From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 3:22 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Since the end of time. Roy Flannagan wrote: > ....We English professors love to scan on the one hand, and we love to discover > puns and other forms of word-play on the other. > I have been scolded before now for posting howlers and other interesting mistakes from student essays, like the most recent, "It's better to reign in hell than to serve in prison," or "Christ came to bring salivation to mankind," or "Milton gives Satan some moveable lines." Interestingly, technology is responsible for a new kind of verbal comedy. It was George Gordon, I think, who said that in Shakespearean comedy there are those characters who play with words and those who are played with by words. Now in addition we have those characters who are played with by spell-checkers. Only thus can I explain the marvellous neologism "lutherchrist" which appeared where "ludicrous" might have served. It too may have been responsible for suggesting that "Virgil is Dante's conciseness" and "King Hamlet's brother sneaks into the orchid," or "Then Odysseus visited the land of the locusteaters." Sometimes the interest is not in an innovative spelling but simply observing how another mind works, e.g "Satan's sin was pride but I thought the really arrogant one was God," (that student was not Empson, by the way) or "'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love' was written by C.S.Lewis," or "The Iliad has a beginning and an end which are necessary to make it a truly great poem," or "Shakespeare explores death and gives us images of death: its lifelessness," or "Oedipus kills his father and bears his mother's children." I see I've managed to sneak a few into the orchid and claim to have done this iinadvertently (like a don at my college who was Master of the Cellars during the War. In 1945, when at last they did a stocktaking and found 200 bottles of port were missing, he remarked, "I must have drunk them inadvertently.") I accept that this behaviour is politically incorrect but think it is not intellectual arrogance so much as a fascination with the behaviour of words that comes with the job, precisely as Roy suggests.When I started this tirade, the only example I meant to eternise was politically O.K. because it came from a BBC TV commentator during a soccer game. He said of a player, "My goodness he's been with Coventry City for years -- I'd say he's been there since Doomsday!" Best wishes, Derek Wood. PS. Sorry! Sorry! From: whunter [whunter@mymailstation.com] Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 7:20 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Milton as Cryptographer Carrol Cox's point as a former cryptographer is that the letters SATAN are likely to appear (in that order?) by chance in any 10000 lines of verse. This misses the point: the acrostic appears in a context where it is meaningful. Had it been anywhere else, like the religious history of Book XII it could be ascribed to chance. And Milton had done it before where chance cannot possibly be an explanation: in "The Passion." See my "John Milton, Cryptographer," ANQ 13 (2000), 16-18. William B. Hunter From: J W Creaser [creaser@holl.u-net.com] Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 6:41 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Created evil Many thanks to Roy Flannagan for his response to my comments on the metre of the line: `Created evil, for evil only good'. We are to some extent at cross purposes, because I am talking about how the line scans and he is really talking about rhythmic realisation, as is clear from this paragraph of his: "Nor am I sure that John Creaser is right for all time in finding only ten METRICAL syllables in line 623. Without major wrenching, I still count eleven PRONOUNCED syllables." (capitals added for emphasis). There is a lot more to the rhythm and utterance of a line than how the basic sequence of stresses and nonstresses relates to the underlying metre. A good rhythmic realisation will be in keeping with metre and scansion, but may involve a series of further nuances, as here. Metrically, the first 'evil' is monosyllabic and the second dissyllabic, but there is nothing to stop someone in realising the line--speaking it aloud, or as if aloud--giving two syllables to the first 'evil', because it falls at the caesura. It is common for writers to slip in an extra unstressed syllable at the caesura--`Wake Duncan with thy knockING; I would thou couldst'. Shakespeare does it on average every 20 lines or so in his middle and later plays; Milton does it sometimes in 'Comus'. Though the technical term for this is now 'epic caesura', Milton seems not to encourage it in his epic writing; according to Robert Bridges, for example, he never has an extra unstressed syllable at the caesura which cannot be, however notionally, glided into an elision, as in: 'Departed from THEE, AND thou resemblest now' (iv.839), where theoretically one can elide 'thee' and 'and'. Reading the poem aloud, it is now easy and natural for readers (either side of the Atlantic, I guess) to pronounce dissyllabic 'evil' both times in 'Created evil, for evil only good'. (On the other hand, the notion that 'for evil' can be elided to 'fr'evil' is alien to Milton's prosody.) But there are lines where the rhythm will go quite wrong if you don't sense correctly whether a syllabic consonant is or is not to be given a distinct metrical syllable, e.g. 'Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks', where 'evil' is and needs to be felt as metrically monosyllabic. If the reader elides 'th'only' and treats 'evil' as two metrical syllables, the line will be out of balance. I am sure that Roy is quite right to have drawn attention to metrical and rhythmic matters in his edition. Rhythm is the lifeblood of verse, and Milton has nuances of rhythmic expression in almost every line. Consequently, yes, I'm happy to celebrate his note on ii. 621: `Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death', which certainly is, as he says, a metrical tour de force. It's not just that there are ten monosyllables, however--this is not rare--but that as many as eight of them are heavily stressed. The line, nevertheless, does not disrupt the norms of the iambic pentameter--but that's another question ... John Creaser From: