in my essay. Regards, Zina, the Worrier Princess. =20 From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 1:54 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Blue Plaque Progress Kimberly Latta wrote: > Dear Carol: > Many thanks for you tireless efforts. Sounds to me as though the Old > Circumlocution Office is alive and well in London Town. > Stay tuned . . . I will enlist in the aid of the Lord Mayor himself, if I > > have to . . . > > > Best to all, > > Carol Barton > > Carol, Seriously. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor, is a rebel even within his own party and has a fiercely independent mind. He's not much like Dick Whittington who sounds like a deep blue capitalist. He might not agree with Milton's theology but he's pretty idealistic about equality, fairness and freedom. It might be worth quoting a few passages if you do write to him. Best wishes, Derek. From: JBMorgaine@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 9:30 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Hyacinth boundary="part1_8a.5f70e53.2820145b_boundary" Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu In a message dated 4/30/01 5:58:43 AM Mountain Daylight Time, isitt@cofo.edu writes: > 2) Homosexuality is a sin, and Milton and his readers would have said that > it is, whether practiced "intercrurally" (to use John Leonard's borrowing > from Dover)or penetratingly. Respectfully, sir-- who first established the doctrinal position that homosexuality is a sin? I have heard Biblical explanations, but I do not know who in the Church hierarchy first made this interpretation official. My thanks, Julie Bruneau UCD/UND From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 7:37 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <001201c0d183$3f7495e0$91636481@jleonard> Subject: Discursive Intercourse Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 08:44:01 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu In response to John Leonard and Larry Isitt, et al., I'm afraid I must insist that (a) my use of the term "homoerotic" distinguishes same-sex emotion from "homosexual" copulation, and that (b) because I allow for *some* homoerotic potential in the hero-worship of one male adolescent for another, it does not mean I extend that potential to Milton's angels. I was making a distinction between the union of mind with mind and soul with soul that occurs when two intellects (though it is more than that) unite in common apprehension of some Truth or Beauty that is beyond the pale of everyday reflection: the excitement, the electricity, the exhiliration that one feels in such circumstances certainly has aspects that one might consider "erotic" (for want of a more appropriate term -- like "transcendent"). If angels unite, essence with essence, in some "corporeal" fashion it is (in my estimation) far more like Whoopi Goldberg's medium in "Ghost" embodying other entities than it is the hot, sweaty union of writhing bodies you gentlemen seem to be insistent on envisioning. There is, John, no need for "thrust" -- since there is no potential for friction, which only occurs when "obstacle [there is some] / Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs"; and such friction is only necessary because of the nature of human physiology -- not angelic: not to descend to the absolutely vulgar, the equipment does not function without such stimulation. But please note the IF in your citation, John: "If Spirits embrace, / Total they ix." --- which is to say that, if -- IF -- dear Adam, angels could be said to embrace in the terrestrial way you understand the term, instead of being separated by membranes, joynts, and limbs, their union would absolute, one completely "marrying" with the other, rather than only one's sexual organs penetrating the other. That is a BIG "if," in this context. I repeat my original assertion, that Raphael's discussion is an *accommodation,* an imperfect analogy rendered inadequate because, as Raphael also tells Adam, the latter lacks the referents to comprehend the angel's answer completely. There is no need for male and female, yin and yang, "penetrating" or "penetrated" members in heaven. When angels "copulate" they join essences, as in the meeting of two minds. I have, on rare occasions, experienced that phenomenon, and all of the ecstacy I described above and in my previous e-mail, with male colleagues, and with at least one homosexual colleague, and one female colleague, too. I will invoke Bill Clinton's defense: I may have known rapture as good as sex (perhaps even better than sex!) with all of them, but I promise you, I never had sex with that woman --or with any of those men. Neither did the experience convert my gay friend to a heterosexual -- even temporarily. Our essences mingled: our bodies didn't have to -- we were well past "membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs." Finally, to answer your question about "one on one," John: unless we insist on the limitations of adolescent obsession with the *bodily* aspect of sex as related to the Thrones, Powers, Dominions, and all the rest of the angelic crew, what possible difference could it make? Could an intellectual/spiritual/ psychoemotional epiphany occur with more than two contributors to an earnest discussion? Of course it could. Would that be considered orgiastic? Only by someone with a very one-track mind. Tell you what: before we turn this