From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 11:31 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels Anthony Welch writes (responding to my response to John Leonard): [Isitt]: > And there is not sufficient warrant in your observation that "the simile > takes on a life of its own. It stands out." If the Hyacinthus section is > indeed too strong for the rest of the poem's delicacy, then fine, let us say > Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment; but let us not use that lapse as our > justification to discuss homosexuality or Milton's knowledge of ancient > Sparta or of Apollo and to then insert that knowledge ourselves into the > poem when it is clear that Milton did not intend homosexual tonalities of > any kind here. I wonder if we could not say much the same of, say, Milton's treatment of Satan in PL? "The Satan of the first two books is too strong for the rest of the poem's theology, so let us say Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment ... but let us not allow that to inform our reading of the poem when it is clear that Milton did not know he was of the devil's party." Anthony, I think you (and others)have yet to account for why you think it important to make Milton a smuggler into his own poems of homosexual references. I will accept your parallel and its conclusion about Milton's being of the devil's party, if you will accept mine: Milton is a homosexual because he writes about homosexuality in "Fair Infant" and PL. Gay angels and Hyacinth will be our evidence to convict him. 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. His readers knew this as well and made the necessary leeway to accept Milton's gigantic infernal figure. So also in "Fair Infant" and PL: what appear to be homosexual references cannot be once we correct the initial impressions gained from our private knowledge of Sparta et al. allowing the Bible to be our corrective agent. Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 2:13 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: FW: South-Central Renaissance Conference Scholarly Essay Competition -----Original Message----- From: George Klawitter [mailto:georgek@admin.stedwards.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 11:03 AM To: KCreamer@richmond.edu Subject: prize Call for Submissions: South-Central Renaissance Conference Scholarly Essay Competition $1000 Prize for Best Paper The South-Central Renaissance Conference announces its annual prize for submissions in any area of Renaissance Studies, including Art, Cultural Studies, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, and Theology. Length: 2500-7500 words. Deadline: October 1, 2001. Eligibility: Papers must not have been previously presented, submitted or accepted for publication. Entrants must be graduate students, faculty, or independent scholars engaged in studies of the Renaissance. (No undergraduate papers, please.) Instructions: Send four (4) copies of the paper to George Klawitter, Chair SCRC Prize Committee St. Edward's University 3001 S. Congress Ave. Austin, Texas 78704 Requirements: By entering a paper in the contest, each author agrees to do the following should he or she win the $1000 prize: 1.Attend the annual meeting of the South-Central Renaissance Conference, April 4-6, 2002, at St. Louis University in order to present the paper at a special session. Cost of attendance will be borne by the winner. 2.Offer the essay to be considered for publication in the Conference's journal, Essays in Renaissance Culture. Notification: The winner will be notified in January, 2002. The cash prize will be awarded at the conference. Authors who do not receive the award will be notified, but only if they include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with their submissions. Papers will not be returned. Details about the Conference may be found on the following site: http://www.stedwards.edu/hum/klawitter/scrc/scrc.html From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 12:06 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: gay angels 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 --- > John, If there is "erotic desire" and "intercrural" grabbing, then this > behavior is still sinful conduct in Milton's time, isn't it? It may not be > "backsiding" but it is homosexual, even as Dover parses it. (OED: > 'intercrural': "Situated between the crura, legs, or limbs, of the body, or > of some part of it"). 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 sort of supernal "amicitia" that the Greeks valued over even married love. I will ask publicly of this thread what I asked of Bill Hunter privately: have we not all as scholars at some point experienced the highly sensual (not necessarily *sexual,* but as exhilirating and elevating as a strong physical attraction nonetheless) union that we call "meeting of the minds"--a merging of soul with soul and heart with heart that results when someone else apprehends a complicated construct or phenomenon exactly the way you do, and can understand something so dear to you that it is almost ineffable, in a way that no one else can? Add sexual fulfillment to that experience, and you would have rapture almost too blissful for the human psyche to tolerate: but even without it, such a union begs descriptions like "transcendent." Raphael's words to Adam are necessarily an accomodation, since he has no referents for the elevated state that is eternal bliss in paradise. God's state is unity: there is no need for antithesis (indeed, the introduction of opposites and opposition is Satan's contribution to the fallen world) --so there is no need for division of the sexes, either, with all of its attendant Mars/Venus strife. There is still a delight in "union" but no need for procreation: why are we insisting on angelic copulation, sodomy, mutual masturbation, intercrural simulation, or any of the euphemisms appropriate thereto? Milton is stuck with his sources -- but not with the limitations of their imaginations. Best to all, Carol Barton From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 11:41 PM 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: whunter [whunter@mymailstation.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:22 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: The Descartes dichotomy Obviously the question of resolving the Descartes dichotomy attempted by Milton through the Scale of Nature and by the author of DDC in a monistic creation is too complex for the superficialities of e-mail. But no matter: the question remains open. w.b. hunter From: tom bishop [tgb2@po.cwru.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:10 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost spinoffs As long as we are discussing spinoffs, adaptations, and influences of PL, I'd be interested in hearing what members think of Philip Pullman's trilogy, nomimally for "young adults" but really a kind of grand universal metaphysical narrative grounded especially in Blake and Milton for readers of the sublime everywhere. I found it beguiling,entrancing and infuriating by turns, but certainly remarkable reading and, as a work of sustained imaginative force, more or less unrivalled in recent publishing. TB From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 5:28 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels & the Bible 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, April 27, 2001 11:11 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Hyacinth 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: Yaakov Akiva Mascetti [mascety@012.net.il] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 3:44 AM To: Milton List Subject: Miltonic Semantics and Conception of Matter A few observations in reply to Prof. Fleming's last email: De Deo: Milton's Scriptural Orthodoxy The representation and description of the "wayes of G-d to men" is of central importance for the comprehension of those apparently "irreconcilable oppositions" that make of Paradise Lost, in Samuel Johnson's view, a text of unjustifiable "absurdity." The central "inconvenience" Johnson spots within the monumental plan of the epic, is that "it comprises neither human actions nor human manners." The representation Milton proposes to his reader, of the "wayes of God to men," is one that creates an unacceptable, as well as inconceivable, bridge between two worlds that have, in Johnson's conception, nothing in common. The reader can thus find "no transaction" between his own human conscience of existence, and those "awful scenes" Milton utilizes as a source of "poetical pleasure." Well entrenched in a period of English history in which the contrast between the Beautiful and the Sublime was becoming more and more a source of debate among the philosophers and artists of the time, the sole reaction Johnson associates with Milton's portrayal of the "good and evil of eternity" is one of "reverence," in which the individual can do nothing but "shrink in horror." The supra-rational characteristic of the Miltonic text, depicting God and angels by means of human language, is thus judged as "too ponderous for the wings of wit." The categorial clash between the "wayes of God" and the humble human ratio is thus coldly deflated into the sinking of the mind, into the "passive helplessness" of a "humble adoration." Despite the fact that Johnson does praise Milton for the effort he put into the representation of "known truths" in order to convey them "to the mind by a new train of intermediate images," he then takes a step back claiming that the "original deficience" of the human mind "cannot be supplied." The representation of Divine actions and manners in human language is, thus, according to Johnson, one of the principal faults of the Miltonic epic. The "original deficience" of the human word is the basis of the critic's argument, and upon it he constructs his criticism of Milton's justification and representation of Divine actions. The human word is a priori an insufficient instrument for the depiction of the "good and evil of eternity." The "description of what cannot be described" is thus the unbearable clash that Johnson detects in Milton's text, between the decoding nature of human language, and the ungraspable nature of G-d and Divine actions. The primary consequence of this clash is that the semiotic mechanism of the human word becomes inconsistent, incompatible with the untranslatable infinity of the Godhead. Milton's conception of the word is, though, radically impermeable to Johnson 's criticism. In De Doctrina Christiana, Milton manifests his firm conviction regarding the fact that No one [...] can have right thoughts of God, with nature or reason alone as his guide, independent of the word, or message of God. (XIV 31, my italics) Divine verbal revelation is the sole channel, within the reach of human faculties, that can bring the potentially wrong conceptions formed by "nature or reason," to what he defines the "right thoughts of God." The Miltonic conception of revealed God is one in which the Divinity moulds its infinite nature, that "far transcends the powers of man's thoughts," and presents to the human being only what the latter's mind "can conceive" and what his "nature can bear" (XIV 31). Claiming that the "safest way" man can follow in order to "form [...] a conception of God," is to follow the "delineation and representation" presented in the "sacred writings," Milton then seems to contradict the preceeding statement in which the "word, or message of God" was the only way to have "right thoughts" about him. This less absolutist expression seems then to leave the believer space for a choice, between a conception that God himself "desires we should conceive" through the simple reading of the Biblical text, and an image "beyond the written word of scripture," fruit of "vague cogitations and subtleties" (XIV 33). The Miltonic verbal revelation of God is, nonetheless, conceived as an event that lowers the Divinity "to our level" of comprehension, "lest" we indulge in sterile speculation "above the reach of human understanding," and "beyond" the loyally respected "written word of scripture." The criticism addressed in De Deo to those theologians who "employ anthropopathy" in order to justify the problematic use of human imagery in the biblical description of God, comes as an opposition to the projection of human characteristics onto the Divinity that is implied in the above-mentioned hermeneutic methodology. The fact that theologians tend to "contemplate the Deity [...] with reference to human passions," is problematic in Milton's view, for it implies that the conception of Divinity is moulded into intellectually digestable "subtle theories." The mechanism that rules the theological "anthropopathetic" terminology creates a solid semantic bridge between the infinity of God and the finite dimension of human language. In other terms, the anthropopathetic, or anthropomorphic, delineations contained in the biblical text, represent God in the human terms of metaphor, in which the two sides of tenor and vehicle are separated by a semantic void, impenetrable and incomprehensible. Milton's conception of scriptural representation of God is characterized by the direct revelational origin of the text, in which God, as we have already seen, brings "himself within the limits of our understanding." The Miltonic reading of the biblical text does not accept the abyssal distance of semantic void between man and God. The reader, plunging into the text, personally witnesses the Revelation, and entertains "such a conception of him ... he desires we should conceive" (XIV 33). This conception