From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 10:06 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FWD: Is God "male"? <> Interesting response -- but you don't have to assume the existence of God (or any God) to be able to speak as Mr. Huttar spoke. The comparison then would be between the conception of God in PL and the conception of God in Christian theism in general (as presented in Scripture, the church fathers, various creedal formulations, formal theology, and everyone else who wrote about God in German, English, Latin and Greek prior to Milton). It's still an intertextual enterprise. Within this framework, there's always been an awareness that "our language about God" is somewhat short of "what GOd is." Probably the most developed form of this awareness is the negative theology you find in Eastern Orthodoxy...and this tradition is quite old. The question then becomes...how much empathy did Milton have with this stream of Christian thought? That's problematic to me. The God of PL and other Milton texts doesn't seem to have the numinous, "hidden in darkness" qualities that the presentations of God in other Christian traditions seem to have. I'm expecting, and hoping, for a bunch of Milton citations to stream forth in response to this statement :) But for now, my impression is that Milton's God is pretty knowable and can be expressed through speech. Now I know in contemporary theology -- meaning within the last 200 years or so -- it's assumed that God is **ontologically** neither male nor female. This would be an even vaster and worse anthropomorphism than the ones we already have to accept just to speak of Him. I don't know how old this tradition is in Christian theology in general, but I suspect it is quite old as well. Biblically, God is placed in a male **relationship** to the body of believers (the church, Israel), and by the NT period (see Ephesians 5) marriage is seen as a direct analog to the God/His people relationship. God is male in His relationship to us, and we are **all** female in our relationship to Him. He penetrates us, life is born within us. I see this expressed in Renaissance and earlier literature in mystical writings, that often appropriate erotic language to speak of the believer's relationship to God. When this is done, the believer usually places him or herself in a feminine position before God. If you compare the language of Donne's Holy Sonnets to his Songs and Sonnets you'll see that Donne is clearly putting himself in a feminine position before God, and expects, at times, God to act toward him as he did in pursuit of his female lovers. What's really funny about all this is that I thought Carol's original post was tongue in cheek :) I hope we can talk about beliefs about God without it being assumed we're "pushing religion" on anyone. I'd hope any form of speech would not be censored like that... Jim Rovira From: John Ulreich [jcu@email.arizona.edu] Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 12:34 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FWD: Is God "male"? (and lonely) Derek: I very much like what you're suggesting below; it touches on something I was trying (but very obliquely) to get at in my last Murfreesboro paper (forthcoming in the next selection of essays). Could you please email me off list--jcu@email.arizona.edu. I have a favor to ask, and I lost your address. To everyone else on the list: I apologize for cluttering up your inboxes with a personal message, but I could not think of a better way to get in touch with Derek. John Ulreich At 04:56 PM 05/16/2001 -0300, you wrote: >huttar wrote: > > > ....4. The immediate issue, anyhow (besides "male"), is "lonely." As > to the > > creation of Adam, is it not imaginable that a Being "sufficiently >possessed of > > happiness" (8.404-5) -- ergo, not suffering from loneliness -- could > > nevertheless desire the existence of other beings with a capacity for > > relationship with "him" (I use the pronoun generically since our >language has > > no alternative) and proceed to bring them into existence? > >Wisdom, the daughter of God, was 'brought forth' ...'when there were no >fountains...before the mountains were settled'...'then was I by him ...and >I was >daily his delight, playing always before him.' Wisdom was present when the >Lord >'prepared the heavens.' (Prov. viii) Milton's Muse was the sister of >Wisdom, 'and >with her did play / In presence of the almighty Father, pleased / With thy >celestial song.' 'Ludens-playing' can have strong erotic overtones, to come >back >to that subject. There was a Hermetic tradition, I believe, that God was >both male >and female. See Fowler's reference to Nicholas Cusanus in his note on the >Spirit's >'brooding' at the beginning of PL.. > Derek Wood From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 8:33 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: marshall@uic.edu Subject: Re: God is male? In Aramaic, the word for spirit, ruah, is feminine. The apocryphal Gospel of the Ebionites refers to the Holy Spirit as Mother. Kabbalistic thought in its varied expressions struggles with the problem of creation, that is the relationship of the hidden God, Eyn-Sof in Its absolute Being/Essence with the outward movement of creation. Was the Primal Will to create and thus be known, because only through creation can God be known, always present, even necessary? As for God "needing" creation, I believe the traditional Christian theology states that God did not have to create out of any need on his part, but solely out of love, "he had made everything which is made for love," (Julian of Norwich) which is not synonymous with desire. Once there is creation, which is through the Son, does an element of longing and desire come into play, for the creature's salvation, again, as Julian of Norwich says, "to bring us up into bliss." (Something of the "paradise within," but ona more consistent basis, promised to Adam and Eve at the end of Paradise Lost?) Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu (312) 996-3324 From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 8:10 AM To: Milton-l Subject: Is God male? 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: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 11:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study Harvey and all-- Oops, I realized after the fact that my post below might sound terribly crabby--not to mention stupid. I'd been grading and reading the list with minimal attention, so didn't see the larger context for "one gift." Sorry to all--especially Harvey--for the tone. (I'll hope the stupidity was momentary.) And I don't even have any great grading stories to share. No post lapse Arian sex. (Well, I did learn that Dryden wrote _Paradise Lost_ and also that Dryden's poetry showed the effects of Wesleyan evangelicalism.) Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax On Tue, 15 May 2001, Jameela Lares wrote: > > On Mon, 14 May 2001, Harvey Wheeler wrote: > > > In PL, isn't Freedom God's only gift to Adam ("man")? reinforced by > > Michael's assurance that Satan's evil, through history, is not immune > > from the human capability for progress? A new post theodicy theory of > > "homodicy"? Justifying evil to Adam? > > > Huh? Where did all the other ten million gifts go? Weren't Adam and Eve > created "lords of the world"? > > Jameela Lares > Associate Professor of English > University of Southern Mississippi > Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 > +(601) 266-6214 ofc > +(601) 266-5757 fax > From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 3:56 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FWD: Is God "male"? (and lonely) huttar wrote: > ....4. The immediate issue, anyhow (besides "male"), is "lonely." As to the > creation of Adam, is it not imaginable that a Being "sufficiently possessed of > happiness" (8.404-5) -- ergo, not suffering from loneliness -- could > nevertheless desire the existence of other beings with a capacity for > relationship with "him" (I use the pronoun generically since our language has > no alternative) and proceed to bring them into existence? Wisdom, the daughter of God, was 'brought forth' ...'when there were no fountains...before the mountains were settled'...'then was I by him ...and I was daily his delight, playing always before him.' Wisdom was present when the Lord 'prepared the heavens.' (Prov. viii) Milton's Muse was the sister of Wisdom, 'and with her did play / In presence of the almighty Father, pleased / With thy celestial song.' 'Ludens-playing' can have strong erotic overtones, to come back to that subject. There was a Hermetic tradition, I believe, that God was both male and female. See Fowler's reference to Nicholas Cusanus in his note on the Spirit's 'brooding' at the beginning of PL.. Derek Wood From: Gardner Campbell [gcampbel@mwc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 9:21 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: FWD: Is God "male"? I think Chuck Huttar has it exactly right below. Most (not all) modern and postmodern explanations of desire assume that desire always proceeds from lack. The same Milton who could admit motion into the perfection of the heavens could also imagine desire arising from plenitude--or, in other words, that love could be genuinely reciprocal and not always already a relationship of predator to prey. Gardner Campbell Mary Washington College >>> huttar@hope.edu 05/16/01 09:00 AM >>> 4. The immediate issue, anyhow (besides "male"), is "lonely." As to the creation of Adam, is it not imaginable that a Being "sufficiently possessed of happiness" (8.404-5) -- ergo, not suffering from loneliness -- could nevertheless desire the existence of other beings with a capacity for relationship with "him" (I use the pronoun generically since our language has no alternative) and proceed to bring them into existence? Traditionally this is a mark of the presence of Divine Love in the creative act (Milton is here, I think, at one with Dante in elevating love as the quintessential of God's attributes, and, of course, with a long Christian tradition leading up to Dante). Chuck Huttar Hope College From: Harvey Wheeler [verulan@mindspring.