into "how many angels can copulate on the head of a pin?", I will do a Houdini, and promise to send further word on the subject when I get there. For now, can we be content with being "lowly wise"? Best to all, especially John and Larry, and that little devil who started all this, Dr. Hunter, Carol Barton From: Anthony Welch [anthony.welch@yale.edu] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 10:59 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Hyacinth Larry, Thanks for your responses. And let me retract that word, "icky." The Bible was doubtless central to Milton's thinking, and I agree with you that we should not be whimsically anachronistic about Renaissance gender definitions (or non-definitions). The Hyacinth reference in "Fair Infant" is of course not enough to topple our sense of Milton's commitment to Holy Writ. What I value about John Leonard's initial post is that it reminds us Milton may not be wholly in control of his materials at all times, and it allows that these materials can have a life of their own without implying either deliberate sabotage or aesthetic ineptitude. I think it's to Milton's credit that his poetry sometimes plays with fire. His allusions bring their own tangled histories with them, histories that no poet could completely stifle, and I'm not prepared summarily to rule their meanings out of court even when their context (or even a Bible gloss) might render their presence disturbing. The evidence in the present case is not particularly strong but I think the approach is sound. Best, Anthony Welch On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Larry Isitt wrote: > Anthony Welch writes: > > "Like John Leonard, I'm not yet convinced that Milton's Sparta should be a > no-go area. Perhaps a homoerotic twinge in "Hyacinth" is [not] . . > 'degrading'" > > "Donne's elegy for Elizabeth Drury imagines the corpse of the world > dissecting itself before our eyes;is it so very icky for Milton's elegy to > linger over Spartan pride?" > > Anthony, > > Yes, I do find it degrading to "linger over Spartan pride," but perhaps for > reasons you do not share with me. (I am , however, personally offended, as > your word, "icky" may suggest, as though I cannot speak of such subjects > without blushing). > 1) "Homoerotic twinges" are out of place in an elegy for a child, however > carefully they may be couched. He is a poor poet indeed who so ungracefully > and unfeelingly would have knowingly put in such a reference. And if > unknowingly, then a clumsy poet. > 2) Homosexuality is a sin, and Milton and his readers would have said that > it is, whether practiced "intercrurally" (to use John Leonard's borrowing > from Dover)or penetratingly. > 3) The Bible is that reference to which we should all resort for sorting out > such matters as this, for that is Milton's own standard. If we cannot agree > that this is so, then I concede and have no other way to speak that I would > defend as Milton's. To make of his work a bed of secret desires forbidden > strictly by the Bible seems to me to make of Milton someone other than the > man we know by literally dozens of Bible allusions, quotes, echoes in PL and > thousands in *Christian Doctrine*. > From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 7:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <00fb01c0cf34$343966c0$5416bfa8@default> Subject: "Not as much . . . as it is" (was gay angels) Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 10:37:36 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Carol Barton's excellent contribution contains the following: > > I would like to know why we are insisting on concretizing the abstract in > this case? See John Shawcross's _Self and the World_ for a > characteristically genteel and elegant treatment of Milton's boyhood crush > on upper-classman Diodati -- which is not, in his characterization, as much > homoerotic as it is emotional and intellectual, The problem with the rhetorical formula " Z is not so much X as it is Y" is that it acknowledges that Z is a little bit X even though it is primarily Y. I suspect that this will matter to Larry Isitt who is passionately committed to his belief that Milton's Z is wholly Y without even the faintest trace of that God-cursed, sinful abomination X. Carol may well be right to argue that Milton's love for Diodati (or the angels' love for each other) is "not so much homoerotic as it is emotional and intellectual," but Carol's formula still allows it to be a teensy weensy bit homoerotic. There's the (body?) rub. I say "(body?)" because the issue is whether Milton's angels have bodies. We know that they eat real food with real hunger, not "in mist, the common gloss of theologians." What then of their lovemaking? Carol warns us not to "concretize the abstract" and argues that Milton's account "begs to be described as 'transcendent.'" "Abstract" and "transcendent" are not words that usually fit Milton. But they neatly focus our problem here. As Adam asks, do angels employ "Virtual or immediate touch?" Virtual touch would involve no touching at all. Just "looks only." "Immediate touch" would be getting together "in eminence." Which do we have here? Larry is right to insist that there isn't any "backsiding" or "intercrural grabbing". When angels embrace they obstacle find none Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs. But the whole thrust (no pun intended) of this line of argument