jfleming@sfu.ca Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 12:04 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: creation of evil/woe But there is no evidence in the text to support this supposition, is there? > As for the creation of hell, I always got the sense that hell was > specifically constructed in PL by Satan. The nether area may have been > ready for him in God's foreknowledge, but the actual building of hell as a > specific, physical entity... was performed by Satan. > > Scott Grunow > Editor-in-Chief > Office of Publications Services > University of Illinois at Chicago > scottgr@uic.edu James Dougal Fleming Assistant Professor, English Simon Fraser University (604) 291-4713 From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 2:07 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Serpent error wandering Steve Fallon wrote: > In his account of the Creation in Book 7 of Paradise Lost, > Milton (through the Angel Raphael) says of the waters that > they "With Serpent error wand'ring found thir way" > (7.302).... Christopher Ricks does not discuss this line (curiously) but his fine discussion of words that had one meaning before the Fall and another after it, may be relevant and of interest, e.g. 'luxurious,' 'wanton,' 'casual,' &c. dw > From: Norman Burns [nburns@binghamton.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 1:00 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Fwd: Re: Created evil: acrostics, scansion, and buried words in >Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 12:58:35 -0400 >To: "Roy Flannagan" >From: Norman Burns >Subject: Re: Created evil: acrostics, scansion, and buried words in > >At 09:54 AM 5/29/01 -0400, you wrote: > >>I am not sure if an editor of Milton should ever say anything about >>scansion and syllables within a line, because all of us hear and read lines >>differently, depending on where we come from and how we were brought >>up. >>. . . . . .. . . . >>Why isn't anyone examining my note to line 621, which I described as a >>"metrical tour de force of monosyllabic words in an iambic line"? That is >>a helluva good note, I think. >> >>Roy Flannagan > How true, Roy, how true! Except for the bit about iambs, I fear. > Now that you call attention to your note on l. 621, I must say that I > don't detect the iambs you speak of, at least not in the first 3 feet. I > DO notice how the monosyllables greatly slow down the line, recalling the > creeping that Pope captured in his masterly > "And ten low words oft creep in one dull line" >(where I find that the iambs faint after the first). Could l. 621 vie for >the honor of being the poem's longest [i.e., in duration]? >--Norm Burns From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 3:42 PM To: John Leonard Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re:Serpent error <001f01c0e839$7d418640$17646481@jleonard> Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Apologies! I said Ricks did not discuss this line. I went to Ricks because I was sure he had said something about it but unfortunately trusted the index of passages cited from the poet. This is not listed. Luckily John Leonard has put this right and given the page reference. dw From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 6:29 AM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: Administrivia: 'Nearly' anonymous messages Hello, Just a quick clarification about the format of some of the messages that have appeared recently on Milton-L. Milton-L is a moderated list. This keeps spam and the occasional personal message from going to everyone on the list. All messages intended for the list should be sent to milton-l@richmond.edu From time to time, messages intended for the list are instead sent to the administrative account that manages the list, owner-milton-l@richmond.edu. When I receive these messages at that account, I send them on to the list, but the messages appear to have come from owner-milton-l@richmond.edu rather than the person who originally sent the message. I apologize for any confusion that this may have caused. I will look into whether there are ways I might process messages sent to the administrative account so that the sender information remains in these messages. Take care, Kevin. Kevin Creamer Milton-L Moderator University of Richmond kcreamer@richmond.edu http://www.richmond.edu/~creamer/ From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 10:20 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: creation of evil/woe Has anyone checked out what Biblical commentaries of the period which Milton may have had access to had to say on the verse from Isaiah? As for the creation of hell, I always got the sense that hell was specifically constructed in PL by Satan. The nether area may have been ready for him in God's foreknowledge, but the actual building of hell as a specific, physical entity (and an internal, psychological place as well, for he carries hell within him) was performed by Satan. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: John Hale [john.hale@stonebow.otago.ac.nz] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 4:36 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Serpent error wandering If "anything" means absolutely anything, why not start from both editions of Fowler's PL, from which to follow up into e.g. Ricks, plus editions generally and variorums especially? There are some splendidly serpentine waterways in John Martin's 1827 illustrations. JKH From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 3:41 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Created evil J W Creaser wrote: > > It > seems to me to resemble those words ('Satan' etc) which people find by > looking down the initial letters of a passage. They're there, but are they > significant? > Stretching back nearly 50 years to my days as an NSA cryptanalyst, I would guess that given the frequency of s,a,t, & n it would be virtually impossible to write upwards of 10,000 lines without generating Satan several times. Surely "stnna" also appears someplace. Take almost any 5 letter combination one can dream up (sticking to high frequency letters) and it probably appears. Carrol From: Derek N.C. Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 6:10 PM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: ecphrasis owner-milton-l@richmond.edu wrote: > >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > >Milton and ecphrasis > >I'm a graduate student who would very much appreciate a little guidance >from the correspondents on this list.... Dear Hannah Steer, 'Ekphrasis' is sometimes used to mean 'a passage or work of literature about a work of art.' Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is the perfect example of such a topos, and this is the sense n which you seem to be using it. You could argue that this usage is wrong or at least idiodyncratic, since it was first used to mean this by a modern German critic whose name escapes me. However, to be fair, a number of recent writers have adopted this meaning of the word, perhaps unaware of the 'correct' meaning. Quintilian and the Greek rhetoricians used it to mean a 'topos of description so vivid and intense that it makes readers feel as if they are actually there re-enacting the experience.' So it is not unlike energeia, or even amplificatio to stretch it a little. It would be worth going to a good edition of Quintilian to research the term more fully, since he gives examples. One answer to your question (in your sense of the word) is that there were no works of 'Art' in Eden except of God's making, and the name for that is 'Nature.' (Perhaps in Hell Pandemonium qualifies.) Another answer is that that 'idiosyncratic' meaning did not exist for Milton. Best wishes, Derek Wood. PS. David Gay mentioned Donnelly's article: it has a useful bibliography. From: Neil Forsyth [neil.forsyth@angl.unil.ch] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 4:16 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Created evil I too think the passage from Book II the list has been discussing=20 (unfortunately in my absence at Stratford) is one of the most=20 revealing in the poem. I have written about it in an article just=20 published in the International Journal for the Classical Tradition=20 and in a chapter of the book I am currently trying to get published.=20 I append for the list's consideration and revision a version of my=20 argument that I recently wrote up for the Prague conference on Evil.=20 The passage that has just been discussed is God's inaugural speech at=20 V 600. God's language is too powerful: it is a magical language of the kind=20 that is conveniently registered by the two meanings of the English=20 word spell. Elsewhere Milton gives us another instance of this=20 explicitly phatic language of God, and once again it is the origin of=20 something evil. Milton's Hell, if not its chief inhabitant, is a=20 Virgilian place (with some Dantesque additions). But where does this=20 Hell come from? That is not a question Virgil asks, or needs to, but=20 Milton does, and answers it. In doing so he faces the key theological=20 question of whether the Christian God creates evil: in Milton he=20 does, but in a subordinate clause. In the main clause, what he=20 creates is Hell. The grammar of the text saves the phenomenon,=20 exchanging nouns and adjectives, but only just. The passage follows=20 the council scene in Book II, when the more adventurous devils take=20 off to explore their new habitation, and do not much like what they=20 see: through many a dark and drearie Vaile They passed, and many a Region dolorous, O'er many a Frozen, many a Fiery Alpe, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death, A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than Fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire (II 618-29). The passage contains one of those memorably monosyllabic lines which=20 make the reading of Hell analogous to exploring it (compare also 948=20 and 950, where 'Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or=20 rare,' it is the voyaging Satan who 'pursues his way, / And swims or=20 sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flyes'). But the key line about evil,=20 which seems short, is actually too long by one syllable and requires=20 an elision across 'for evil,' which the stress pattern also requires,=20 but which the sense strongly resists. These metrical marvels call=20 strong attention to the passage, which is suitably dotted with=20 unpleasant bits of the natural world, but also with classical=20 monsters, Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimaeras, who threatened Aeneas=20 during his underworld journey (Aeneid VI 288-9). But the most important allusion by far is not to Virgil but=20 to the biblical text that comes closest to attributing evil to God,=20 Isaiah 45.7: 'I form light and I create darkness; I produce good and=20 I create evil.' I was struck, in discussing this text with Jon=20 Collins, a rabbi, how unproblematic was this idea for him.=20 Christians, however, have generally wanted to avoid the conclusion=20 that their god is responsible for evil. In his theological treatise,=20 De Doctrina Christiana, Milton explains this unsettling Isaiah text=20 as follows: 'that is, what afterwards became evil, and now remains=20 so; for whatever God created was originally good, as he himself=20 testifies, Gen. i. God always produces something good and just out of=20 evil or injustice and creates, as it were, light out of darkness.' So=20 the stark statement of the biblical text is avoided by introducing a=20 narrative time scheme-'afterwards.' This is indeed the orthodox=20 Christian narrative, as developed by Origen and Augustine, for whom=20 one day could make all the difference. And this passage from Milton's=20 treatise shows how useful that invented narrative could be. Of=20 course, the narrative is not there at all in Isaiah, and there is=20 absolutely no justification for summoning it up. The solution in the poem is to sail even closer to the wind,=20 to repeat the biblical words but with the important grammatical=20 modification that evil becomes an adjective in the phrase 'created=20 evil,' and only then an abstract noun in the extension through=20 apposition, 'for evil only good.' The first use of the word is a=20 predicative adjective agreeing with the pronoun 'which,' and so=20 referring to 'a universe of death.' No question, then, but that God=20 himself creates this dreadful place, and by curse at that. The=20 relation of good to evil certainly gets very muddy, both=20 linguistically and theologically. We may well have to read twice to=20 see that these syntactic niceties do not actually make God directly=20 responsible for evil, at least as a nominal and philosophical=20 