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 11:37 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study Thank You. Please check me if I'm wrong about the opening arguments: Satan creates Evil and God cannot take that away because of giving Satan freedom; nor can he save Adam from Satan's evil because of not detracting from his gift of freedom to Adam. ________________ Here is a very brief summary of my argument that Milton uses Paradise Lost to invent a post-theodicy theology and substitute a doctrine of Progress. Paradise Lost is the sublimated embodiment of Milton's two dashed dreams: 1: (In His Youth) Belief in The Second Coming and Heaven On Earth; 2: (In His Maturity) Belief that he could become the Cromwellian Commonwealth's Latin "spin-merchant" propagandist to the non-English speaking world. The revolutionary transformation of dream #1 transformed Augustinian dogma into an Arminian (deist) Second Reformation with Salvation for all. Dream #2 was turned into a post-theodicy libertarian Protestantism wih England teaching and leading the world. _____________________ Milton has God explain: If Evil were to derive from God it would require justification. But if Evil were derived from Satan, the fundamental issue concerning Evil is only between God and Satan. However, there is the indirect issue: If Satan was the one who created Evil why did God let it capture man? The nature of God's fundamental gift explains this: If God gave Satan Free Will, any such interference on behalf of man would have contradicted that gift. If God gave man Free Will but insulated him from Satan's invention of Evil, the insulation would have contradicted God's gift of Free Will to man. Hence the only justification Milton's God requires is God's gift of Free Will. This is explained at the start of Paradise Lost. Milton will justify God's "ways" - meaning the way God operates, not the Satanic and human Free Will results of those operations. God punishes those who violate his law. Paradise has two laws. Only one law is violated by Adam - eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. But Adam was "free" to do that. However, he must be rushed out of Eden for fear that he may also, in his freedom, sample the fruit of the Second Tree - immortality. (If he did that, God - by the nature of his own "way" could not have made Adam mortal!) This is the only "way" of God that needs justification; not the existence of evil in the world'. God's "way" is to create a proper English rule-of-law "commonwealth of nature" so to speak, and put man in it. [Francis Bacon had argued that law-finding by man followed the same process in science as in jurisprudence. Bacon's New Atlantis hinted at a future of limitless earthly progress. Bacon avoided theology.] Milton supplies that need. Milton gives "progress" a theology. At every juncture in Paradise Lost, beginning with God's commission to Michael to give Adam and Eve an optimistic expulsion from Eden, man is assured that there is a Panglossian silver upside to every dark underside of history. That is Milton's purpose in adding two books to the second edition. They make eternal hope and bright promise perfectly clear. Milton puts Michael and Adam on a hilltop from which they can view all history. Michael brings before Adam a series of Stephen Spielberg panaramic shots of Old Testament scenes. As Toynbee pointed out, the Jews told of a near-term future in which the true believers among The Chosen People would find body-and-soul resurrection in a Heaven on earth. St. Augustine, with vandals at the gates of Hippo, legalized a Roman Immigration Office (Vatican) for delayed purgatorial passage into the City of God. Milton's Books XI and XII give history's arrow a linear trajectory through time. At each Old Testament disaster, Michael reassures Adam with the optimistic promise of a glorious future passage. Milton's Christianity, like his pedagogy, "christens" the Idea of Progress. It is post-theodicy theology. A homodicy Milton refurbishes the 'Protestant Ethic' by substituting science and progress for theodicy. That is the secret of the power of Paradise Lost. Harvey Wheeler HW -----Original Message----- From: Jameela Lares To: milton-l@richmond.edu Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 4:07 AM Subject: Re: Neglect study > >On Mon, 14 May 2001, Harvey Wheeler wrote: > > > In PL, isn't Freedom God's only gift to Adam ("man")? reinforced by > > Michael's assurance that Satan's evil, through history, is not immune > > from the human capability for progress? A new post theodicy theory of > > "homodicy"? Justifying evil to Adam? > > >Huh? Where did all the other ten million gifts go? Weren't Adam and Eve >created "lords of the world"? > >Jameela Lares >Associate Professor of English >University of Southern Mississippi >Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 >+(601) 266-6214 ofc >+(601) 266-5757 fax > From: Boyd M Berry [bberry@mail1.vcu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 10:29 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: huttar@hope.edu Subject: Re: FWD: Is God "male"? I've been silently puzzled by some comments about PL. Prof. Huttar's comment seems to assume that the deity in PL exists. I think it lilkely Milton thought so. And there is a lot of fine language in PL which emphasizes ways the Father is unknowable, as for example the manner in which the Son makes the Father visible or at least partly visible. But the comment that "verbal categories available