is not to scorn bodily love as low and contemptible or merely irrelevant. "If Spirits embrace, / Total they mix." The answer to Adam's question "Virtual or immediate touch?" is "immediate touch." Unlike Henry More's angels, who in *The Immortality of the Soul* (1659) are "mutual spectators of the perfect pulchritude of one anothers persons" (III ix 4), Milton's angels are not content with "looks only." They really get together. Their love is "unlibidinous" (5.449) but not abstract. They interpenetrate. Robert West in *Milton and the Angels* (172) could find no hint of angelic interpenetration in any of Milton's predecessors. More's angels look from afar; Milton's flow into each other. I have already said too much on this topic, but before I go I shall ask one last question. Do angels make love one on one (as most critics assume) or do they get together in groups? Angels, after all, are not given in marriage (Mark 12. 25) and Milton probably alludes to human polygamy at 4.762 (as Alan Rudrum long ago informed us). John Leonard From: Yaakov Akiva Mascetti [mascety@012.net.il] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 5:49 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: R: The Descartes dichotomy This message uses a character set that is not supported by the Internet Service. To view the original message content, open the attached message. If the text doesn't display correctly, save the attachment to disk, and then open it using a viewer that can display the original character set. From: john rumrich [rumrich@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 10:04 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels & the Bible Dear Larry, Eros is a deeply Miltonic notion, and L. Schwartz and J. Leonard are in my view being completely pertinent and generously informative when they cite the Symposium and the Phaedrus in relation to Milton's ideas about love. Milton himself works to reconcile Plato and the Bible on the topic of eros. You might want to take a look at the divorce tracts, or at Milton correspondence with Diodati, where he uses greek vocabulary (eg. deinon erota, pterophuo) that suggest that he has the Phaedrus in mind when he writes of his love for his friend. That said, you make an excellent point in your posts, I think, when you stress the propriety of limits on interpretation and reject the anachronistic usage of "gay" to refer to angelic eroticism. CS Lewis somewhere talks about people in love identifying with each other to such an extent that they feel inspired to say: "love you?! I am you!" There's something to that and I suspect that Milton is working in that direction with Raphael's description of angel love. In the renaissance that sort of loving identification was often thought to pertain more to male-male love (or in the case of Katherine Philips, female-female) than male-female, which tended to be seen as problematic--in part, according to Montaigne, because of the extreme heat of sexual desire. But this is too complicated to pretend to address in a paragraph. John >John Leonard writes: > >"The best comment I have ever read on the lovemaking of Milton's angels is >by >Dennis Danielson . . . (Danielson, by the way,would certainly share your >reverence for Romans and Leviticus.)" > >Shouldn't John's phrase here be "*our* reverence," meaning everyone who >comes to Milton knowing as we all do the Bible's importance to him? That is >all I am pressing in my posts. Milton's poems must be measured quite >stringently by Bible standards he most likely endorsed. I do not wish the >Bible to be only my own thesis for determining Milton's probable meanings in >"Fair Infant" and Book 8 of *PL*; instead, I want us all as investigators of >Milton to take his evidence as he would most probably like us to take it. > >To return to Bill Hunter's phrase that started me on all of this: "actively >gay angels" -- if we all agree that "gay" has certain modern connotations >strictly forbidden as practices by the Bible, then this should serve as a >measuring rod for us all, not merely for me. It is not my personal >preference for Bible truth that matters in the slightest, but it is Milton's >that we must guard if we are to be true to the evidence of his life lived by >its standards. I am arguing not for a perfect and holy Milton, but for a >serious and consistent poet who left enough evidence in his writings and >poems for us to know he meant what he set out to do in PL in justifying the >ways of God to men. > >We cannot therefore use "gay" (or homosexual or lesbian or bisexual or any >other term resonant with practices Milton would have rejected as >inconsistent with his Bible) without also making Milton complicit in >practices described in his poems by critics as being gay. Whatever the >angels are doing it cannot be homosexual as we understand the term. I do >like John Rumrich's post that seeks to move eros past sex (though I would >dispute the word "eros" as non-Miltonic and non-New Testament; maybe he will >expand a bit more on his use of "erotic" and Milton). In Book 8 there is >something transcendent going on among the angels, not something sinful and >carnal and passionate (the terms Milton has Raphael reject when he stings >Adam on his passion for Eve's beauty). > >It remains my concern and my thesis that we can never resolve this sensitive >subject of sexuality and Milton if we persist in ignoring his Bible so >completely as