of the biblical text eliminates thus the theological questions related to the projection of human characteristics onto God; the process he calls "comprehendere Deum" (XIV 33), to understand God and to form a conception of him, passes through the full acceptance of the Scripture as "a revelation of himself as our minds can conceive." The clash between Divine infinity and the human finite dimension, implodes into a conceptual and semantic continuum, in which the Divine verbal revelation is no longer a bond between two irretrievably separated worlds, between the absolute spirituality of God and the base materiality of human language, but the very revelation of his nature, "accomodated" and made compatible to the "scope of our comprehensions." The original latin text of Milton's De Doctrina differentiates between God "qualis in se est" and God "qualem nos capere possumus," between God in and of Himself, and God as we may understand and conceive Him. Another element that can help us to understand the Miltonic perspective on the Scriptural description of God, and on scriptural representation in general, "talem semper vel describi vel adumbrari," is the fact that it finds, in Milton's view, a parallel in the veiled revelation of the Deity experienced by Moses. The fact that Milton interprets the words pronounced by God to Moses, when the latter demands from the Deity a full revelation, there shall no man see me, and live ... but thou shalt see my back parts. (Exod. 33:20-23) as an example of "knowing God [...] with reference to the imperfect comprehension of man," is useful to understand the particular conception of Scriptural authority he presents in De Doctrina. Just like Moses on mount Horev, the reader in the biblical text faces a veiled revelation of God in the "representation of himself" in the sacred writings. The monist scriptural revelation of God is thus Milton's answer to the theologian's dualist anthropopathetical exegesis. As Kerrigan interestingly explains, the Miltonic exegete follows this principle of scriptural revelation in order to deduce his monist heresies, claiming that the use of metaphorical speech in the description of "divine matters" is not a "sign of our deficiency," as according to the orthodox Calvinist semantic skepticism, but a serious procedure for the true description of the Deity. The direct revelation of God in the Scripture brings the Miltonic exegete to state that words "delineate" and "represent" the true meaning of Divine actions and manners. Kerrigan's claim that "speech about Heaven" thus becomes "language realizing its potential to name everything" is vaguely speculative, and does not render Milton's precise words: God provides us with "such a conception of him ... he desires we should conceive" (XIV 33). This does not mean that Milton conceives the biblical text as a word texture that can semantically envelop the Deity, and attain an heretical utopia of perfect semantic denotation. Miltonic Scriptural Orthodoxy and Representation The Miltonic narrator begins his "adventrous song" invoking the providential aid of an "Heav'nly muse" in order to pursue "things unattempted yet in Prose or Rime." This initial prayer is addressed to "raise and support" the representational capacity of the narrator's versification, such that his poetry may cope with the semantic freight of his "great Argument:" the assertion of "Eternal Providence" together with the justification of "the wayes of God to men." The invocation that introduces to the reader the "monumental plan of the epic", seems to call for an unprecedented semantic straining of versification, that Dr Johnson would have criticized as "too ponderous for the wing of wit." The problem of representation of Divine matters is one that, as he have seen in the second section of this essay, Milton tackled from the theological point of view in De Doctrina Christiana. The Miltonic conception of biblical scripture differs from that of traditional theological exegesis. While the anthropomorphic terminology used in the description of Divine manifestations is commonly interpreted as the expression of otherwise unintelligible concepts, in the metaphorical language of human beings, Milton sees in the biblical text what has been called the very "limit of truth." The exegetical arsenal of heremeneutic "cogitations" must lead, in Milton's view, not to a contemplation of the Deity "with reference to human passions," as in the anthropomorphic interpretation, but to a deferential and literal acceptance of the "way wherein God has offered himself to our contemplation" (XIV 33). Milton's unconditional acceptance of the biblical text qua sole authority in the formation of an appropriate "apprehension of the nature of God" has, I think, important conceptual consequences on the author's moulding of a poetical verse capable of justifying the "wayes of God to man" in Paradise Lost. Milton's polemic with anthropomorphic exegesis emphasizes the tendency it has to pull the image of the Deity away from the intrinsic imperfection and vulgarity of man and of matter, creating, as we have already seen, a conceptual and semantic gap between the two. The description of God thus assumes the mechanics of a metaphor, in which the tension between the tenor and the vehicle is defined as imponderable. The Miltonic conception of biblical representation of God, on the contrary, sees in the text what God wishes us to see. The direct revelation of the Deity within the text of the Bible fluidifies the "hierarchical rigidity" of the binary opposition matter / God, recreating what I have been calling a semantic continuum between the two. If the anthropomorphic terminology is problematic within the frame of a dualist theodicy, within a conception of God opposed to and independent of the matter of Creation, in Milton's monist and semantic continuum the Deity offers to the "imperfect comprehension of man" a "full revelation of himself as our minds can conceive" (XIV 31). The sacred writings thus become a veritable "delineation and representation" of the Deity; or, to follow the original latin words of Milton's treatise, it is "in sacris literis," in the sacred scriptures, that God "ipse se exhibet," thus shows and exhibits himself. The ontological tabletalk between Raphael and Adam in Book V, with its didactic overtones, and the fluidification of Adam's rigid ontological categorization, provides the reader with the conceptual instruments necessary to comprehend the complexity of the angel's task in answering the progenitor's central question: "yet what compare?" The centrality of this question lies in the fact that it requires from Raphael, and Milton, a definition of the "semantic strategy" to be adopted in the narration of "what surmounts the reach of human sense." Informing Adam of his freedom of choice, the archangel hints to the fall of Satan and the rebel angels as an example of "som [who] are fall'n, to disobedience" (V:541). Adam, having listened "attentive and with more delighted ear" thus claims to be troubled by doubts and, desiring to hear more, asks his angelic guest to narrate "the full relation" of the hinted heavenly events. High matter thou injoinst me, O prime of men, Sad task and hard, for how shall I relate To human sense th'invisible exploits Of warring Spirits; how without remorse The ruin of so many glorious once All perfet while they stood; how last unfould The secrets of another world, perhaps Not lawful to reveal? Yet for thy good This is dispenc't, and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By lik'ning spiritual to corporeal forms, As may express them best, though what if Earth Be but the shaddow of Heav'n, and things therein Each t'other like, more then on earth is thought? (V:563-576, my italics) The "comprehension of heaven" which Raphael is called to give to Adam, in the "delineation and representation" of the "invisible exploits of warring Spirits" to a human being, reproposes the ontological clash of categories encountered upon the angel's tasting of earthly bounties. The traumatic fluidification of Adam's rigid ontological categories into a monist conception of existence, in which all created things and beings are fruit of Divine action upon a pre-existing primigenial matter, is to serve as a model for the monist semantics proposed by Raphael in order to "relate" unutterable truths of Heaven. What in De Deo is presented as a theologically problematic representational strategy, is here proposed as a necessary semantic ligand between "spiritual and corporeal forms." Within an ontological conception in which the earthly dimension is "but the shaddow of Heav'n," where the spiritual and the corporal are "of kind the same" and differ "but in degree," the representation of the spirit in terms of matter follows the mechanism of Raphael's transubstantializing digestion, converting the "proper substance" of spiritual subjects into an humanly digestable imagery. Similarly to the biblical verse, in which the Deity provides a full verbal revelation "as our minds can conceive," Raphael proceeds to delineate things that surmount the "reach of human sense" in the very language of human beings. As Adam grasps the effective and contradictory nature of the representational strategy adopted by Raphael, now defined "Divine Interpreter," in which the unattainable "things above our earthly thought" are delineated in terms of earthly words and made digestable for the adamitic "human sense," the downward movement involved in the revelation of "Empyrean" things gives him the certitude that the "human knowledge could not reach" concepts and events "farr differing" from his own nature. The fundamental characteristics of the Miltonic conception of biblical "delineation and representation" of Divine matters contained in De Deo seems now to be applicable within the text of the epic. The spiritually refined reality of Raphael's narration, whose Heavenly setting is still felt by Adam as inaccessible to his human "nature or reason alone", is now conceptually transubstantiated, digested and assimilated, with the firm consciousness, though, of the "farr" distance in the "scale of nature" between the Heavenly happenings and "this World." The Miltonic concept of representation does not provide Adam, and the reader, with a full semiosis, in which the signifier attains a total union with the signified. The divarication between word and thing described by Foucault, denounced by Eliot as a "dissociation of sensibilty," and presented in this essay as a touchstone for the analysis of Milton's idiosyncratic representational strategy, has been described by Cheryl Thrash as "a keen interest to early modern philologists, philosophers, scientists, and theologians alike." Kerrigan's distorted interpretation of the Miltonic conception of scriptural semiosis, in which the biblical language is defined as "realizing its potential to name everything", seems to me similar to the central interest of a considerable portion of those seventeenth-century thinkers whose contemporary culture has been defined as "virtually devoid of traditionally authoritative voices." What Kolbrener calls the "fetishism of unity", appears to have been a common search in Milton's age for a "refuge from the relentless surge of divergent voices ringing from the pulpit and the uncensored press by hearkening back to a golden age of perfect correlation between the sign and signified." The "perfect denotation" attributed to "Edenic, pre-lapsarian language" and to Milton's concept of Divine verbal revelation does not explain, though, Adam' s persisting feeling of an ontological and epistemological gap between his existential and cultural dimension and the "Empyrean." Those things "above earthly thought" remain unattainable despite Raphael's concocting narration. Milton's textual rendering of this internal contradiction between the denotative power of the word and the conceptual gap, is attained by means of subtle twists in the mechanics of the verses. Despite the subject of the narration is above the reach of human ratio, "yet" it concerns Adam and Eve. Despite the hard task assigned to Raphael, namely to "recount Almightie works," and the insufficient denotative power of the "tongue of Seraph," "yet" what man can attain through this revelation "may serve / To glorifie the Maker." Between the two fronts of total unity and of total difference, Milton's representational strategy finds in the Scriptural delineation of the Deity a point of reference, in its subsumption of God "qualis in se est" and God "qualem nos capere possumus," between God in and of Himself, and God as we may understand and conceive him. YM From: Louis Schwartz [lschwart@richmond.