to us. . .can apply to a Being who is wholly other" puzzles me. In the first place, when reading any text, we have only the "verbal categories available to us" to work from. I can think of no other way to read. The narrative voice, which often sounds non-human in pursuing "things unattemmpted," seems to me to devote a fair amount of attention to, for example, the fact that, if God's acts are "immediate," that is without middle, they can only be related to humans through "process of speech." That is, I think we need to recall that PL is a fiction contrived (well, indeed) by a human in language he used available to him. That is, the deity in PL does not exist; those who think the Christian deity exists, outside the poem, may feel correspondences in the language of the fiction with their own beliefs. Fine. But not all readers will be in that position. On Tue, 15 May 2001, huttar wrote: > I've been absorbing in silence (electronically speaking) but with great > interest all the conversation about angelic sexuality, but this remark from > "Carol Barton" -- on a different thread (Re: > Milton's concept of Individuality) but, as you will see, not entirely > unrelated -- forces me to delurk. > > >To segue in reverse to the thread on angelic sexuality: when God is lonely, > >he creates another male to be his companion -- two, if you count Adam. > > Several comments: > > 1. How very anthropomorphic, to assume that verbal categories available to us > (necessarily) only from our own experience ("male" as opposed to female, > "lonely") can apply without qualification to a Being who is wholly Other. This > seems akin to Lucifer's attributing to God motives of envy, tyranny, etc. > because those would be _his_ motives. > > 2. Is that why the angels were created? > > 3. Or does "another [sic] male" refer to the Son? ("Begotten not created" -- > yes, I know what _De Doctrina Christiana_ says, and I really would prefer not > to get into the myriad controversies revolving around that work and the > question of its relationship to _PL_.) > > 4. The immediate issue, anyhow (besides "male"), is "lonely." As to the > creation of Adam, is it not imaginable that a Being "sufficiently possessed of > happiness" (8.404-5) -- ergo, not suffering from loneliness -- could > nevertheless desire the existence of other beings with a capacity for > relationship with "him" (I use the pronoun generically since our language has > no alternative) and proceed to bring them into existence? Traditionally this > is a mark of the presence of Divine Love in the creative act (Milton is here, > I think, at one with Dante in elevating love as the quintessential of God's > attributes, and, of course, with a long Christian tradition leading up to > Dante). > > Chuck Huttar > Hope College > > > From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 4:50 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Student Gem Isn't all sex Arian sex now? Sons proceed from the fathers (and mothers) and do not have any prior existence. Dan Knauss ------Original Message------ From: Jeffrey Shoulson To: milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: May 14, 2001 3:37:51 PM GMT Subject: Student Gem I realize that this may open a can of worms best left sealed, but I felt I simply must share with the list a priceless malapropism I just came across in a student's final essay. She writes: "After Adam eats of the fruit he and Eve engage in lustful post lapse Arian sex, and fall asleep." Either she has a rather mischievous spell-checker, or a dandy of a sense of humor. Or, we may be witness to the actual conception of Hitler youth! Thanks for indulging me. Jeffrey Shoulson From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 12:25 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: huttar@hope.edu Subject: FWD: Is God "male"? I've been absorbing in silence (electronically speaking) but with great interest all the conversation about angelic sexuality, but this remark from "Carol Barton" -- on a different thread (Re: Milton's concept of Individuality) but, as you will see, not entirely unrelated -- forces me to delurk. >To segue in reverse to the thread on angelic sexuality: when God is lonely, >he creates another male to be his companion -- two, if you count Adam. Several comments: 1. How very anthropomorphic, to assume that verbal categories available to us (necessarily) only from our own experience ("male" as opposed to female, "lonely") can apply without qualification to a Being who is wholly Other. This seems akin to Lucifer's attributing to God motives of envy, tyranny, etc. because those would be _his_ motives. 2. Is that why the angels were created? 3. Or does "another [sic] male" refer to the Son? ("Begotten not created" -- yes, I know what _De Doctrina Christiana_ says, and I really would prefer not to get into the myriad controversies revolving around that work and the question of its relationship to _PL_.) 