modern critics have and continue to do. > >Larry Isitt > >English Dept. >College of the Ozarks >Point Lookout, MO 65726 >417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 >email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: Kimberly Latta [lattak@SLU.EDU] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 10:21 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Blue Plaque Progress Dear Carol: Many thanks for you tireless efforts. Sounds to me as though the Old Circumlocution Office is alive and well in London Town. Kimberly Latta > From: Carol Barton > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 23:41:23 -0400 > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Subject: Blue Plaque Progress > > Dear Colleagues, > > Those of you who have read Pecheux know that, in the early 80s, she lamented > the lack of any kind of memorial to Milton on Bread Street, and indicated > that steps had been taken to rectify that situation (_Milton: A > Topographical Guide_, pp.7-9). The wheels of progress grind slowly in the > 'States, but their movement is barely perceptible, nearer Greenwich: when I > was there in July of 1999, there was still no blue plaque, and not knowing > then about Mother Christopher's efforts, I filed an application at the CLRO > for plaques at Bread Street, Bunhill Row, and Petty France (at minimum) > myself. > > I have just returned from three weeks in very soggy Londontown, during which > I made it my business to revisit Bread Street and confirm that nothing more > had been done before raising any further hell. No plaque. No supermarket, > either (it had relocated, which would please Mother Christopher, I'm sure), > but I was even more horrified to find the All Hallows plaque that is now > affixed to the rear wall of the church of St. Mary-le-Bow presiding over six > very grotty looking garbage cans, while the statue of John Smith looked on > in cold serenity from its flower-bedecked central position in the same > courtyard. (I will say I felt somewhat vindicated on Milton's behalf, when a > typical pigeon landed squarely on Smith's head several seconds later -- and > did what typical pigeons do.) > > I took a photograph of the garbage cans. "England Honors her All-time Poet > Laureate." > > In Chelsea, as I said in an earlier post, there is a blue plaque on the > house where George Eliot died. In Bloomsbury, on Googe Street, there is a > plaque to Lady Ottoline SomebodyorOther, who used to host parties for the > literati, and several doors down, there is one to anaesthesia -- > anaesthesia, not Anastasia! -- it having first been administered there. > Needless to say, I got in touch with the City the following morning. I am > pleased to forward the response below, from the City Archivist: > > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > Sent: April 23, 2001 10:56:45 AM GMT > Subject: re Blue Plaques - Milton > > > Thank you for your e-mail of 22 April concerning the above. Unfortunately > the process of erecting blue plaques in the City has been held up by the > necessity of finding a new manufacturer for City of London plaques. There > are a large number of outstanding applications for the replacement of old > plaques and the commissioning of new ones, but I can confirm that Milton is > on the current list. The whole process takes a good deal of time as it > involves officers of several Corporation departments who have many other > duties to perform and the erection of blue plaques has also to be negotiated > with the owners of the buildings on which plaques are to be erected. > I understand that a new manufacturer has now been found and this will enable > the Corporation to proceed with the outstanding applications. > > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > > In response, I advised the City that, as part of the Window unveiling in > 2008, we were considering a full-scale Milton conference, as a feature of > which we hoped to conduct a walking tour of the Cripplegate (and environs), > Westminster, and Whitehall locations where Milton's various in-city houses > stood. I suggested that it would be nice if the plaques could be erected at > all or most of these sites by then. > > Stay tuned . . . I will enlist in the aid of the Lord Mayor himself, if I > have to . . . > > > Best to all, > > Carol Barton > From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 9:24 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels Carol Barton writes: "I come but lurkingly to this thread, having skimmed it while in London on dearly expensive borrowed cyberaccess, but in response to Larry Isitt's comment replying to John Leonard's remark . . . I would like to know why we are insisting on concretizing the abstract in this case? . . . why are we insisting on angelic copulation, sodomy, mutual masturbation, intercrural simulation, or any of the euphemisms appropriate thereto?" Carol, I "concretized" to make a point: the word "homosexual" and the word "gay," as Bill Hunter used it in his phrase "actively gay angels" in heaven have only their modern connotations and cannot accommodate your well-stated remarks about Diodati and a sense of intimate closeness without necessary sex. They are too super-charged with the specifically sexual to do this. For this reason, I have stated in my posts that whatever Raphael intended in his remarks to Adam it cannot have meant what we mean by gay: copulation, sodomy etc. And by concretizing, by putting into my posts the ugly imagery of angels being gay, I tried to make this clear in a way I do not think comes across if we ignore the connotations of gay and proceed to use it in our discussion of angels. Further, I have insisted that the episode in Book 8 and the Hyacinth stanza in "Fair Infant" cannot have this modern gay referent for the reason that it violates Milton's intention to "justify the ways of God to men." If gay angels, then God is not God; at least not Milton's God of the Bible who condemns the practices outright that now go with what we mean by gay and lesbian (Lev. 18, 20; Romans 1: 18ff). I think the whole discussion of angelic sex ought to move over to the grounds you cite and which John Rumrich cites, and away from the concretizing you so rightly object to. Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 8:54 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels John Rumrich writes: "I've been reading this exchange with interest, esp re "On the Death of a Fair Infant," but wonder if it needs to be registered that the point of the Hyacinth reference lies in its counterpoint: that is, Hyancinth, inadvertently killed by Apollo, is renowned as a corpse transformed into a flower; reversing the sequence, the fair infant, inadvertently killed by Winter, is envisioned as a flower transformed into a corpse (lying in a "wormy bed"). In short, I think Milton chose the Hyacinth myth because it fit his conceit concerning the fairest flower no sooner blown than blasted. The Apollo/Hyacinth myth mediates the transition from the dead infant to a metamorphosed intercessor. If pagan myth can envision a corpse made into a flower, then Christian religion can surely manage an even better transformation." Yes! This is it. This makes a great deal of sense and offers a nice resolution to the Hyacinth problem while avoiding the problems associated with "gayness" as that has been developed in this line of discussion. John, Would you please extend your remarks below? Does "eros" or "erotic" mean to extend to the problem of Book 8 of PL? Are the angels "erotic"? Or are you confining this concept to Milton's handling of the sensual details of Adam meeting Eve passionately, and other earthly poems? John Rumrich writes: "One last thing. In my view at least, Milton is one of the most erotic poets. We do him wrong to restrict eros to sex, whether on the human or angelic level. "Union of Pure with Pure desiring" does indeed describe "going all the way," and Milton clearly does not imagine that as sinful behavior among beings of the same gender in heaven." From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 8:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Gay angels (and divine heroism) Larry Isitt writes, inter alia, that "valid evidence should, in principle, lead to valid conclusions. I reject the notion entirely that Satan overwhelms PL (as a whole). It may *appear* that he does so from the evidence of the first two books, but this is illusion and distortion, for Milton knew perfectly well who the hero is in his account--it was the God he knew from the Bible." I can agree with this statement in principle, Larry, but not in detail. Yes: it is true that, as I and others before me have argued elsewhere, there is a good psychological *reason* why Satan is as magnificent as he is in the first two books of _PL_ (he figures only tangentially in III, and in IV, begins a moral degeneration paralleled by his physical one). His presence is part of what Stanley Fish once called Milton's "programme of entrapment"--and entrap us it does, as this thread has so clearly demonstrated. But I disagree--strenuously--with your pronouncement that God is the hero of _Paradise Lost_, for exactly the reasons you cite: Man is, the third trinity of Eve, Adam, and Jesus, in that (sequential) order, and that too, is according to Milton's plan. Adam is given the opportunity to prefigure his Saviour at Eve's fall: he could (1) intercede; (2) trust in God to set things right, knowing how dearly Adam loves her; or (3) offer to die in her place, emulating Christ's intercession for Man; Jesus's assertion of complete faith in the Father at Gethsemane ("let this cup pass from me"); or the Crucifixion. He fails to do any of the three. It is *Eve* who begins the resurrecting process for humankind, with her cry "on mee, mee only let thine anger fall"--though as Adam tells her, she is too weak to bear the full weight of their sin alone, it is her *desire* to do so that inspires contrition in Adam ("then let us repair to the place where we were judged"), and Jesus who completes the act of supreme heroism that will reunite the fallen (except the reprobate) with God. Had Adam emulated Jesus, there would be no need for Christ; because Jesus obeys as Adam didn't, all humans are given a second, more merciful, chance. Tradition holds that the wood of the Cross came from the Tree of Knowledge. And as for why the devils are not restored to grace by mercy? the reason is simple: they never ask. But I think it as important to Milton's theology that Man, and not God, is the hero of _Paradise Lost_ . . . lest we grant Empson his "stacked deck." God is omnipotent, deathless: he cannot be a "hero" in the sense that we understand it . . . because he risks nothing, and can lose nothing, no matter what he does. Not so Jesus -- until he becomes in fact the Christ. Best to all, Carol Barton