From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 3:16 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton in 20th Century I have no quarrel with Carrol Cox's correction of my reference to Paradise Regained, which was casual and not precise, not even reflective of my real view of that work. It is lesser only in length and probably in immediate "appeal," whatever that might mean. There are other ways in which "lesser" might serve as a descriptive term, but not as an evaluative term. For all the reasons Cox mentions and some more, I would agree that it is among the most compelling of all poems, but in a way radically different from Paradise Lost (of course). At this time of the semester I have not the energy to pursue the discussion in the manner it deserves, but I will simply offer provisional concurrence. Tom Dillingham From: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 9:48 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request I wish to take exception to EVERYTHING that is asserted in the following post: Dan Knauss wrote: "Not exactly...at the end of Marxist history--its religious goal--is the pure socialist man, the "species-being," man transformed into divinity." This ignores the fact that Marx was specifically arguing against Feuerbach's notion that the "species-being" of humanity ultimately led to humanity as divinity. Whatever its truth or its value, Marx's argument was specifically directed toward the realization of man as man, not of man as God. "A. O. Lovejoy pointed this sort of thing out when he saw 19th and 20th century conceptions of history as Neoplatonism temporalized--the Gnostic ascent toward the One becomes a progress through time from the past into the future." Lovejoy had no understanding of Marx whatsover. "Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a explicit exposition of this view." Nor did Kubrick, brilliant though he often otherwise was. "To turn this back to Milton, it also is a Neoplatonic hierarchy of being that produces the Satanic sense of "injured merit," and the same rivalrous psychopathology exists in any Leftist thought that has a historical self-consciousness--from Puritanism (the original Left of modernity) onward." This is plain wrong. There is no neo-platonism in Satan's thought. Nor was "puritanism" the "original left." First of all, no neo-platonist would complain about injury at the hands of the cosmos as if "merit" were somehow involved. Secondly, puritanism was never so monolithic an institution that it could be rigorously identified with "the left of Modernity" or any other institution of modernity. The Hussites and fellow travelers of the Peasant's Revolt in Germany have a greater claim to being modernity's left-wing "originals," but how far they should be associated with modernity is as vexing a question as how far, say, Richard Baxter should be associated with "modernity." But the accusation sedms to be emotive rahter than logical: the post assumes that our negative feelings toward "the Puritans" will carry over and color our feelings about "the Left." This is a familiar tactic of red-baiting arguments, but not one I think that ought to be dignified withthe name of a scholarly argument. " The present and the future are valorized in opposition to the past, which is lower and inferior, in both a spatial and qualitative sense." We are the men of the present age, said the Leveller Richard Overton. But now apparently the problem is the Alan Bloom problem. Poor tradition! Poor dumbing of the American mind! That we Americans, of all people, should value the present before the past! I can hear them hemming and hawing over there in the Royal Palace even now. 'It is the error of Satan in Paradise Lost to make all hierarchies hierarchies of value in which the top God-position is the only one where one can escape inferiority." Seems to me (following "Milton's God") that this is the problem of Christianity as institutionalized per se. Lover of medieval art though I am, after a while i get a little tired of seeing Christ as king, seated on a throne. I suppose that Milton and his contemporaries had long since lost their patience with that image too. "Protestantism internalized this self-destructive mentality, and we are still steeped in it--more now in politics (on both sides of the political spectrum) than in religion--especially academic politics." What? Beware the obiter dictum, I suppose, but ... what? How many metonymic slides are we allowed per sentence? Self-destructive ... politics ... political parties . . . ACADEMICS! We were asking for that one, I suppose. "Academia seems to have an abundance of Raphael Hythloday's who think they understand history, hierarchies, power and justice as little more than a nasty Nietzschean affair, yet they can't leave it alone and are busy climbing their own Neoplatonic chains of being, i.e., the tenure system." Ah, so the spatially-minded Hytholday understood history, and he was a Nietzschean cynic, and the problem (there we have it!) is . . . again . . . ACADEMICS! QED. Maybe the south shall rise again too, and those northerners will get their comeuppance. In the meantime, by way of purely affective associations, this post attempts to make an ARGUMENT condemning puritans, neo-platonists, marxists, and ambitious (gasp) academics alike, associating them all with (a) heresy and (b) the DEVIL! Well done. Thank God none of us are so worried about the existence of an actual Satan -- or the dangers, any longer, of red-baiting-- that none of us take personal offense at this gastrointestinal gripe. But it seemed a shame to let its gas go unchallenged. I apologize for being polemical. But sometimes I get upset when I am accused of being, along with all my colleagues, an arrogant, heretical, evil (Satanic) sonofabitch. All right I'm arrogant. So sue me. ===== Robert Appelbaum English Department University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, AL 35294-1260 (205) 934-8571 on the web: www.geocities.com/r_appel/Robert.html My apologies for the commercial intrusion below: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online and get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 9:54 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:00:02 EDT AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > Unpunished wrongdoing is just as evil as the initial wrong itself -- every victim knows this. .... > Of course, you could, as an individual, value forgiveness and > non-retaliation, but that is only because you live in a society that > has a Christian memory, at least, and have been conditioned by it in that > direction. You sure don't find a great deal of this kind of ethic > in pre-Christian Greek philosophy. Aristotle believed that if you > didn't take vengeance for wrongs you have suffered, you aren't much of a man. Jim, Socrates/"the divine Plato" says the same thing as your first statement. Although Socrates didn't get very far with this teaching in his day, to be fair I think you have to admit that Christian moral philosophy has pre-Christian Greek roots. There are at least points of consensus that Renaissance Humanists often pointed out; even Calvin supports arguments in his Institutes by citing classical philosophers. Dan Knauss From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 2:54 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request << St. Matthew 7:6: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." Enough said. >> Matthew 5:22: "[W]hosoever say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." $ From: JBMorgaine@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 9:07 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request In a message dated 4/28/00 3:16:01 PM Mountain Standard Time, AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: << At exactly what time were "differences recognized and tolerated" prior to Christianity? When had that ever been a value at all (in western cultures)? Historically, this value is in itself the product of Protestant democracies, so the isolation of a specific "people of God" and the location of all truth in Christ must not itself be the cause of intolerance. >> Makes sense. Could it be time in our society to distinguish between Jesusism and what *some* people call Christianity? I hear Milton is rather wary about that term "Christos" anyhow. While the teachings of Jesus don't support it, some people still insist on beating my gay students in His name. Such an act does not seem to display right reason, Christ-consciousness, or compassion for the Other, so why...? Julianne Bruneau U. Colorado at Denver From: gary patrick norris [stroszek@earthlink.net] Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 3:39 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request colin cartwright wrote: > > One final remark, to get back 'on subject'. John Milton is one of many > millions of people throughout history to have been positively inspired by > Jesus. I believe that one of the reasons why Christ was so important to > Milton's thought was partly because he recognised that Jesus encouraged > people to respect other view-points rather than rush to summary judgement. I don't know if this is proper; however, I must interject and ask: What is their in the history of Christianity, including Milton's writing, that has anything to do with respecting other view-points. Give me some instances. Jesus was crucified because of his defiance. What is your definition of tolerance? (and more importantly) What has this to do with Milton? You have placed the modern concept of Christ--and ideology that encompasses all others in colonialist and hegemonic sweeping gestures--over against Milton's *vision* of "The Son of God". tchau, gary norris From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 2:46 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request You should perhaps be more careful in your claims, then. You may have meant that a proper (i.e., your preferred) version of Christianity, would urge people not to engage in atrocities. What you actually said was that there was "nothing here to inspire atrocity, only the inspiration to 'love God, to love your neighbour and love your enemy.'" As I--very cursorily, for there was much more where these quotes came from--demonstrated, there is more than enough stuff here to inspire atrocity, and to lead one to the opinion that God's way ismost certainly NOT to love particular neighbors or enemies. Milton was a great man, and one of my personal heroes, but he, too, found a number of instances where loving ones enemies was the furthest thing from his mind--and he (quite correctly, in my opinion), backed up that belief with masses of Scriptural references. The elements of Milton's personality that make him great are, in my opinion, those elements about him that were the LEAST Christian--that is to say, nobility, passion, and a love of liberty and beauty. $ From: Michael Bryson [m-bryson@nwu.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 12:41 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: request I'm thinking primarily of the henotheistic assumptions of a text like Judges 11:24. Sorry, a bit rushed right now... Michael Bryson -----Original Message----- From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu [mailto:owner-milton-l@richmond.edu]On Behalf Of AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 6:00 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: request At exactly what time were "differences recognized and tolerated" prior to Christianity? When had that ever been a value at all (in western cultures)? Historically, this value is in itself the product of Protestant democracies, so the isolation of a specific "people of God" and the location of all truth in Christ must not itself be the cause of intolerance. Again, if you read more closely you get more facts. The Jewish people were commanded to be kind to strangers, and to do so with the awareness that they were strangers and pilgrims themselves at one time. In Christianity, we have an awareness that this present world is not the place where our most important hopes are going to be realized. Therefore, some kind of temporal insurrection would be out of the question -- actually a kind of non-sequitur -- for the followers of Christ. When you merge the creation of The Other with ideas of an earthly utopia binding on all cultures -- THAT sets the stage for atrocity. These are usually materialist, and not religious, frameworks, however. Jim From: John Hale [John.Hale@stonebow.otago.ac.nz] Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 12:18 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: women reading PL Who were the first few women readers of Paradise Lost who left a record of what they thought about it, please? And where can I find their reponses, and more about their lives and reading habits? JKH From: t.n.corns@bangor.ac.uk Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 12:35 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: British Milton Seminar: autumn meeting, preliminary notice THE BRITISH MILTON SEMINAR BMS 22 AUTUMN MEETING, 2000 Saturday 7 October 2000 PRELIMINARY NOTICE Venue: In Birmingham Central Library on Saturday 7 October 2000. 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 15 June 2000. Thomas N. Corns Joint Convener 2 May 2000