abstraction. But he clearly makes something that is itself=20 unequivocally evil. Plato, we recall, had condemned Homer and the=20 tragic poets in the Republic II 379-82, and argued (in the mouth of=20 Socrates) that the gods were good and thus could not be responsible=20 for evil. Milton appears implicitly to be taking the side of the=20 poets in that quarrel, and increasing the moral ambivalence of his=20 God. The two notes rad as follows: =20 The word usually translated evil in the Hebrew bible, as here, is=20 ra; the primary meaning is worthlessness or uselessness, hence bad or=20 ugly. As a metaphysical entity there is not much about evil in=20 Judaism, except for a brief flurry in the intertestamental or Second=20 Temple period. There is still no entry for evil in the Encyclopedia=20 Judaica. =20 De Doctrina Christiana, Columbia edition, vol. XV, p. 66, Yale ed.,=20 vol. VI, p. 333, ch 8. It is worth noting that in spite of Milton's=20 love of accumulating Biblical quotations to support his views, he=20 finds few texts to endorse his special and important doctrine about=20 good coming out of evil: apart from the crucifixion itself, they are=20 the Joseph story about converting Egypt from an agrarian to a=20 mercantile economy, the cruelty suffered by martyrs in Acts 4.28 and=20 Rom. 11.11, and Paul's words about tolerating heresies, 1 Cor. 11.19 ************************************ Neil Forsyth Section d'anglais =46acult=E9 des Lettres Universit=E9 de Lausanne CH-1015 Lausanne-Dorigny Switzerland ************************************ From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 6:17 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Serpent error wandering Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 08:18:36 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu So far as I'm aware, the first person to argue for a significant = prolepsis (and pun) in this line was Christopher Ricks, in *Milton's = Grand Style*, pp. 110-111, but Ricks acknowledges his debt to earlier = critics who had found other error puns, notably Arnold Stein in = *Answerable Style*. See also Elizabeth Holmes in E&S, 1924, p. 105, who = points out that "serpent" is a present participle. Ricks has other = relevant comments in several essays on "anti-puns" included in *The = Force of Poetry* (1985), see index. If you'll forgive the = self-promotion, I might also mention my *Naming in Paradise*, which also = discusses this line and others like it. John Leonard ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Steve Fallon=20 To: milton-l@richmond.edu=20 Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 9:41 AM Subject: Serpent error wandering My friend and colleague Henry Weinfield has asked me to forward the = following question: In his account of the Creation in Book 7 of Paradise Lost, Milton = (through the Angel Raphael) says of the waters that they "With Serpent = error wand'ring found thir way" (7.302). I am interested in anything = that has been written on (or surrounding) this line. He is aware of the discussion in Fish's Surprised by Sin. If anyone = has other references, he (and I) would be grateful. Steve Fallon From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 11:33 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Fwd: Renaissance Pages From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 1:17 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: huttar@hope.edu Subject: RE: ecphrasis A nearly anonymous correspondent* replied as follows to Hannah Steer's inquiry: >Michael Donnely's short article on ecphrasis in The Spenser Encyclopedia >might be useful, though it does not pertain directly to Milton (the >contrast with Spenser may, however, be suggestive). Since, as Prof. >Donnelly notes, ecphrasis can "become a means for exploring art's >relationship to nature," one might ask if ecphrasis is somehow subsumed or >modifed rather than eschewed, given Milton's focus on God's creation of the >natural world in Eden, his approach to the garden in Book 4 through the >topos of nature and art, and his negative view of the artifice of Mammon in >Book 1. DG and then Peter C. Herman added: > Perhaps also the absence of ekphrasis > might have something to do with how visual Hell is and the non-visuality >(please forgive the neologisms) of Heaven. Perhaps also the fact that in the time setting of Paradise Lost (before and immediately after the Fall), no work of art had yet been created that could be described. Milton does what he can, for example in the "not nice art" passage alluded to by DG, which contains a VERY BRIEF description, less than a line, but I agree that "eschewed" is hardly justified since Milton's silence on the matter has another, obvious explanation. * Often, on my computer at least, messages come simply from milton-l@richmond.edu with no indication of the original sender. I probably should be able to guess who DG is, in this instance -- but I'm stumped. I wonder a) if this problem is unique to my mail system, b) if it results from a deliberate suppression of the names of writers (I daren't say "authors" since you might think I'm hopelessly outdated). If neither of these is the case, might it be a good idea to tweak the listserv's program so that we know the source of messages? (It might be easier, though, if writers were to remember to sign -- except for those those who prefer anonymity or mere initials). The original inquiry from Hannah is given below. Chuck Huttar Hope College > > > >Milton and ecphrasis > > > >I'm a graduate student who would very much appreciate a little guidance > >from the correspondents on this list. Does anyone know of any work on why > >Milton eschews the topos of ecphrasis in Paradise Lost? By ecphrasis, I > >do not mean simply a passage of description which acts as a pause in the > >narrative but the description of a work of visual art (e.g. Homer's > >sheild; Virgil's sheild and temple; Apollonius of Rhodes' cloak etc). > > > >I can find plenty of material on vision/visions/the visionary and PL, and > >there are good things on Milton's experience of and attitude towards the > >visual arts but as far as ecphrasis is concerned the only thing I've come > >across is Page DuBois, 'History, Rhetorical Description and the Epic from > >Homer to Spenser' (1982) which includes cursory acknowledgement that > >'ekphrasis has no place' in PL. > > > >I'm sorry if I can't see