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 2:13 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith > >I'm not really a specialist in this area. Perhaps someone who has slogged >through Fletcher et al. could provide a quick overview of the history of >critical thinking about Milton's relation to Jewish sources beyond the >Tanach. > >Jameela Lares I don't have much to say about the subject myself, but two more recent studies that try and sort out this complex subject are Jason Rosenblatt's *Torah and Law in Paradise Lost* and Golda Werman's *Milton and Midrash*. I haven't worked with Rosneblatt's book, so I can't comment on its contents or its direct revelence to a discussion of Lilith, but Werman's opening chapters, as I remember, are a very useful survey of what, in fact, Milton could have and probably could not have known about Rabbinic materials. She's quite critical, as I remember, of earlier claims, although the body of the book makes extended claims for his knowledge of one particular midrashic work (I remember thinking her introduction more convincing that some of the claims she makes in the rest). Louis ======================================= Louis Schwartz English Department University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173 (804) 289-8315 lschwart@richmond.edu From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 10:13 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: jfleming@sfu.ca Subject: Re: Lilith Sorry, one more thing... John Lightfoot, who was one of the two most accomplished English Christian Hebraists of the 17th century (the other being John Selden), published Erubhin, or Miscellenies Christian and Judaicall, in 1629, in which he does report some of the myths concerning Lilith, noting that Adam's sleep was repeatedly invaded by dreams of Lilith, Ogareth, Maleth, and Naamah (all demonic female figures from the Kabbalah). As Harris Fletcher pointed out long ago, it is possible to link Lightfoot to Milton via William Chappell, who tutored both. Smoking gun? Hardly. Interesting circumstantial evidence? Perhaps. Jeffrey Shoulson From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 10:02 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: jfleming@sfu.ca Subject: Re: Lilith As a number of list members have pointed out, Milton's familiarity with extra-biblical Judaic sources has been the subject of numerous studies. Among the most noteworthy are: Denis Saurat, Milton: Man and Thinker (London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1925) Harris F. Fletcher, Milton=92s Semitic Studies and Some Manifestations of Them in his Poetry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) and Milton=92s Rabbinical Readings (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1930) E. C. Baldwin, "Some Extra-Biblical Semitic Influences Upon Milton=92s Story of the Fall of Man," JEGP 28 (1929): 366-401 George Conklin, Biblical Criticism and Heresy in Milton (New York: King=92s Crown Press, 1949) Robert Adams, Ikon: John Milton and the Modern Critics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955) R. J. Z. Werblowsky, "Milton and the Conjectura Cabbalistica," Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Institutes 18 (1955); 90-113 Harold Fisch, "Hebraic Styles and Motifs in Paradise Lost," Language and Style in Milton, eds. Ronald D. Emma and John T. Shawcross (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1967) Samuel S. Stollman, "Milton=92s Rabbinical Readings and Fletcher," Milton Studies 4 (1972): 195-215 Leonard R. Mendelsohn, "Milton and the Rabbis: A Later Inquiry," SEL 18 (1978): 125-35 Cheryl Fresch, "The Hebraic Influence upon the Creation of Eve in Paradise Lost," Milton Studies 13 (1979): 181-99 Jason P. Rosenblatt, Torah and Law in Paradise Lost (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) Golda Werman, Milton and Midrash (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995). To this list I will humbly be adding my own name with my book, Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, and Christianity (forthcoming from Columbia UP in October 2001). Without going into too much detail, and with respect to the specific queries raised in this thread, I do wish to point out that a methodological challenge raised by most of these studies is the need to distinguish between different modes of Jewish writings. Kabbalah, and Jewish mysticism more generally, are quite different from Midrash, which is in turn, distinct from the medieval exegetical tradition. There are, no doubt, important interactions among these various strains of Jewish learning. The rabbis of the midrashic and talmudic period also participated in mystical speculations; Rashi, the great medieval exegete, depended heavily on the classical midrashim for many of his comments on the Tanach. The Kabbalists of the 13th-16th centuries were undoubtedly well-versed in the various interpretive traditions that preceded them. Nevertheless, as anyone who has tried to read the Zohar can attest, kabbalistic writings sound in a very different register than the comments of a Kimchi, an Ibn Ezra, or even Genesis Rabbah. Furthermore, and here I'll quote, with some modifications, a few sentences from my book's introduction, "I remain unconvinced of any direct link between a specific collection of writings=97in either their original Hebrew and Aramaic or in translation=97and Milton=92s inventions. Without a proverbial 'smoking gun' like a book annotated in Milton=92s hand or some unimpeachable testimony by one of his contemporaries, such links are virtually unverifiable. Many of the poetic ideas one finds in Milton that parallel Midrash or Kabbalah may indeed have had rabbinic origins, but they are likely to have entered Christian discourse through any number of direct and indirect means, not just the works of early modern Christian Hebraists like John Selden (as Jason Rosenblatt has convincingly shown) and Vorstius (as Golda Werman suggests), but also Protestant writers and preachers without special knowledge of Hebrew (themselves consumers of early modern Christian Hebraica), or even the writings of the early Church Fathers who were sometimes in direct dialogue with the first producers of rabbinic literature. Given the diverse ways that so-called Hebraic and Judaic ideas enter into Christian thought, the question finally becomes a definitional one: when is an idea, a theme, an emphasis distinctively Judaic or Hebraic, and when is it Christian?" So, it would not in the least surprise me if Milton were familiar with the Lilith myths that have their origins in post-biblical Jewish writings. I would be far more wary of accepting the premise that this familiarity came from his immediate consumption of Kabbalistic texts. Keep in mind that the 17th century marked the height of Christian interest in Jewish mysticism; while there were scholars like Knorr von Rosenroth, Francis Mercury Van Helmont, Henry More, and others who devoted themselves to the study of these esoteric texts, and while there were English writers like Thomas Browne who explicitly identify some of their material as "Cabalistical," it is just as likely that as certain Kabbalistic ideas began to circulate in early modern Europe their pedigrees became quite obscured. Finally, and here I'll stop, it must always be remembered that Christianity began as a particular expression of Judaism and that if rabbinic Judaism, which ultimately became THE Judaism, drew on certain hermeneutical traditions, Christian Judaism drew on other post-biblical Hebraic traditions, many of which we might characterize today as esoteric, mystical, gnostic, etc. The Lilith myth, as far as I know, can be traced back to those very early esoteric, apocryphal texts. Best to all, Jeffrey Shoulson From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 10:30 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels John Leonard writes, (responding to my charge: "I fail to see your distinction, John: Milton, you insist, is not referencing homosexual activity but *is* referencing homosexual love? What you remove from the poem with one hand, you reinsert with the other"): "Larry, Desire need not be accompanied by performance. I don't see any "backsiding" (to borrow your elegant phrase) in "Fair Infant," but I do hear overtones of erotic desire in the repeated "Young Hyacinth" and in "dearly loved mate." Even physical love need not involve "backsiding." It is twenty years and more since I read a book called "Greek Homosexuality" by (I think) John Dover. That book argues that the Greeks did not usually practise the kind of lovemaking that you seem to imagine. The preferred activity (Illustrated in many vase paintings) was something the author calls "intercrural copulation." You'll have to use your imagination here. My keyboard is already glowing celestial rosy red." John, If there is "erotic desire" and "intercrural" grabbing, then this behavior is still sinful conduct in Milton's time, isn't it? It may not be "backsiding" but it is homosexual, even as Dover parses it. (OED: 'intercrural': "Situated between the crura, legs, or limbs, of the body, or of some part of it"). Larry Isitt English Dept. College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO 65726 417-334-6411, Ext. 4269 email: isitt @ cofo.edu From: RossLeasure@aol.com Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 8:45 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films? Consider also Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Not only is Milton quoted, but we find that among other classics the villain has actually read Paradise Lost. He, Khan, prideful and arrogant has himself been banished to a hell of sorts and he vows revenge against Captain Kirk whom he attempt to destroy using the "Genesis" device. Not only interesting by comparison, but really one of the few truly suspenseful and well written/well films Star Trek flicks. A query also on my part: I've been looking for two episodes of the Simpsons but cannot find the titles of the episodes in order to locate the tapes. In one, Homer sells his soul to the devil (played by his fundamentalist next-door neighbor, Ned Flanders); and the other is an all-out parody of the the Genesis story (not that anyone needs to see Homer and Marge completely naked). I don't suppose anyone knows how I could track these titles down, eh? Ross Leasure Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14850 rossleasure@aol.com From: Burbery, Timothy [burbery@MARSHALL.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:27 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Paradise Lost and films? Thanks, Kimberly. I may try to rent "Dogma." -----Original Message----- From: Kimberly Latta [mailto:lattak@SLU.EDU] Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 9:48 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films? How about that crazy film that came out recently--what was it called--about the two fallen angels who are trying to slip back into heaven through a loophole, and Alannis Morissette as God? I thought it borrowed from Milton heavily and shed some interesting light on why we tend to sympathize with Satan in the poem. Kimberly > From: "Burbery, Timothy" > Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:38:47 -0400 > To: "'milton-l@richmond.edu'" > Subject: Paradise Lost and films? > > > Dear List: > > I'm wondering if anyone can recommend any films, new or old, that can help > illuminate Paradise Lost in the classroom. Next week, I'll show my students > a portion of Triumph of the Will (1935), with Hitler presiding over the > Nuremburg rallies, as a rough analogue of Satan summoning the fallen angels > in Book 1. I've also considered having them view the scenes from Alexander > Nevsky that Eisenstein supposely based on the War in Heaven, though this is > an old film and I don't have a good print of it. > > Are there other films you could recommend that contain thematic or visual > motifs that correspond, somewhat, to scenes from PL? > > Thanks, > > Tim Burbery > Marshall University > > > From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 9:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels I like the motifs of transcendance and transformation in John's answer. Heaven seems more interesting in the middle books of PL than ever it does in book 3. Not only do we have some physically imagined kind of angelic bliss, but Raphael actually eating with keen dispatch. Was Milton challenging a possible temptation--even this long before its full-blown appearance among the Romantics--to imagine heaven a nebulous, boring and static place? Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, john rumrich wrote: > 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. > > 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. > > John > > >On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Larry Isitt wrote [replying to John Leonard]: > > > > > > And there is not sufficient warrant in your observation that "the simile > > > takes on a life of its own. It stands out." If the Hyacinthus > section is > > > indeed too strong for the rest of the poem's delicacy, then fine, > >let us say > > > Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment; but let us not use that lapse > as our > > > justification to discuss homosexuality or Milton's knowledge of ancient > > > Sparta or of Apollo and to then insert that knowledge ourselves into the > > > poem when it is clear that Milton did not intend homosexual tonalities of > > > any kind here. > > > >I wonder if we could not say much the same of, say, Milton's treatment of > >Satan in PL? "The Satan of the first two books is too strong for the rest > >of the poem's theology, so let us say Milton had a lapse in poetic > >judgment ... but let us not allow that to inform our reading of the poem > >when it is clear that Milton did not know he was of the devil's party." > >(Please pardon the exaggeration for effect.) > > > >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 no more > >"degrading" to his subject than the allusion that precedes it: as stanzas > >2 and 3 tell us, Winter has snatched away the girl's soul because he had > >seen Boreas ravishing an Athenian princess and decided that the other gods > >might think he was a sissy if he didn't ravish someone too. > > > >If Milton's Hyacinth reference seems so indecorous, I wonder about Donne's > >procedure in the _First Anniversary_. 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 Welch > From: Burbery, Timothy [burbery@MARSHALL.