4. The immediate issue, anyhow (besides "male"), is "lonely." As to the creation of Adam, is it not imaginable that a Being "sufficiently possessed of happiness" (8.404-5) -- ergo, not suffering from loneliness -- could nevertheless desire the existence of other beings with a capacity for relationship with "him" (I use the pronoun generically since our language has no alternative) and proceed to bring them into existence? Traditionally this is a mark of the presence of Divine Love in the creative act (Milton is here, I think, at one with Dante in elevating love as the quintessential of God's attributes, and, of course, with a long Christian tradition leading up to Dante). Chuck Huttar Hope College From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 10:05 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study On Mon, 14 May 2001, Harvey Wheeler wrote: > In PL, isn't Freedom God's only gift to Adam ("man")? reinforced by > Michael's assurance that Satan's evil, through history, is not immune > from the human capability for progress? A new post theodicy theory of > "homodicy"? Justifying evil to Adam? > Huh? Where did all the other ten million gifts go? Weren't Adam and Eve created "lords of the world"? Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax From: George V. Simmons [geosim@tmlp.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 4:22 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Student Gem > Arian sex, Better than the Monophysite or Nestorian varieties? G. V. S. From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 7:55 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <3AFBF404.CC5A849A@spc.cc.tx.us> Subject: Re: Milton's concept of Individuality Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 07:49:29 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Mike Felker writes, in part: > Even in the second creation story, after naming the animals, Adam essentially > says to God, "I don't make sense. I am alone" (in the words of Lee > Stephenson). Whether God responded "It is not good for the man to be alone," > as he does in Genesis 2:18, or "I knew you were going to say that," as he does > so often in Paradise Lost, His response to Adam was "I agree. You don't 'make > sense' alone." Adam's comment that God is perfect and cannot be lonely--"Thou > in thy self art perfet, and in thee / Is no deficience found; not so is Man," > shows that even Adam (and Milton, I would argue) recognizes that he was created > imperfect because alone. Yes, Mike, but only if you take the "perfect" ("perfet") in the seventeenth century sense of finished, complete, with nothing "left wanting": read according to modern usage ("without flaw") it means an entirely different, un-Miltonic thing--or at least, un-Miltonic according to the received scholarship. I would argue that Adam is "without sin," but not "without weakness"--and even that will raise the hackles of those who insist they (them whom in Genesis God also called "Adam") must be "perfet/perfect" in both senses of the term. Still: like the angels, he is endowed with freedom of choice, and freedom of choice implies the freedom to make a mistake (just as Satan and the reprobate angels do). To segue in reverse to the thread on angelic sexuality: when God is lonely, he creates another male to be his companion -- two, if you count Adam. When Adam expresses loneliness, God creates Eve. (Why not George?) Third time's the charm? Ahem. Returning you to your regularly scheduled program, Carol Barton From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 2:49 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's concept of Individuality <> I think Milton is very much a believer in the primacy of the individual, at least in a political sense, which should be evident from his pamphlets, particularly TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES. But it is also in PL. Adam is quite literally in a state of nature, as that term was used by Milton's contemporaries, and we are pleased to note the last book of PL, in which Adam and Michael engage in a sort of dialogue quoting lines of Locke and Hobbes--decades before Locke--when Adam says that no man should aspire to control another, because God gave man authority over beast, fish, and fowl, but reserved to himself the control over individuals. This is verbatim Locke's Second Treatise. Michael then responds to him that since Adam's fall, "true liberty is lost, with always with right reason dwells twinned"--which strikes me as what Hobbes would have responded to Locke. But I don't think Milton--at least, before the Restoration--was on Hobbes' or Michael's side of that debate, and I hesitate to think he was on that side AFTER the Restoration. Of course Milton didn't believe that society or companionship was meaningless--one look at the divorce tracts shows that--but he would certainly not have agreed with the modern pretense that the individual is only the creation of his surroundings, or his society. That nonsense had to wait a couple centuries. That's all I meant by "primacy of the individual." Timothy Sandefur From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 11:38 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Student Gem I realize that this may open a can of worms best left sealed, but I felt I simply must share with the list a priceless malapropism I just came across in a student's final essay. She writes: "After Adam eats of the fruit he and Eve engage in lustful post lapse Arian sex, and fall asleep." Either she has a rather mischievous