for looking and am just filling up your inbox - > >but would really appreciate some help. > > > >Best wishes > > > >Hannah Steer From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 9:55 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Created evil: acrostics, scansion, and buried words in Paradise Lost Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu I am not sure if an editor of Milton should ever say anything about scansion and syllables within a line, because all of us hear and read lines differently, depending on where we come from and how we were brought up. John Creaser is a sophisticated and English reader of Milton's poetry: he probably hears ancestral sounds in the words that my North American ears cannot hear. I mean that with sincere admiration. When he finds ten metrical syllables in the second line of the phrase A Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, I find eleven syllables or ten, depending on how one hears the first "evil," as a monosyllable or a disyllable, and how one's oral delivery springs (in Hopkins's sense of "sprung rhythm") from the first evil through the "for evil" cluster. The point of my note in the Riverside edition was that the line looks short but, when you count the syllables and stresses carefully, the line is rhythmically one foot longer than most lines in PL. Personally, I am not sure if the S-A-T-A-N acrostic (was that first announced by Paul Klemp?) is not accidental, and I am not at all sure whether Al Shoaf's finding of "Create devil" can be argued as anything more than a subliminal suggestion, although I like his and Neil Forsyth's conjecture that something is indeed going on between "deceived" and "dis-Eved." Nor am I sure that John Creaser is right for all time in finding only ten metrical syllables in line 623. Without major wrenching, I still count eleven pronounced syllables. Why isn't anyone examining my note to line 621, which I described as a "metrical tour de force of monosyllabic words in an iambic line"? That is a helluva good note, I think. We English professors love to scan on the one hand, and we love to discover puns and other forms of word-play on the other. Roy Flannagan From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 9:42 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Serpent error wandering My friend and colleague Henry Weinfield has asked me to forward the following question: In his account of the Creation in Book 7 of Paradise Lost, Milton (through the Angel Raphael) says of the waters that they "With Serpent error wand'ring found thir way" (7.302). I am interested in anything that has been written on (or surrounding) this line. He is aware of the discussion in Fish's Surprised by Sin. If anyone has other references, he (and I) would be grateful. Steve Fallon From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 9:10 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: huttar@hope.edu Subject: RE: Creating woe/evil I confess to having followed this thread with less than total attention (so far), so if my question has already been answered, I apologize. Reading Michael Bryson's message of last Wednesday or so-- >I have done some work in this area, and have an article forthcoming that >deals with (among other things) divine evil in Paradise Lost. Essentially, >my argument is as follows: > >At Exodus 32, after Yahweh has threatened to destroy the people whom he has >just led forth out of Egypt, Moses tells the deity to “repent of this evil >against thy people” (32:12), and Yahweh “repented of the evil which he >thought to do unto his people” (32:14). The Hebrew word here (translated in >the King James Bible as “evil”) is ra'. This word—which can be translated >variously as evil, wickedness, displeasure, or wrong—can be derived from the >root ra'a' (raw-ah'), which means literally to break to pieces (related also >are ra`ats [raw-ats']--to dash to pieces or shatter, and the Aramaic r`a` >[reh-ah']--to crush, break, or bruise). If, as any Bible reader learns in >Genesis 1, creation is literally good—from the Hebrew tov—then to >“Abolish…Creation” (Paradise Lost III.163), to break it to pieces, is >literally evil. > >The concept of Yahweh as the source of all things, both of good and of evil, >is repeated frequently throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Job asks his wife, >“Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil >[ra']?” (2:10). Lamentations 3:38 asks “Out of the mouth of the most High >proceedeth not evil [ra'] and good?” At Isaiah 45:7, Yahweh tells Cyrus “I >form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil [ra']: I >the Lord do all these things.” Each of these instances (as well as numerous >others that could be employed in their place) reaffirms the aforementioned >relationship between divine good (creation, tov) and divine evil >(destruction, raw-ah'). and then, immediately after, Gardner Campbell's-- >Until a proper Hebraist weighs in.... Strong's Hebrew/Chaldee dictionary >specifies a range of > meanings for the word A.V. and Geneva translate as "evil" (Strong's >number 7451): adversity, > affliction, bad, distress, evil, harm, hurt, misery, sorrow, trouble, >etc. This word derives from a > primary root word (Strong's number 7489) meaning, literally, to spoil by >breaking to pieces, but > which can also mean to punish, vex, afflict, etc. -- I was struck by the differences in the two lists of symnonyms (or, rather, possible translations). "Affliction...distress...harm" vs. "wickedness." In most of the passages cited, _ra'_ seems to refer to bad things that happen ('evil' in that sense), more than to 'evil' as a moral (antimoral) stance -- which was the original starting point, I think, for the thread (how to account for Satan's determined evil will). Except for "wickedness"...but even that could have a morally neutral meaning: "That was a wicked pitch; the batter struck out." Am I right that the Isaiah passage holds God responsible (ultimately) for tornadoes, floods, disease, but not necessarily for the atrocities of Hitler et al.? PL 1 says that God allowed Satan to pursue his evil designs, but doesn't so far as _bara_ or any of the other 'create' words; and I don't think it's in conflict with Isaiah in that respect. Is it not valid to distinguish these two separate meanings for 'evil'? Chuck Huttar Hope College From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 10:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: created evil Hello, I do see the "d evil" in "created evil." I would hate to evacuate the poem of its playfulness. And who can doubt the playfulness of a text whose author wrote the following? S cipio the highth of Rome. With tract oblique A t first, as one who sought access, but feared T o interrupt, side-long he works his way. A s when a ship by skillful steersman wrought N igh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind (IX.510-14) Adios, Angelica Duran Assistant Professor Department of English Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (765) 496-3957 From: J W Creaser [creaser@holl.u-net.com] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 6:15 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Created evil Here is a snippet from a message from Al Shoaf: "This matter touches on an issue that has concerned me for many years. In PL 2, at lines 622-3, M. writes A Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good and Roy Flannagan observes (p. 399, n. 159), "Line 623, despite looking as if it is 'short,' actually contains eleven syllables and as such might be unique in the epic. An elision across 'for evil' may be intended in order to make the stresses in the line regular." If the line is unique, is it so that M. can play with the juncture "Created evil > Create/devil" and thus suggest the greater justice of God's "creation of evil" (Isaiah 45:7) by implicating the "devil" in the original "curse"?" Two comments: first, the Riverside note needs some finessing. There are of course very many lines in PL which have more than ten syllables, but they are reducible to ten METRICAL syllables (plus the occasional feminine ending) by elision. There is nothing unique about 2:623. A closing syllabic consonant can count (and be felt) as a separate syllable or not as metre and rhythm require; consequently 'Heav(e)n' and 'Ev(i)l' vary between one and two metrical syllables. Compare "Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks" (4.110) and "Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown" (9.864) where 'evil' is metrically monosyllabic, with "Out of our evil seek to bring forth good" (1.163) where it is disyllabic. (I don't think we need to make a conscious distinction between ways of speaking 'evil' aloud, it's more a matter of rhythmic perception.) Second, I'm dubious about the 'created evil/create devil' suggestion. At the most it would exist purely on the page, since the unstressed 'd' ending 'created' is very different in the mouth from the stressed 'd' opening 'devil', while on the page 'create devil' makes no syntactic sense. It seems to me to resemble those words ('Satan' etc) which people find by looking down the initial letters of a passage. They're there, but are they significant? 2:622-23, incidentally, seem to me to be saying not that God created evil but that he created a place fit for evil. John Creaser From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 9:19 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: huttar@hope.edu Subject: RE: Abraham on Sodom (was: Creating woe/evil) Timothy Sandefur writes: >How interesting! I've always thought it remarkable that Abraham upbraids >God directly when God says that he is going to destroy Soddom and Gammorah; >Abraham, if I recall correctly, asks, "Will not the God of Justice do >right?" That has always struck me as an amazing moment in the Bible--that a >human being stands up to God for not holding to His own standards of >justice. I agree. It isn't unique, though. Job comes close to being another example; and consider that pert woman from Syrophenicia who stood up to Jesus and got more than "crumbs." But the Abraham story always reminds me of customer haggling with a Middle-eastern rug merchant (notice Abraham's faux-humble language: it's got to be the authentic rhetoric of that sort of transaction). Poor Abraham: he quit too soon. He got God to agree to spare Sodom for 10 righteous; he should have held out for five! Chuck Huttar From: David Gay [David.Gay@ualberta.ca] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 12:08 PM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: ecphrasis Dear Hannah, Michael Donnely's short article on ecphrasis in The Spenser Encyclopedia might be useful, though it does not pertain directly to Milton (the contrast with Spenser may, however, be suggestive). Since, as Prof. Donnelly notes, ecphrasis can "become a means for exploring art's relationship to nature," one might ask if ecphrasis is somehow subsumed or modifed rather than eschewed, given Milton's focus on God's creation of the natural world in Eden, his approach to the garden in Book 4 through the topos of nature and art, and his negative view of the artifice of Mammon in Book 1. DG > >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >Milton and ecphrasis > >I'm a graduate student who would very much appreciate a little guidance >from the correspondents on this list. Does anyone know of any work on why >Milton eschews the topos of ecphrasis in Paradise Lost? By ecphrasis, I >do not mean simply a passage of description which acts as a pause in the >narrative but the description of a work of visual art (e.g. Homer's >sheild; Virgil's sheild and temple; Apollonius of Rhodes' cloak etc). > >I can find plenty of material on vision/visions/the visionary and PL, and >there are good things on Milton's experience of and attitude towards the >visual arts but as far as ecphrasis is concerned the only thing I've come >across is Page DuBois, 'History, Rhetorical Description and the Epic from >Homer to Spenser' (1982) which includes cursory acknowledgement that >'ekphrasis has no place' in PL. > >I'm sorry if I can't see for looking and am just filling up your inbox - >but would really appreciate some help. > >Best wishes > >Hannah Steer From: anne zwierlein [anne.zwierlein@split.uni-bamberg.de] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 6:10 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: AnneZwierlein@web.de Subject: Imperial Milton id f4TACQt15830 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Dear Miltonists, I would like to announce the recent publication of my English-language monograph Majestick Milton: British Imperial Expansion and Transformations of Paradise Lost, 1667-1837. Studien zur englischen Literatur, 13. Münster/Hamburg: LIT Verlag / Transaction Publishers, 2001. ISBN 3-8258-5432-9. A short abstract can be found at http://www.lit-verlag.de/cgi-local/suchbuch?isbn=3-8258-5432-9 A longer abstract can be found in English and American Studies in Germany 2000: Summaries of Theses and Monographs. A Supplement to Anglia (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001). Review copies are being sent out to various English and American journals; I would be happy about any feedback from members of the list. I hope that this publication will be of interest to some of you; please forgive the self-advertisement. Anne-Julia Zwierlein -- Dr. Anne-Julia Zwierlein Centre for British Studies Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg Kapuzinerstr. 