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:29 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Paradise Lost and films? Thanks, Roy. I appreciate your reflections on this question. Tim -----Original Message----- From: Roy Flannagan [mailto:roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 9:53 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films? For those of us interested in movies AND Paradise Lost, there are slim pickings for purposes of comparison--and probably more of the pickings from very early, silent movies than from later work. Eisenstein's great silent movies, especially Alexander Nevsky (get a good print with the Prokofiev music well-synched) and Battleship Potemkin, are works of art directly related to PL (there was an article by Sidney Gottlieb in MQ many years ago that quoted from Eisenstein's essays on montage in epic poetry and epic film). D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and Judith of Bethulia also try to do in epic film what Milton did in poetry. Images of innocent Adam and Eve types swimming in clear streams naked don't usually work as well as the pre-Fall images in PL. The Lord of the Flies movie might be better, to show naivete evolving into devil-worship. Try Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout as well, for images of childhood innocence, primitive joy with nature, and adult corruption. Satan images in cartoons and movies do generally work, from Disney's immense bat-winged Lucifer in Fantasia to Ursula the Sea Witch (very like Milton's Sin but also Satanic as she dilates) in The Little Mermaid. (I wrote an article about Ursula as a postmodern recreation of Sin as in the 1699 illustrations for PL, but it was scheduled for the ill-fated volume in memory of Georgia Christopher.) There are also Satanic seducers, from Louise Brooks's great seductress in Pandora's Box to Al Pacino's "Milton" the lawyer in The Devil's Advocate. There is Seven, a pretty nasty horror mystery built on the seven deadly sins and on Milton (I think he is at least quoted in the movie). And both Robert de Niro and Mickey Rourke have played Satan figures. For sheer evil, check Robert Mitchum's wonderful preacher/murderer in Charles Laughton's only movie, Night of the Hunter or, for that matter, his sadistic killer seducer who won't die in Cape Fear. Come to think of it, the films that at least run parallel to Paradise Lost in plot, characterization, and theme are a fairly rich group. Roy Flannagan >>> burbery@MARSHALL.EDU 04/12/01 05:38PM >>> Dear List: I'm wondering if anyone can recommend any films, new or old, that can help illuminate Paradise Lost in the classroom. Next week, I'll show my students a portion of Triumph of the Will (1935), with Hitler presiding over the Nuremburg rallies, as a rough analogue of Satan summoning the fallen angels in Book 1. I've also considered having them view the scenes from Alexander Nevsky that Eisenstein supposely based on the War in Heaven, though this is an old film and I don't have a good print of it. Are there other films you could recommend that contain thematic or visual motifs that correspond, somewhat, to scenes from PL? Thanks, Tim Burbery Marshall University From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 10:35 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: R: Blushing Eating Angels The angelic answer to the adamitic query > cries out for interpretation: "Suffice thou think us happy". What does > Milton do, and here I turn the table on the teacher, when he creates the > conditions for what you call an "erasure-in-advance"? If it is not possible > to say "whether/how" angels have sex, then why is Milton writing PL and > justifying the ways of Gd to man? Is the "homosocial vision" blatantly > "insufficient"? Or does Milton conceive the > descriptive power of the word as the channel to both create and undo the > dichotomy between soul and matter? Is the narrative incapable of describing > the ways of Gd and angels? I think the short answer to your last question is "yes," that Milton agrees with me at least some of the time, and (not an original view) that manifesting the insufficiency of his literary-linguistic tools is part of his purpose in writing _PL_. My evidence is the difficulty M has in telling his impossible story, and the energy and brilliance with which he semaphores this difficulty. It is true that M undertakes, rather boldly, to narrate the ineffable, and numerous commentators (such as AJA Waldock) have felt that his imaginative strategy, representing God in conversation etc., is undecorously direct (suffering in comparison with, say, that of Dante). Yet at the discursive level, i.e. that of the epic commentary, M constantly brackets and cancels his heavenly and paradisal narratemes. The relevant rhetorical figure, it seems to me, is litotes: affirming something by denying its negation (e.g. "not without right," "not unwelcome"). The epic voice of _PL_ approaches the ineffable, and shows itself approaching, litotically: "not that fair field of Enna," "how to tell, if art could tell," etc., etc. We, reading, necessarily affirm and attempt to grasp what the epic voice denies; in so doing we gain an image or understanding which is both precisely wrong and uniquely available. It is this kind of thing that I meant by an "erasure-in-advance." Raphael, of course, begins his account of Heaven by insisting on its insufficiency, and in the roseate response to Adam's sex-question (not without blushing, methinks) he is careful to state that spirits embrace, if they embrace, "easier than body with body, _or soul with soul_." M sets up a chain of analogies allegedly touching the ineffable. In so doing he makes his story function, as I said before, as a sign of its own insufficiency. James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 From: Burbery, Timothy [burbery@MARSHALL.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:32 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Cc: 'JBMorgaine@aol.com' Subject: RE: Paradise Lost and films? Thanks, Julie. Tim -----Original Message----- From: JBMorgaine@aol.com [mailto:JBMorgaine@aol.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 9:38 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films? While I'll admit that _South Park, The Movie: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut_ is NOT the usual sort of film shown in classrooms, Trey Parker and Matt Stone constructed a wonderfully Miltonesque song for their animated Satan in which he longs to be a part of the world "Up There." Other themes currently of interest to the list, namely daemonic sexuality, are also explored in this character with real irreverence and very little taste. Julie Bruneau From: Jameela Lares [jlares@ocean.otr.usm.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 8:38 AM To: jfleming@sfu.ca Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith A few other references to add to James Dougal Fleming's: Saurat, Denis. Milton, Man and Thinker. London: J. M. Dent, 1944 (?). Per Empson, Saurat's main contention is that the Zohar was in Milton's time broadening the mind of all Europe, and thus presumably also Milton's (Milton's God, 84). Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi. "Milton and the Conjectura Cabbalistica." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 18 (1955):90-113. Vs. Saurat reading of Zohar. I'm not really a specialist in this area. Perhaps someone who has slogged through Fletcher et al. could provide a quick overview of the history of critical thinking about Milton's relation to Jewish sources beyond the Tanach. Jameela Lares Associate Professor of English University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5037 +(601) 266-6214 ofc +(601) 266-5757 fax On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 jfleming@sfu.ca wrote: > I seem to recall that there is a classic M Studies article, cited by Merritt > Hughes maybe, and titled something like "Did Milton Know the _Zohar_?" On > which point, it has often seemed to me that M's line in "Lady that in the > Prime..." about the Bridegroom "passing to bliss at the mid hour of the > night" may echo the _Zohar_ discusssion about God entering the garden of > Eden at midnight. JDF > > > James Dougal Fleming > Assistant Professor, English > Simon Fraser University > (604) 291-4713 > From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 10:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: R: Blushing Eating Angels The angelic answer to the adamitic query > cries out for interpretation: "Suffice thou think us happy". What does > Milton do, and here I turn the table on the teacher, when he creates the > conditions for what you call an "erasure-in-advance"? If it is not possible > to say "whether/how" angels have sex, then why is Milton writing PL and > justifying the ways of Gd to man? Is the "homosocial vision" blatantly > "insufficient"? Or does Milton conceive the > descriptive power of the word as the channel to both create and undo the > dichotomy between soul and matter? Is the narrative incapable of describing > the ways of Gd and angels? I think the short answer to your last question is "yes," that Milton agrees with me at least some of the time, and (not an original view) that manifesting the insufficiency of his literary-linguistic tools is part of his purpose in writing _PL_. My evidence is the difficulty M has in telling his impossible story, and the energy and brilliance with which he semaphores this difficulty. It is true that M undertakes, rather boldly, to narrate the ineffable, and numerous commentators (such as AJA Waldock) have felt that his imaginative strategy, representing God in conversation etc., is undecorously direct (suffering in comparison with, say, that of Dante). Yet at the discursive level, i.e. that of the epic commentary, M constantly brackets and cancels his heavenly and paradisal narratemes. The relevant rhetorical figure, it seems to me, is litotes: affirming something by denying its negation (e.g. "not without right," "not unwelcome," etc.). James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 7:17 AM To: 'Milton-L@Richmond.edu' Subject: FW: GEMCS CFP Deadline Reminder -----Original Message----- From: Meg Powers Livingston [mailto:mpl10@psu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:35 PM To: "GEMCS '01 List" Subject: GEMCS CFP Deadline Reminder REMINDER OF MAY 1 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * G R O U P F O R E A R L Y M O D E R N C U L T U R A L S T U D I E S ( G E M C S ) http://www.english.fsu.edu/gemcs * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NINTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE, PHILADELPHIA, PA NOVEMBER 15-18, 2001 "A SPACE ODYSSEY" The Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies invites submissions for its ninth annual conference. Speakers should plan to speak for ten minutes and participate in a discussion period afterwards. This year's conference theme is "A Space Odyssey." We seek proposals dealing with material, ideological, social, economic, aesthetic, sexual, philosophical, artistic, political, racial, and gendered manifestations of space. We are particularly interested in work that not only demonstrates the existence of such manifestations, but examines how they were expressed culturally and reveals how cross-disciplinary investigations can elicit a range of provisional and thought-provoking answers to questions of historical context and historiographical authenticity. Possible topics might include: o "domestic space/public space" (in early modern texts, genre paintings, etc.) o "theatrical space, staged space" o "interiority and subjectivity" o "the staging of 17th and 18th century opera" o "early modern etiquettes of space" o "early modern utopias and travel literature" o "liminal spaces" o "the gendering of early modern space" ... and so forth. Not to mention astronomical and astrological topics! We strongly encourage proposals for pre-constituted panels or workshops of no fewer than four and no more than five participants, and in order to allow the greatest possible amount of discussion, will ask that presenters in these panels limit their comments to ten minutes each. In addition, we welcome proposals for individual presentations (10 minutes limit) in open sessions, pedagogical workshops, and other works-in-progress sessions. We will gladly arrange for links from our website to information pertinent to sessions with prepared readings or other materials for discussion. One-page abstracts for individual talks must include talk title, presenter's name, complete mailing address, institutional affiliation (if any), and email address; proposals for panels must include a designated panel chair, titles for each talk, and one-paragraph abstracts for each presenter along with his or her name, complete mailing address, institutional affiliation (if any), and email address. Again, panels or workshops of four or five participants will be given preference. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Address all submissions BY MAY 1, 2001 to: POSTAL SUBMISSIONS EMAIL SUBMISSIONS Professor Chris Orchard picturingwomen@earthlink.net Department of English Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705 Please submit either postal OR email proposals (NOT both). ATTENTION: DO NOT E-MAIL SUBMISSIONS BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * For further information -- or to fill out a 2001 Pre-Conference Questionnaire -- visit our website at http://www.english.fsu.edu/gemcs SAMPLE PRE-CONSTITUTED PANEL: Session Title: "Sequestered Spaces?: The Etiquette of Cultural Space In 17th- and 18th-Century England" o Susan Shifrin (Independent Scholar), Chair o Julia Marciari Alexander, Yale Center For British Art: "As if through a Kaleidoscope: Viewing The Picture Gallery at Althorp" o Robert Bucholz, Loyola University, Chicago: "Drawing Room Manners and Backstairs Influence: The Etiquette of Public and Private (?) Space at the Later Stuart Court" o Elizabeth Chew, Monticello: "Purselin and Pantadoes: Spaces of Exoticism in Lady Arundel's Tart Hall" o Andrew Walkling (Independent Scholar): "The Theatre of the Court and the Space of Theatre in Restoration England" SAMPLE WORKS-IN-PROGRESS SESSION: (This panel is composed of works still in progressNOT completed papers. The presentation style will be rather informal, even by GEMCS standards. This panel is looking for one or two more participants working on similar topics.) Session Title: "Conceptualizing Performance Space(s)" o Meg Powers Livingston, Penn State Altoona, Chair o Nova Myhill, Boston University: "The Place of Execution: Locating and Dislocating Public Punishment on the London Stage" o Meg Powers Livingston, Penn State Altoona: "Changing Spaces/ Changing Plays: Revising Early Jacobean Plays for Indoor Performance Venues" o Joanne Rochester, University of Toronto: ""The Conceptual Space of Performance in Caroline Drama" SUGGESTED PEDAGOGICAL WORKSHOPS: (These suggestions are ideas; no one has yet stepped forward to organize such workshops.) o "The Classroom as SPACE: How to make best use of a 'bad' classroom?" o "Is Your Classroom a Performance Space?: Performance Aspects for both teachers and students of Good Teaching" ========================== Meg Powers Livingston Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona 126C Smith Bldg. 3000 Ivyside Dr. Altoona, PA 16601 Office: 814-949-5745 Fax: 814-949-5011 Email: mpl10@psu.edu http://www.personal.psu.edu/mpl10 From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:05 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Lilith JD Fleming wrote: >I seem to recall that there is a classic M Studies article, cited by Merritt >Hughes maybe, and titled something like "Did Milton Know the _Zohar_?" On >which point, it has often seemed to me that M's line in "Lady that in the >Prime..." about the Bridegroom "passing to bliss at the mid hour of the >night" may echo the _Zohar_ discusssion about God entering the garden of >Eden at midnight. In addition to the more obvious reference to the parable of the 5 wise, 5 foolish maidens (which Milton refers to so often in other contexts)? Why? Not that Occam's razor has to govern, in questions of source or interpretation, but a "very faint overtone" might be a better metaphor than "echo"? Chuck Huttar Hope College huttar@hope.edu From: Burbery, Timothy [burbery@MARSHALL.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:26 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Paradise Lost and films? Thanks, Margie! I may try this with my class. Best, Tim -----Original Message----- From: Margaret Thickstun [mailto:mthickst@hamilton.edu] Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 10:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films? Tim--it seems to me you are trying for visual analogues, but I have found that the Star Wars trilogy, which students frequently already know well, is very useful for discussing Paradise Lost, both as epic and as stylistic extravaganza. Although it is not a poem, it is long, narrative, addresses "a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depend" the fate of the whole galaxy (quotations courtesy of M H Abrams). Like epic, it begins "in medias res," with both Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda filling in the background. Luke visiting Yoda to learn about the past and his place in history parallels Adam's conversation with Raphael nicely. The setting is cosmic, the conflict superhuman, the intervention of the gods embodied in the Force. Certainly Spielberg pulled out all the stops in using state of the art cinematography--and his redoing everything now that technology has improved demonstrates his commitment to having the trilogy be as fancy as possible. As I've said before on the list, students do a good job when asked to decide how to film Books 6 and 7 (I do this in class on two separate days, with each group of students being giving particular moments in the action--they go for claymation, animation, digital imaging, time-lapse --they are far more visually sophisticated and imaginative than I am). Good luck--Margie Margaret Thickstun Department of English Hamilton College 198 College Hill Rd Clinton, NY 13323 (315)859-4466 From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:15 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Angelic procreation? -- no Cynthia A. Gilliatt writes: "I've always understood this statement of Satan's to be a rhetorical denial of his status as a created being, like human beings." I can make room for this in my way of thinking but would drop "rhetorical denial" for "absolute denial" -- he *really* means that he is not conscious of his createdness. Satan cannot submit to or accept as reality a beginning of his being for that would take away his claim to divinity equal to that of the Father's upon which his whole case rests that he should be ruler of heaven. 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 Cynthia A. Gilliatt Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 7:22 AM To: Milton-l list Cc: Milton-l list Subject: Re: Angelic procreation? -- no On Sun, 22 Apr 2001 13:54:40 -0500 Larry Isitt wrote: > > Satan seems to know nothing of such a doctrine as multiplication of angels, > or he is lying when he declares to Abdiel: "We know no time when we were not > as now" (5.859). I've always understood this statement of Satan's to be a rhetorical denial of his status as a created being, like human beings. This assertion and ones that follow it in his speech contrast with both Eve's and especially Adam's understanding that they in fact ARE created beings - not 'self-raised' as Satan boasts. The delusion of self-sufficiency is a manifestation fo pride, I would think. At least Abdiel does not correct Satan's impression and > does not see the need, apparently, of reminding Satan of his time as a "baby > angel." Who were Satan's parents? > God created Satan, just as God created all of the angels and Adam and Eve - Abdiel has so many lies/misconceptions to address in Satan's speech that perhaps he comsiders others more important. Cynthia G. From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 9:20 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith Some more Kabbalistic Lilith references: The Queen of Sheba was considered the queen of the demons and identified with Lilith (in the Targum to Job, chapter 1:15), and later in the Zohar. According to Hayyim Vital, Lilith rules over Rome. See Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, Chapter 13, Lilith, for a detailed discussion. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu (312) 996-3324 From: john rumrich [rumrich@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 10:18 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels 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. 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. John >On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Larry Isitt wrote [replying to John Leonard]: > > > > And there is not sufficient warrant in your observation that "the simile > > takes on a life of its own. It stands out." If the Hyacinthus section is > > indeed too strong for the rest of the poem's delicacy, then fine, >let us say > > Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment; but let us not use that lapse as our > > justification to discuss homosexuality or Milton's knowledge of ancient > > Sparta or of Apollo and to then insert that knowledge ourselves into the > > poem when it is clear that Milton did not intend homosexual tonalities of > > any kind here. > >I wonder if we could not say much the same of, say, Milton's treatment of >Satan in PL? "The Satan of the first two books is too strong for the rest >of the poem's theology, so let us say Milton had a lapse in poetic >judgment ... but let us not allow that to inform our reading of the poem >when it is clear that Milton did not know he was of the devil's party." >(Please pardon the exaggeration for effect.) > >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 no more >"degrading" to his subject than the allusion that precedes it: as stanzas >2 and 3 tell us, Winter has snatched away the girl's soul because he had >seen Boreas ravishing an Athenian princess and decided that the other gods >might think he was a sissy if he didn't ravish someone too. > >If Milton's Hyacinth reference seems so indecorous, I wonder about Donne's >procedure in the _First Anniversary_. 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 Welch From: Louis Schwartz [lschwart@richmond.edu] Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 9:42 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels A comment on this thread: It might be worth remembering (or considering) that an appreciation of male beauty need not be physically sexual for it to be erotic in ways I think Milton would have understood and even approved (though, perhaps, in moderation). Don't forget that the thing that drove all those beautiful Greek boys so crazy was that fact that Socrates, who certainly thought the boys were beautiful, *wouldn't* actually get "intercrural" with them. All he wanted to do was talk, and the boys just got hotter and hotter--unless they listened to him carefully and started to climb Diotima's stairway. A failure to do this climbing is the joke, after all (a serious joke, though funny) behind Alcibiades final speech in the Symposium. Louis Schwartz ======================================= Louis Schwartz English Department University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173 (804) 289-8315 lschwart@richmond.edu From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 9:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith I seem to recall that there is a classic M Studies article, cited by Merritt Hughes maybe, and titled something like "Did Milton Know the _Zohar_?" On which point, it has often seemed to me that M's line in "Lady that in the Prime..." about the Bridegroom "passing to bliss at the mid hour of the night" may echo the _Zohar_ discusssion about God entering the garden of Eden at midnight. JDF James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 From: Anthony Welch [anthony.welch@yale.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 7:11 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Larry Isitt wrote [replying to John Leonard]: > > And there is not sufficient warrant in your observation that "the simile > takes on a life of its own. It stands out." If the Hyacinthus section is > indeed too strong for the rest of the poem's delicacy, then fine, let us say > Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment; but let us not use that lapse as our > justification to discuss homosexuality or Milton's knowledge of ancient > Sparta or of Apollo and to then insert that knowledge ourselves into the > poem when it is clear that Milton did not intend homosexual tonalities of > any kind here. I wonder if we could not say much the same of, say, Milton's treatment of Satan in PL? "The Satan of the first two books is too strong for the rest of the poem's theology, so let us say Milton had a lapse in poetic judgment ... but let us not allow that to inform our reading of the poem when it is clear that Milton did not know he was of the devil's party." (Please pardon the exaggeration for effect.) 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 no more "degrading" to his subject than the allusion that precedes it: as stanzas 2 and 3 tell us, Winter has snatched away the girl's soul because he had seen Boreas ravishing an Athenian princess and decided that the other gods might think he was a sissy if he didn't ravish someone too. If Milton's Hyacinth reference seems so indecorous, I wonder about Donne's procedure in the _First Anniversary_. 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 Welch From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 8:51 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith In a message dated 4/23/2001 6:32:42 AM Central Daylight Time, christopher.clark@kcl.ac.uk writes: There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY reference to it? I have also been intrigued by what is actually a more general questions which relates to this specific query: did Milton read the rabbinic commentaries and noncanonical pseudipigrapha? Not only or necessarily in the Hebrew, but perhaps in translation? Several of these stories, for example, the slaying of Cain by Lamech, were part of the common legendary store and appear in art and architecture during the medieval period. For example, Milton's description of the slaying of Abel with a stone has a noncanonical parallel: Whereat he inly raged and, as they talked, Smote him into the midriff with a stone That beat out life. In the Book of Jubilees, Cain met his end when his house fell upon him, killed by the falling stones, "for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone was he killed in righteous judgment." The most common Midrashic story about Lilith: she was created from the dust of the ground like Adam, and claimed equality because of their identical origin. Perhaps a trace of her demonic heritage is evident in Milton's descriptions of Satan's female progency, Sin and Death? Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu (312) 996-3324 From: Katherine Eggert [eggert@spot.colorado.