spell-checker, or a dandy of a sense of humor. Or, we may be witness to the actual conception of Hitler youth! Thanks for indulging me. Jeffrey Shoulson From: Gardner Campbell [gcampbel@mwc.edu] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 3:39 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton's concept of Individuality id f4EJfpt01405 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu There's individuality, and then there's personhood. I agree that Milton would not have thought any single human being could or should live in complete isolation. He didn't believe in the kind of monad that the word "individual" implies. (He was, I think, peculiarly sensitive to the ways in which one can be divided.) But it's something else altogether to suggest that Milton did not believe in personhood. For Milton, the person is the foundation of moral agency, the seat of freedom and learning and love. Without personhood, no alterity; without personhood, no "brotherly dissimilitude." Gardner Campbell Mary Washington College From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 7:55 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <3AFBF404.CC5A849A@spc.cc.tx.us> Subject: Re: Milton's concept of Individuality Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 09:35:41 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu .It might be worth reminding ourselves that "individual" could have different, even contradictory, meanings in Milton's time. In addition to the familiar sense "A single human being, as opposed to Society, the Family, etc." (OED B 3a, cited from 1626) there was the now obsolete, but then very common, senses "indivisible" and "inseparable" (OED A 1, 2). When Adam, seeing Eve for the first time, expresses his desire "To have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear" (4 486), "individual" has the primary sense "inseparable." Adam wants never to lose Eve, never to see her leave his side. The question (which will assume some urgency on the morning of the Fall) is: can Eve be "individual" in Adam's sense and still have the dignity and uniqueness of an individual in the fullest human sense of the word? And what shall we make of God's command (or is it invitation?) to the angels to abide "united as one individual soul" (5 610)? Does this promise (if it is that) leave any room for the uniqueness (let alone) primacy of "the individual"? Is it to save his own individuality that the individualist Satan divides himself from the individuality of God's Heaven? And what shall we make of the promise in "On Time" of "an individual kiss" (12)? (William Kerrigan's superb essay "Milton's Kisses" has some splendid comments on this). Does "individual kiss" mean a melting kiss (Hollywood style) that dissolves all sense of self in dewy raptures? Or is it a kiss that blesses or even bestows individual identity of unprecedented uniqueness and stellar distinctness even amidst the abstract blur of celestial galaxies? John Leonard From: Harvey Wheeler [verulan@mindspring.com] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 11:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study As to "self" you might add Skinner's _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_ In PL, isn't Freedom God's only gift to Adam ("man")? reinforced by Michael's assurance that Satan's evil, through history, is not immune from the human capability for progress? A new post theodicy theory of "homodicy"? Justifying evil to Adam? Harvey Wheeler verulan@mindspring.com -----Original Message----- From: Tony Hill To: milton-l@richmond.edu Date: Monday, May 14, 2001 4:13 AM Subject: Neglect study >Timothy Wieneke wrote: > > "One crucial thing to remember is though Adam had no ineraction with > his >own kind for a period of time, he had daily interaction with God on a very >personal level." > >Exactly and essentially so and as has been suggested elswhere Adam >is incomplete until the appearance of Eve. The notion that we are all >individual captains of our own souls did not survive the succesive >crippling blows of Darwin (we are bilogically the result of evolution), Marx >(our social behaviour is determined by our material conditions etc.) and >Freud (our concept of "self" is just that, a concept). I know I oversimplify >but it is because of the limits of email. The thrust of Modernism in poetry >seemed to recognise this uncertainty about individuality and "self". One >thinks of eg. "The Wasteland" from 1922. > >Working, as I sometimes do, in early childhood studies I seem to find >plenty of evidence of the effect of social isolation (though not usually total >social isolation) on children in their early years and the damaging effects >are often permanent and not capable of being eradicted although they >may be alleviated later on. > >It seems to me that in PL God knows exactly what He does in creating >an Adam who is in his own image (not to be taken literally of course) for >God himself, who we must by definition assume to be entirely self- >sufficient, neverthless created, initially, Lucifer and the other angels. For >what other reason than a desire for some celestial version of earthly >social interaction? > > I do not suggest that we can think of God as the divine and infinite >equivalent of a human sociopath because, as I say, we must accept that >God is attributed the quality of completeness in Himself (Herself, Itself - >whatever) and nether can we logically infer the nature of the infinite from >the nature of the finite, even assuming we know the nature of the finite >completely. > >Tony Hill, Manchester, England. > From: Tony Hill [Mjksezth@fs1.ce.umist.