25 96045 Bamberg Room 310 phone (0049)(0)951-863 2274 fax (0049)(0)951-863 2452 -- From: Peter C. Herman [herman2@mail.sdsu.edu] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 12:23 PM To: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: ecphrasis Trying to explain an absence will always be difficult, since you obviously do not have textual evidence to support a claim one way or the other. But nonetheless, perhaps Hannah Steer might want to begin by looking at the literature on Milton and iconoclasm, in particular the books by Ernest Gilman and the recent one by Michael O'Connell. Perhaps also the absence of ekphrasis might have something to do with how visual Hell is and the non-visuality (please forgive the neologisms) of Heaven. Peter C. Herman At 05:26 PM 5/24/01 +0100, you wrote: > >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > > >Milton and ecphrasis > >I'm a graduate student who would very much appreciate a little guidance >from the correspondents on this list. Does anyone know of any work on why >Milton eschews the topos of ecphrasis in Paradise Lost? By ecphrasis, I >do not mean simply a passage of description which acts as a pause in the >narrative but the description of a work of visual art (e.g. Homer's >sheild; Virgil's sheild and temple; Apollonius of Rhodes' cloak etc). > >I can find plenty of material on vision/visions/the visionary and PL, and >there are good things on Milton's experience of and attitude towards the >visual arts but as far as ecphrasis is concerned the only thing I've come >across is Page DuBois, 'History, Rhetorical Description and the Epic from >Homer to Spenser' (1982) which includes cursory acknowledgement that >'ekphrasis has no place' in PL. > >I'm sorry if I can't see for looking and am just filling up your inbox - >but would really appreciate some help. > >Best wishes > >Hannah Steer From: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 12:27 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: ecphrasis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Milton and ecphrasis I'm a graduate student who would very much appreciate a little guidance from the correspondents on this list. Does anyone know of any work on why Milton eschews the topos of ecphrasis in Paradise Lost? By ecphrasis, I do not mean simply a passage of description which acts as a pause in the narrative but the description of a work of visual art (e.g. Homer's sheild; Virgil's sheild and temple; Apollonius of Rhodes' cloak etc). I can find plenty of material on vision/visions/the visionary and PL, and there are good things on Milton's experience of and attitude towards the visual arts but as far as ecphrasis is concerned the only thing I've come across is Page DuBois, 'History, Rhetorical Description and the Epic from Homer to Spenser' (1982) which includes cursory acknowledgement that 'ekphrasis has no place' in PL. I'm sorry if I can't see for looking and am just filling up your inbox - but would really appreciate some help. Best wishes Hannah Steer From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 6:22 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Creating woe/evil How interesting! I've always thought it remarkable that Abraham upbraids God directly when God says that he is going to destroy Soddom and Gammorah; Abraham, if I recall correctly, asks, "Will not the God of Justice do right?" That has always struck me as an amazing moment in the Bible--that a human being stands up to God for not holding to His own standards of justice. Timothy Sandefur <<>> From: srevard@siue.edu Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 12:21 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study Back to the original question that Tony Hill asked, would Milton have thought of evil as a created entity--either created by God or by Satan? The citations and explanations from the Hebrew bible are fascinating. But would Milton not have followed the Christian fathers instead? Isn\'t his position essentially that of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas (as I have argued in my book, The War in Heaven) that evil is a deprivation of good and has no separate existence apart from good. Satan flaunts the Manichean lie--that he has created evil? But doesn\'t Milton expose that as a lie? Is there any reason why Milton should depart from the traditional explanations of evil by Christian exegetes? Satan was created good--after all--and the reasons why he turned from good in PL seem to come down to the traditional motives, pride and envy, which come about when Satan wishes a good for himself that he would not owe to God and so separates from God. Hence the fall into evil--that is, the separation or deprivation of good. Stella Revard Quoting Tony Hill : > Harvey Wheeler wrote (amongst other things): > \"Please check me if I\'m wrong about the opening arguments: Satan > creates Evil and God cannot take that away because of giving Satan > freedom; nor can he save Adam from Satan\'s evil because of not > detracting > from his gift of freedom to Adam. ____________\" > > I have a bit of a problem over the creation of evil in PL. I think we can > attribute the ability to \"create\" (in the rigid sense of \"make from > nothing\") > only to God. So how is Satan able to \"create\" evil? Help anyone please > > Tony Hill. > > From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 7:32 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: rashoaf@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu <3.0.6.32.20010523093230.008158e0@clas.ufl.edu> Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 06:54:28 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Al, with