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 7:14 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith James Grantham Turner has argued that the rabbinical Lilith stories are lurking behind Milton's portrayal of Eve; see _One Flesh_, 22 and 224. James Nohrnberg's inexhaustible _The Analogy of "The Faerie Queene"_ includes fascinating material on the availability of this material to early modern authors; see 229-39. And (if you'll pardon the self-promotion) I've argued in print that Milton uses such references as part of a complex of materials regarding women's tendency to hold the upper hand in marriage and in government; see my _Showing Like a Queen: Female Authority and Literary Experiment in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton_, 173-200. Regards, Katherine Eggert Associate Professor of English University of Colorado, Boulder Katherine.Eggert@colorado.edu -----Original Message----- From: Chris Clark To: milton-l@richmond.edu Date: Monday, April 23, 2001 6:03 AM Subject: Lilith >Hi everyone, > >I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with a point of information >here. > >There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the >Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of >Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various >reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for >equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century >scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm >not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of >it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY >reference to it? > >Just wondering. > >Thanks, > >Chris Clark From: Christi [staples@airmail.net] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 10:58 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith Chris, Lilith appears in Rabbinic midrash as a reference to the first creations being bisexual beings similar to what Aristophanes layed out in the Symposium: a duality divided that must later reunite. The earliest references are in the Alphabet of Ben-Sira (in the Gaonic period, 8-10 C.E. or 600-1000 C.E., depending on the source), but she appears throughout hebrew myth and kabbalistic sources (mostly Zohar, a main work of Jewish mysticism). Zohar also picks up on the bisexuality angle as well as the dual nature of G_d as Eloihim. Ben-Sira is the first to equate Lilith and the "first Eve" and is an amalgamation of the Lilith of the Talmud and midrash legend. The Talmud, Persian Incantation Bowls, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish/Christian pseudepigrapha, Prologue to Gilgamesh and Arslan Tash in 7 B.C. all evidence the legend of Lilith. Isaiah 34:14 has Lilith in some biblical translations. Whether the screechowl there is the Lilith of judaic legend is up for debate. I cannot speak to Milton's knowledge of the Lilith legends. The information was certainly available, but it seems to me that Milton would have had to been very close to Judaism to be familiar with the Talmud (Erubin 100b, Niddah 24b, Shabbat 151b, Bava Batra 73a) or midrashic legend. Lilith developed into a character with two main functions: night demon and killer of babies. I'm simply a freshman student and certainly no scholar, but I do agree with you that Milton's works concerning Creation that I have read do not display an overt Lilith influence. Lilith later came to represent the archetypical independant spirit of the female, but that would not have been the tone of discussion during Milton's time. If anything, his knowledge would have focused on the dual natures (bisexuality), night demons (sexual repression) and the destructive child-killing force. Zohar also has Matronit and Lilith as consorts of G_d. If Milton were aware of the Lilith of the Kabbalah, he certainly couldn't have resisted the temptation to address G_d "consorting", eh? It seems to much to resist for one such as Milton, to me. To have been familiar with Lilith would also mean a familiarity with the dual gender of G_d, as well. Peace, Christi Stapleton Here's a fabulous Lileth article if you are interested in more: http://www.lilithmag.com/resources/lilithsources.shtml Nice overview http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Clark" To: Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 3:58 PM Subject: Lilith > Hi everyone, > > I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with a point of information > here. > > There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the > Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of > Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various > reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for > equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century > scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm > not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of > it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY > reference to it? > > Just wondering. > > Thanks, > > Chris Clark > From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 11:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: gay angels Larry Isitt wrotel > .....My question for Derek and others > is why imagine a Milton so poetically inept as to set about degrading an > elegy for a dead child by inserting a licentious reference to sexual > behavior so at variance with the mood of grief he sets out to accomplish? > This is no poet but a secret pederastic giggler. Larry, You are quite right. This poem is not the place for a lewd snigger. I didn't for a moment think it was in the same spirit as the frankly fleshly Shakespearean sonnet. I have just read John Leonard's very well stated response to you and I will take shelter behind that. I have read your reply to John and don't think you have cancelled out what he says. He writes: 'What makes Milton's lines suggestive, I believe, is their conspicuous absence of any shame or embarrassment in celebrating male beauty, and in celebrating (nostalgically) a culture that was uninhibited in its public display and exaltation of such beauty.Yes, of course Milton thought of "sodomy" as a crime and a sin. I have no quarrel with Larry about Milton's conscious intentions. Where we part company is on the question of whether the mythical allusion takes on a life of its own--one that carries Milton away....' It is precisely a poet who is most liable to be drawn by the hidden meanings submerged beneath the surface so that 'the mythical allusion takes on a life of its own.' This why I could not ignore those erotic meanings of 'pride' that I quoted. 'A life of its own.' There are some questions I am not sure about. The child who died was a girl. Why the allusion to Hyacinthus? It is Milton who chose the allusion to a male love and insisted on it: 'his loved mate'? There were many other flower myths to draw from. And if John is right about the Spenserian source of the echo, think where that was located. Mons veneris, the erotic centre of Spenser's celebration of universal sexuality. Was the poet who was to be so sensitive to context in his later classical allusions and echoes so inept at this stage as to forget what he was referring to? Or unlike you did he, perhaps, not find it as 'degrading' as you do? I don't know. We know he was, they say, effeminately beautiful as a young man. He was the Lady of Christ's. He was supposedly 17 when he wrote the lines on the dead infant. His most intense affection in youth was for Charles Diodati. Lines 105-12 of that poem speak of what seems awfully like love: 'Vix sibi quisque parem de millibus invenit unum....' 'But then Milton's love of Greece is itself not unrelated to erotic sensibilities, whether these involve angelic ephebes (th'unarmed youth of Heav'n, Severe in youthful beauty) or lovely women surpassing Delia's self in nymph-like step and goddess-like deport.' John may have added 'Tall stripling youths rich clad, of fairer hue / Than Ganymede or Hylas.' Hylas appears at the start of Epitaphium Damonis also. Of course words still carry their burden of sometimes unintended baggage. Who can speak of 'male love' today and exclude associations of physical sexuality? I think perhaps Milton could. He celebrates Carlo's virginity at the end of the Epitaph and his own elsewhere. I am only asking questions and the questions rise from the words Milton used. I am not as clear in my mind as you are about the answers. Best wishes. From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 10:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Lilith The Lilith myth is much older than Milton, partly dependent upon a different possible translation of a passage in Isaiah that would identify a Lilith as precursor to Eve. It's an old story in Rabbinic literature and has a long and interesting history. "Wet dreams" are ascribed to Lilith in this tradition. I had a pretty good article about the history of the Lilith myth (with a little bit about modern appropriations of it) on hand by Dr. Maurice O'Sullivan -- if you do a search for that article you may find it. If I can find it I'll let you know. Very well written and comprehensive. I couldn't begin to say if Milton was aware of it or not... Jim In a message dated Mon, 23 Apr 2001 7:32:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Chris Clark writes: << Hi everyone, I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with a point of information here. There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY reference to it? Just wondering. Thanks, Chris Clark >> From: Yaakov Akiva Mascetti [mascety@012.net.il] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 10:03 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: R: Blushing Eating Angels 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: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 4:44 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Angelic procreation? -- no According to my friends who study art history, the "baby angels" or "putti" so prevalent in Renaissance art probably derive from the omnipresent Cupids in classical art. Remember that the Renaissance was entranced with applying classical symbolism to Christian uses. We need to consult someone who is an angel specialist. I know that there are various cherubim and seraphim, warlike angels, angels who appear in the guise of men, and those peculiar creatures who spoke to Ezekiel all in the Old Testament, not to mention Michael and Gabriel. Rose Williams From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Descartes Dichotomy I would put this more mundanely, because it reminds me of a passage from Mark Twain's LETTERS FROM THE EARTH-- "For there is nothing about man that is not strange to an immortal. He looks at nothing as we look at it, his sense of proportion is quite different from ours, and his sense of values is so widely divergent from ours, that with all our large intellectual powers it is not likely that even the most gifted among us would ever be quite able to understand it. "For instance, take this sample: he has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstasy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse! It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and have all longed-for things but one, and he should elect to leave out water!" So yes, I think Milton--whose divorce tracts reveal a belief in the spiritual importance of sexuality--was trying to "bridge this gap" as you put it. Timothy Sandefur From: Gareth Prior [gareth_d_prior@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 8:52 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Lilith Dear Chris, There is a widespread argument that the Lilith tradition is an older or more primitive story that was later "edited out" of the Genesis text as we now have it. However, there is a reference that survives in Isiah (I think 34:14, but I don't have my books to hand so may well be mistaken) where Lilith is equated with various desert scavengers. In medieval legend (which would certainly have been available in Milton's time, though whether or not it was available to Milton is of course another matter) Lilith was portrayed as a vampiric figure displaying startling similarities to the Lamia of classical Rome/Greece and the Empousa of European folklore. One can see similarities with Spenser's Error, and so, in turn, with Milton's Sin, though it would be stretching a point to call this a "mention" of Lilith in PL since it doesn't in any way prove that Milton was aware of the genealogy of the myth. Perhaps a Biblical commentary on the Isiah passage might be the best place to start in ascertaining what was and wasn't available to 17th century scholarship. Hope this helps > -----Original Message----- > From: Chris Clark [SMTP:christopher.clark@kcl.ac.uk] > Sent: 21 April 2001 21:59 > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Subject: Lilith > > Hi everyone, > > I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with a point of information > here. > > There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the > Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of > Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various > reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for > equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century > scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm > not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of > it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY > reference to it? > > Just wondering. > > Thanks, > > Chris Clark > > ************** The information in this email is confidential and is intended for the addressee(s) only. Access, copying, dissemination or re-use of information in it by anyone else is unauthorised. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Blackwell Publishers Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient please contact Blackwell Publishers Ltd, +44 (0)1865 791100. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 8:22 AM To: Milton-l list Cc: Milton-l list Subject: Re: Angelic procreation? -- no On Sun, 22 Apr 2001 13:54:40 -0500 Larry Isitt wrote: > > Satan seems to know nothing of such a doctrine as multiplication of angels, > or he is lying when he declares to Abdiel: "We know no time when we were not > as now" (5.859). I've always understood this statement of Satan's to be a rhetorical denial of his status as a created being, like human beings. This assertion and ones that follow it in his speech contrast with both Eve's and especially Adam's understanding that they in fact ARE created beings - not 'self-raised' as Satan boasts. The delusion of self-sufficiency is a manifestation fo pride, I would think. At least Abdiel does not correct Satan's impression and > does not see the need, apparently, of reminding Satan of his time as a "baby > angel." Who were Satan's parents? > God created Satan, just as God created all of the angels and Adam and Eve - Abdiel has so many lies/misconceptions to address in Satan's speech that perhaps he comsiders others more important. Cynthia G. From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: gay angels ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Isitt" To: Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 5:37 PM Subject: RE: gay angels > For John Leonard, > > I fail to see your distinction, John: Milton, you insist, is not referencing > homosexual activity but *is* referencing homosexual love? What you remove > from the poem with one hand, you reinsert with the other. Either > homosexuality is in this poem or it is not. To try and have it both ways > will not do. > . Larry, Desire need not be accompanied by performance. I don't see any "backsiding" (to borrow your elegant phrase) in "Fair Infant," but I do hear overtones of erotic desire in the repeated "Young Hyacinth" and in "dearly loved mate." Even physical love need not involve "backsiding." It is twenty years and more since I read a book called "Greek Homosexuality" by (I think) John Dover. That book argues that the Greeks did not usually practise the kind of lovemaking that you seem to imagine. The preferred activity (Illustrated in many vase paintings) was something the author calls "intercrural copulation." You'll have to use your imagination here. My keyboard is already glowing celestial rosy red. The best comment I have ever read on the lovemaking of Milton's angels is by Dennis Danielson, who (comparing angelic with human lovemaking, gay or straight) remarks that we, despite modern idiom, "do not go all the way." It is rare to find such combination of tact and honesty, without any hint of evasion, and with just the right touch of humour. (Danielson, by the way, would certainly share your reverence for Romans and Leviticus.) This has gone on too long. Suffice to say that I think that Milton's tone in Fair Infant is much like Spenser's in the stanza (III vi 45) I quoted from FQ. I still think it significant that the corresponding moment in Spenser is marked (in 1609) by a truncated .line. Spenser and Milton would both be familiar with the story of Apollo and Hyacinthus in Ovid. John Leonard From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Lilith Milton would certainly have known that the Hebrew word "lilith" is used in Isaiah (Geneva and AV translate it "screech owl"), and he would likely have known Jerome's comment on it, and the references in the Zohar. See Richard Schell's 3-column article (with bibliography) in David Jeffrey, _A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature_ (Grand Rapids, 1992), 454-55. Chuck Huttar >===== Original Message From Chris Clark > >There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the >Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of >Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various >reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for >equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century >scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm >not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of >it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY >reference to it? > >Just wondering. From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 9:06 AM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Angelic blushes "Ne dare lift her countenance too bold, But blush to hear her prayses sung so loud, So farre from being proud." Spenser, Epithalamion, 162-64 Raphael's parallel blush perhaps could be indicative of his humility as opposed to the pride of his former compatriots, now fallen, and also both contrast with and foreshadow the impending fall of his hosts and eating companions in the garden. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 10:29 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Angel blush you know that's probably the most intelligent thing I've heard on this thread yet?... Either that, or Raphael was blushing because he had been watching Adam and Eve together when they weren't looking :) Jim In a message dated Fri, 20 Apr 2001 7:55:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Rose Williams" writes: << Remember that Milton was a devotee and often an imitator of Vergil. In AENEID Bk 1, line 402, Venus has appeared to her son Aeneas as a simple maiden follower of Diana out hunting game in the forest. As she turns to leave him, however, he knows she is a goddess because of her "rosea cervice." Translucent, rosy skin, even here on the back of the neck, indicates an immortal, not an embarrassed individual. Rose Williams >> From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 2:55 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Angelic procreation? -- no Bill Hunter writes: "there will be baby angels (cf Renaissance paintings of putti) and Milton does have "stripling angels. But they don't die: so heaven faces a population problem." Satan seems to know nothing of such a doctrine as multiplication of angels, or he is lying when he declares to Abdiel: "We know no time when we were not as now" (5.859). At least Abdiel does not correct Satan's impression and does not see the need, apparently, of reminding Satan of his time as a "baby angel." Who were Satan's parents? 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 whunter Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 9:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Larry Isitt et al On the subject of angelic sex I did not assert that all angels are males: Adam did (PL X, 888-93). And if they are sexually active as Book VIII says, draw your own conclusions. Also implied but not made entirely explicit is the purpose of sexuality: primarily procreation as the author of DDC and many Christians (e .g. Roman Catholics) believe, or companionship as Milton believed (cf the divorce tracts). If the former and angels are not all males, there will be baby angels (cf Renaissance paintings of putti) and Milton does have "stripling angels. But they don't die: so heaven faces a population problem. See _Visitation Unimplor'd_, p. 134. Or do you prefer angelic contraceptives? Abortions? You know, just possibly Milton, along with some of his readers, had not thought through the implications of angelic sexuality. Bill Hunter From: Chris Clark [christopher.clark@kcl.ac.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 4:59 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Lilith Hi everyone, I'm just wondering if anyone can help me with a point of information here. There are a number of non-canonical Biblical stories relating to the Creation, but those which have particularly caught my eye are those of Lilith, who was stripped of her position as Eve's wife (for various reasons in different versions, one of which being a desire for equality). Does anyone know whether this was available to 17th century scholars, and whether Milton would (or could) have been aware of it? I'm not seeking to prove influence - just to ask whether 1. he was aware of it and 2. if he was, did he make a deliberate decision not to make ANY reference to it? Just wondering. Thanks, Chris Clark From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 5:38 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels 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: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 1:12 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu ' Subject: correction and thanks Hello, all Regarding the email I sent out on using a clip from the movie *Amadeus* for teaching *Paradise Lost*: that's Salieri not Scaglieri. It's nice to be caught by kind friends when stumbling ... to avoid falling. From: whunter [whunter@mymailstation.com] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 7:22 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton and the Descartes Dichotomy The ongoing discussions of angelic sexuality and angelic eating (the latter most recently by Dr. Mas) I think derive from a more important underlying problem: Milton's attempt to bridge the mind-body dualism proposed by Descartes; other English authors like Henry More and Ralph Cudworth were likewise troubled by the problem. I first addressed the question in Chapter 8 of _Visitation Unimplor'd_, especially pp. 127-34, my major point being that Milton and the author of DDC responded to the prblem in very different ways. . I think it may be the most innovative part of the book; interestingly, so far as I know no reviewer has mentioned the subject. It is worth some consideration as the real issue underlying angelic eating and sexual activities. I recommend consideration of these issues from this point of view but will not summarize my argument here. W. Hunter From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 10:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Blushing Eating Angels Yaakov, can you clarify to what degree your query is _not_ satisfied by S. Fallon's _Milton among the Philospophers_ (which I seem to recall you mentioning when you first raised this matter)? JD Fleming On Fri, 20 Apr 2001 10:38:02 +0200 milton-l@richmond.edu wrote: > Greetings. > > Despite the fact that only a small number of replies have been posted to my > question on "eating angels", the debate has taken the direction which I was > interested in: the physicality of Milton's spirituality. Having read this > morning Prof. Flannagan's email, in which he claims that Milton is being > "delicately cute", I still feel the need to understand what Milton is > "doing" in portraying his angels with all sort of physical attributes. > Satan, in his duel with Abdiel, bleeds. Raphael eats voraciously, and at > times blushes. Adam is told that if he'll observe Gd's commandments, he'll > move up the scale of being, attaining a state of perfect spirituality. > Again, if we place Milton in his context (consider the debates on spirit / > matter of that period), what is his relationship with that context? How > does he reply to the gradual dichotomization of spirit and matter taking > place in the second half of the 17th century? He may be simply trying to > make the reader laugh, but then I think to myself that a person like > Bentley, a few years later, surely didn't find Milton's conception of > Matter funny: he simply corrected it into a more digestible dichotomy > between spirit and matter. Was Milton "among the Philosophers" responding > to a set of ontological questions, or was he being "cute"? > > YM James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 1:53 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Larry Isitt et al Bill, Perhaps you have an answer then for why Matt 22.30 implies lack of sexual activity among angels. Was Milton unaware of this passage? If aware, as i would assume he was, then he had enough to fathom "the implications of angelic sexuality," as you put it. My objection is, and remains, to your casual use of the word "gay" (with its associated modern images) in reference to angels. It is an insurmountable object to your case, it seems to me, to have angelic homosexual couplings deliberately in Milton's intentions when he knew very well that such a reading on the part of his readers, should he be careless enough to give them that heading through poetic ineptness, would devastate his entire case for God's righteousness. It is simply impossible to have both a righteous and a sinful God. 