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 10:56 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Neglect study Timothy Wieneke wrote: "One crucial thing to remember is though Adam had no ineraction with his own kind for a period of time, he had daily interaction with God on a very personal level." Exactly and essentially so and as has been suggested elswhere Adam is incomplete until the appearance of Eve. The notion that we are all individual captains of our own souls did not survive the succesive crippling blows of Darwin (we are bilogically the result of evolution), Marx (our social behaviour is determined by our material conditions etc.) and Freud (our concept of "self" is just that, a concept). I know I oversimplify but it is because of the limits of email. The thrust of Modernism in poetry seemed to recognise this uncertainty about individuality and "self". One thinks of eg. "The Wasteland" from 1922. Working, as I sometimes do, in early childhood studies I seem to find plenty of evidence of the effect of social isolation (though not usually total social isolation) on children in their early years and the damaging effects are often permanent and not capable of being eradicted although they may be alleviated later on. It seems to me that in PL God knows exactly what He does in creating an Adam who is in his own image (not to be taken literally of course) for God himself, who we must by definition assume to be entirely self- sufficient, neverthless created, initially, Lucifer and the other angels. For what other reason than a desire for some celestial version of earthly social interaction? I do not suggest that we can think of God as the divine and infinite equivalent of a human sociopath because, as I say, we must accept that God is attributed the quality of completeness in Himself (Herself, Itself - whatever) and nether can we logically infer the nature of the infinite from the nature of the finite, even assuming we know the nature of the finite completely. Tony Hill, Manchester, England. From: Christophe TOURNU [christophe.tournu@wanadoo.fr] Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 4:45 AM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Help !!! Hi everyone, I am currently translating into French The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (2 ed., 1644) and I am stuck in the very beginning by one sentence in the Address to the Parliament with the Assembly (Complete Prose Works, Yale Ed. 2 : 222) : "Though Virtue be commended for the most perswasive in her Theory, and Conscience in the plain demonstration of the Spirit finds most evincing;" There is obviously a probem with the syntax and I was wondering whether we should read : "Though ... Conscience in the plain demonstration of the Spirit be found most convincing" or "Though ... Conscience in the plain demonstration of the Spirit finds it (= virtue) most convincing." Could you give me some help ? Thanks a lot. Christophe Tournu Associate Professor University of Grenoble 2 France From: Mike Felker [mfelker@SPC.cc.tx.us] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 10:16 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton's concept of Individuality Robert Appelbaum wrote: > > < individual over the collective." These are not his terms; they are not his > context. >> I agree. Milton seems to me to believe more in the "uniqueness" of the individual, rather than the "primacy" of the individual in the sense that who one is will never be duplicated. > << he is already marked according to his social character, fantastic though > that may be. And of course, even alone he is also marked from the beginning > by a lack, which he comes to understand as a lack of conversation, and by the > same token the lack of an Eve. Adam is not an individual who also needs a > companion; he is incomplete--he suffers a "lack-in-being"--without a > companion.>> Milton almost had to be aware that, to the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament, the individual is an impossibility. Man must exist in relation to others. "Ein mann ist kein mann." This is why the first version of the creation holds, "God created human beings in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Man, as individual, was not created first, in the old Hebrew way of thinking. "Man" was created as a male/female pair from the beginning. Even in the second creation story, after naming the animals, Adam essentially says to God, "I don't make sense. I am alone" (in the words of Lee Stephenson). Whether God responded "It is not good for the man to be alone," as he does in Genesis 2:18, or "I knew you were going to say that," as he does so often in Paradise Lost, His response to Adam was "I agree. You don't 'make sense' alone." Adam's comment that God is perfect and cannot be lonely--"Thou in thy self art perfet, and in