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 whunter Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 9:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Larry Isitt et al On the subject of angelic sex I did not assert that all angels are males: Adam did (PL X, 888-93). And if they are sexually active as Book VIII says, draw your own conclusions. Also implied but not made entirely explicit is the purpose of sexuality: primarily procreation as the author of DDC and many Christians (e .g. Roman Catholics) believe, or companionship as Milton believed (cf the divorce tracts). If the former and angels are not all males, there will be baby angels (cf Renaissance paintings of putti) and Milton does have "stripling angels. But they don't die: so heaven faces a population problem. See _Visitation Unimplor'd_, p. 134. Or do you prefer angelic contraceptives? Abortions? You know, just possibly Milton, along with some of his readers, had not thought through the implications of angelic sexuality. Bill Hunter From: Larry Isitt [isitt@cofo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 5:02 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels How so? -----Original Message----- From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu [mailto:owner-milton-l@richmond.edu]On Behalf Of Robert Appelbaum Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 1:42 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels The gentleman, methinks, doth protest too much. Larry Isitt wrote: Derek Woods wrote in agreeable reply to Orpheus's finding of "gay resonance" in the word "pride" as found in "Fair Infant": "Milton could hardly have been insensitive to its contemporary sexual resonance especially when writing of a 'dearly loved mate'" Let us for a moment grant Derek's homosensitive Milton resonating in his soul to all sorts of delicate stimuli from Shakespeare and others; let us go further and suppose Milton knows every possible reference to "pride" and "dearly loved mate" and every other bit of a supposedly hidden homosexual code in every poem and drama ever written. My question for Derek and others is why imagine a Milton so poetically inept as to set about degrading an elegy for a dead child by inserting a licentious reference to sexual behavior so at variance with the mood of grief he sets out to accomplish? This is no poet but a secret pederastic giggler. 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 Derek Wood Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 1:33 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: gay angels Orpheus wrote: > On the other hand, it might just mean pride as in a pride of lions. > > ----- > "Pride" here might even have something like its > > modern gay resonance. Milton could hardly have been insensitive to its contemporary sexual resonance especially when writing of a "dearly loved mate." A recent copy of the Oxford alumni magazine, in all its Oxonian innocence, had an article entitled in huge, bold type, "GOING DOWN," not a likely headline in a North American journal. Milton had read Shakespeare's flesh stays no farther reason But rising at thy name doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall. In Lucrece, 'The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace.' Its less fleshly but still carnal sense was common: in Othello's 'as hot as monkeys, As salt as wolves in pride...,' or Boyet's 'Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed,' or the Dark Lady's 'foul pride' which aimed to get 'one angel in another's hell.' In his History, Milton writes of 'Danish Insolencies' of 'thir pride, thir ravishing of Matrons and Virgins' (CP 5: 340) and and in Of True Religion, he thunders against the nation's depravity, its 'Pride, Luxury, Drunkenness, Whoredom' (CP 8: 438) where the sexual overtones seem important. The Oxford journalist was innocent of the North American resonance of her phrase; Milton was surely aware of the resonance of his in an allusion to male love. Best wishes, Derek Wood. St. Francis Xavier University. 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 - buy the things you want at great prices From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 9:30 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films The irony Roy Flannagan describes below is even deeper when one recalls, as I shamefully can, that as Sutherland offers these opinions to his nodding students he takes a generous bite from a shiny red apple he holds in his hand. Jeffrey Shoulson Roy Flannagan wrote: > There's a deep irony in the performance of Donald Sutherland, who as a = > dope-smoking professor in Animal House admits to a class that he doesn't = > like Milton either. He says, as I remember, that Paradise Lost is dull = > (he likes coeds better). > > Donald Sutherland studied under Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan (both = > Milton lovers) at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Sutherland the = > former Canadian student probably DOES like Milton. > > Roy Flannagan > > >>> vandens@SLU.EDU 04/18/01 01:05PM >>> > > Perhaps others remember "Animal House," which contains a scene of a=20 > professor trying to > teach PL. > > Sara van den Berg From: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 2:42 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: gay angels The gentleman, methinks, doth protest too much. Larry Isitt wrote: Derek Woods wrote in agreeable reply to Orpheus's finding of "gay resonance" in the word "pride" as found in "Fair Infant": "Milton could hardly have been insensitive to its contemporary sexual resonance especially when writing of a 'dearly loved mate'" Let us for a moment grant Derek's homosensitive Milton resonating in his soul to all sorts of delicate stimuli from Shakespeare and others; let us go further and suppose Milton knows every possible reference to "pride" and "dearly loved mate" and every other bit of a supposedly hidden homosexual code in every poem and drama ever written. My question for Derek and others is why imagine a Milton so poetically inept as to set about degrading an elegy for a dead child by inserting a licentious reference to sexual behavior so at variance with the mood of grief he sets out to accomplish? This is no poet but a secret pederastic giggler. 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 Derek Wood Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 1:33 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: gay angels Orpheus wrote: > On the other hand, it might just mean pride as in a pride of lions. > > ----- > "Pride" here might even have something like its > > modern gay resonance. Milton could hardly have been insensitive to its contemporary sexual resonance especially when writing of a "dearly loved mate." A recent copy of the Oxford alumni magazine, in all its Oxonian innocence, had an article entitled in huge, bold type, "GOING DOWN," not a likely headline in a North American journal. Milton had read Shakespeare's flesh stays no farther reason But rising at thy name doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall. In Lucrece, 'The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace.' Its less fleshly but still carnal sense was common: in Othello's 'as hot as monkeys, As salt as wolves in pride...,' or Boyet's 'Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed,' or the Dark Lady's 'foul pride' which aimed to get 'one angel in another's hell.' In his History, Milton writes of 'Danish Insolencies' of 'thir pride, thir ravishing of Matrons and Virgins' (CP 5: 340) and and in Of True Religion, he thunders against the nation's depravity, its 'Pride, Luxury, Drunkenness, Whoredom' (CP 8: 438) where the sexual overtones seem important. The Oxford journalist was innocent of the North American resonance of her phrase; Milton was surely aware of the resonance of his in an allusion to male love. Best wishes, Derek Wood. St. Francis Xavier University. 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 - buy the things you want at great prices From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 4:46 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Performance of masque at Folger Dick Hardin wrote: >A memorable performance of _Comus_ was staged in the garden of Christ's >College, Cambridge, by (I think) Richard Axton on a spring night in 1974. >No one laughed, as I recall, when "chastity" was mentioned, though there was >laughter at a line I've always thought was funny--the Second Brother's line >following his brother's lurid account of vice and ghouls: "How charming is >divine Philosophy!" Well, it certainly can be read as a sarcastic response by the second brother, and I suppose that was the twist given to it by the actor's intonation? Chuck Huttar Hope College From: Yaakov Akiva Mascetti [mascety@012.net.il] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 4:38 AM To: Milton List Subject: Blushing Eating Angels Greetings. Despite the fact that only a small number of replies have been posted to my question on "eating angels", the debate has taken the direction which I was interested in: the physicality of Milton's spirituality. Having read this morning Prof. Flannagan's email, in which he claims that Milton is being "delicately cute", I still feel the need to understand what Milton is "doing" in portraying his angels with all sort of physical attributes. Satan, in his duel with Abdiel, bleeds. Raphael eats voraciously, and at times blushes. Adam is told that if he'll observe Gd's commandments, he'll move up the scale of being, attaining a state of perfect spirituality. Again, if we place Milton in his context (consider the debates on spirit / matter of that period), what is his relationship with that context? How does he reply to the gradual dichotomization of spirit and matter taking place in the second half of the 17th century? He may be simply trying to make the reader laugh, but then I think to myself that a person like Bentley, a few years later, surely didn't find Milton's conception of Matter funny: he simply corrected it into a more digestible dichotomy between spirit and matter. Was Milton "among the Philosophers" responding to a set of ontological questions, or was he being "cute"? YM From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 4:29 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Angel blush Remember that Milton was a devotee and often an imitator of Vergil. In AENEID Bk 1, line 402, Venus has appeared to her son Aeneas as a simple maiden follower of Diana out hunting game in the forest. As she turns to leave him, however, he knows she is a goddess because of her "rosea cervice." Translucent, rosy skin, even here on the back of the neck, indicates an immortal, not an embarrassed individual. Rose Williams From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 9:31 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films Sometimes in looking for parallels a simple-minded sort of summary of the text gives a useful abstraction, e.g., "Paradise Lost is about two people who get into all sorts of trouble but in the end walk off hand in hand." Try _The Bicycle Thief_ and _Eyes Wide Shut_. Carrol From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 8:00 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise Lost and films There's a deep irony in the performance of Donald Sutherland, who as a = dope-smoking professor in Animal House admits to a class that he doesn't = like Milton either. He says, as I remember, that Paradise Lost is dull = (he likes coeds better). Donald Sutherland studied under Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan (both = Milton lovers) at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Sutherland the = former Canadian student probably DOES like Milton. Roy Flannagan >>> vandens@SLU.EDU 04/18/01 01:05PM >>> Perhaps others remember "Animal House," which contains a scene of a=20 professor trying to teach PL. Sara van den Berg From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 8:41 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: .blushing angels Christopher Ricks has some fine pages on Milton's innocent blushes (in angels and Eve) in *Keats and Embarrassment* (1974). Ricks's central argument is that embarrassment is, at best, a healthy mental state, distinguishable (if not entirely distinct) from guilty shame. Spenser's "Epithalamion" is also relevant to innocent blushing. John Leonard From: whunter [whunter@mymailstation.com] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 10:08 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Larry Isitt et al On the subject of angelic sex I did not assert that all angels are males: Adam did (PL X, 888-93). And if they are sexually active as Book VIII says, draw your own conclusions. Also implied but not made entirely explicit is the purpose of sexuality: primarily procreation as the author of DDC and many Christians (e .g. Roman Catholics) believe, or companionship as Milton believed (cf the divorce tracts). If the former and angels are not all males, there will be baby angels (cf Renaissance paintings of putti) and Milton does have "stripling angels. But they don't die: so heaven faces a population problem. See _Visitation Unimplor'd_, p. 134. Or do you prefer angelic contraceptives? Abortions? You know, just possibly Milton, along with some of his readers, had not thought through the implications of angelic sexuality. Bill Hunter From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 9:14 AM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu ' Subject: movie clips Hello, all, Just one more suggestion for a movie clip to use in association with teaching *Paradise Lost.* For the first day of reading PL, I assign my students to read Marvell's poem. To emphasize the sheer wonder of the poem that Marvell expresses and that I try to get them to feel, I show a short clip from *Amadeus,* the movie based on Mozart. There is a wonderful scene in which Mozart dares fellow-composer Scaglieri to imagine how long he can add and sustain new lines of music in a new work that he is writing -- I wish I could remember the work. Scaglieri reads the music and "hears" it in his head. He is amazed that Mozart is able to mix and sustain it so long. I show the clip at the beginning of class then direct them to wait in anticipation for the delayed and desired verb "sing" then wait in anticipation for "things unattempted" then "Eternal Providence" and "the ways of God to men." Then I quote the invocation from memory. It has always proven a very exciting classroom experience and incites the students to riotously read the whole poem (please forgive the split infinitive and compound verb).