thee / Is no deficience found; not so is Man," shows that even Adam (and Milton, I would argue) recognizes that he was created imperfect because alone. Mike Felker South Plains College > > From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 7:48 AM <45DF35501CF1D311BC190090274643B901D7315A@bpl_exchange.blackwellpublishers.co.uk> From: Street Rachael To: "'milton-l@richmond.edu'" Subject: RE: Blackwell Publishers Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:14:25 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Apologies for cross-posting Milton Quarterly Here is the latest table of contents for Milton Quarterly (ISSN: 0026-4326). The journal is published four times a year and is electronically available for members of institutions which subscribe to the print edition. For further details visit http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/journals/milt Contents: The Sources of Milton's Sin Reconsidered Catherine Gimelli Martin Softening the Stony: Deucalion, Pyrrha, and the Process of Regeneration in Paradise Lost Mandy Green Gender and Spiritual Equality in Marriage: A Dialogic Reading of Rachel Speght and John Milton Desma Polydorou Into the Woods: The Lady's Soliloquy in Comus William Shullenberger Feigned Praise: Authorship Problems in the Extant Poems of John Milton, Sr. Verne M. Underwood Milton and Galileo Derek N.C. Wood Book Reviews Proceedings of the Milton Society of America, Washington, DC, December 28, 2000 If you would like to order a sample copy please contact Rachael Street at rstreet@blackwellpublishers.co.uk SELECT for your Blackwell Publishers' Email Updates You can now receive the tables of contents of Milton Quarterly emailed directly to your desktop. Uniquely flexible, SELECT allows you to choose exactly the information you need. 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From: Timothy Wieneke [t_wieneke@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 9:17 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study >From: "P J Stewart" >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: >Subject: Neglect study >Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 14:19:30 +0100 > > 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 > Philip, One crucial thing to remember is though Adam had no ineraction with his own kind for a period of time, he had daily interaction with God on a very personal level. Tim _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 3:43 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Hyacinth A senior female faculty member at the first university I worked at, a tweedy upper middle class English lady, impeccably clean-spoken, used to refer to a silly person as a "silly arse," convinced that this was the correct posh pronunciation for the word meaning "donkey." She was not aware of any other meaning for her word. For that matter, didn't Queen Victoria strike the clause about female homosexuality from the Bill criminalising homosexual activity because she did not believe ladies practised such behaviour? dw PS. I agree about the "aesthetic ineptitude" by the way. Mind you, I think the attempted "boisterous rape" is not exactly "ept" either. Still, Milton was only about 19 since he says he was 17. dw Seb Perry wrote: > 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: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 4:41 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: neglect study Tmsandefur@aol.com wrote: 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." It is not at all clear to me that Milton "believed in the primacy of the individual over the collective." These are not his terms; they are not his context. The classical republicanism of the pamphlets seems rather to extoll the social over the personal; the exercise of virtue is not, for classical republicanism, an exercise in individuation. Nor does the religion of the pamphlets seem to extoll "the primacy of the individual." Conscience, yes: but conscience binds the individual to the "nation" and the "true church"; it does not exalt the individual or place the individual apart from them. As for Adam, though Carroll Cox seems to me to be right to call our attention to the fantasy of unmoored individualism his figure entails--a fantasy that will find much clearer expression in the next century--it needs to remembered (sorry to spoil your fun, Carroll) that Adam's individualism only obtains in Paradise, and only so far as he is identified as the progenitor of a race of men and women; that is, even alone, in Paradise, he is already marked according to his social character, fantastic though that may be. And of course, even alone he is also marked from the beginning by a lack, which he comes to understand as a lack of conversation, and by the same token the lack of an Eve. Adam is not an individual who also needs a companion; he is incomplete--he suffers a "lack-in-being"--without a companion. Robert Appelbaum English Department University of San Diego San Diego, CA 92110-2492 Visit my home page: www.geocities.com/r_appel/Robert.html And please forgive the commercial intrusion below: --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Click and bid on cool stuff like Dave Matthews Band Tickets & more!