all due respect to Roy, I don't think there's anything like that sort of elision there. Inverting Satan's "evil, be thou my good," God says that only good will come out of the bad he does -- the real meaning of "felix culpa" -- thus thwarting him a priori. That is God's "curse" on Satan and the the reprobate angels; pace Bill, DDC says that only right action is properly action: like the building of Pandemonium, or the bridge between hell and earth, or the tempest in a teapot in PR, no action taken by the devils accomplishes anything. God did not create the devil. He created the angel Lucifer: it was Lucifer's non-act of disunity that created all opposition (good/evil, light/dark, male/female, eternity/time), and in its separation from the Almighty, "uncreated" the good that God had wrought -- just as Satan created sin in his thoughts of rebellion, embodied by Sin springing full-grown like from her "author's" head. Best to all, Carol ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Shoaf" To: Cc: Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 9:32 AM Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil > This matter touches on an issue that has concerned me for many years. In PL > 2, at lines 622-3, M. writes > > A Universe of death, which God by curse > Created evil, for evil only good > > and Roy Flannagan observes (p. 399, n. 159), "Line 623, despite looking as > if it is 'short,' actually contains eleven syllables and as such might be > unique in the epic. An elision across 'for evil' may be intended in order > to make the stresses in the line regular." If the line is unique, is it so > that M. can play with the juncture "Created evil > Create/devil" and thus > suggest the greater justice of God's "creation of evil" (Isaiah 45:7) by > implicating the "devil" in the original "curse"? > > I am studying juncture in PR as part of a monograph on alliteration in PR, > and I would be grateful for your thoughts on instances in PL of what I > provisionally call "dynamic juncture." > > Thanks, > Al Shoaf > > At 09:06 AM 5/22/01 -0400, you wrote: > >Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > > > > > > > > Well, JM would surely know one of the most > > > thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the > > > logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form > > > light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I > > > am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). > > > > > > >A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and > >create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its > >implications? > > > >j.l. > > > From: Michael Bryson [m-bryson@nwu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 11:19 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Creating woe/evil 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: B Myers [bmyers101@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 4:49 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil I do not have any resources handy, so I can offer only a very brief and superficial "enlightenment": the word which A.V. translates "evil" is the Hebrew "Ra", which is used frequently in the Old Testament (from memory, I think it occurs well over fifty times). In the A.V., Ra is frequently translated "wickedness" or "evil", and it is regularly used specifically to refer to moral wickedness. Thus the Is. 45.7 statement is a particularly tricky one. Some commentators have tried to soften the blow by making Ra in this verse refer only to natural disasters and the like; but some argue that this is a dishonest interpretation of Ra (i.e. wickedness). Some supralapsarian Calvinists have used the verse to prove that God (literally) is the Creator of evil. BM >From: "John Leonard" >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu >To: >Subject: Creating woe/evil >Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 09:06:20 -0400 > >Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > > > > > Well, JM would surely know one of the most > > thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the > > logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form > > light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I > > am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). > > > >A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and >create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its >implications? > >j.l. > _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. From: Nancy Rosenfeld [rfeld_zn@ein-hashofet.co.il] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 3:10 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: origin of evil Like Tony Hill, I also "have a bit of a problem over the creation of evil in PL." We 20th (21st) century folks tend to center the individual human, so its not surprising that our wording of the "research question" of any attempt at theodicy is: "Why does a loving, all-powerful God allow a good person to suffer?" Milton speaks to this in some of the earlier poems. In her short earthly sojourn the Fair Infant Dying of a Cough teaches us "what creatures heaven doth breed" and the grieving mother will eventually understand "what a present [she] to God [hath] sent." The suffering of groups of individuals, too, has an illuminative purpose. When "Mother with infant down the rocks" are rolled (On the Late Massacre in Piedmont) their "martyred blood and ashes" will teach others to "fly the Babylonian woe." These are the poems of a very young man, though, and the formulation of the research question apparently did not satisfy Milton as he got older. The wider question would probably be "How and why did evil come into existence?" Its my sense that in PL Milton aims to answer the "How?" part, and sees himself as undertaking an essentially historiographical task. Thus at the earliest chronological point in the epic (bk. 5, 600-615, the exaltation of the Son), God raises the more-than possibility, the certainty, that some will disobey, "break union," and fall "Into outer darkness... his place/ Ordained without redemption, without end." This is the proverbial smoking gun, evidence of the point at which evil entered history. But what Tony Hill wants to know, I imagine, is whether Milton grapples with the "Why?" Id say that he doesn't, at least not in PL, though Id be glad to hear counterarguments. Re Isaiah 45:7. The Hebrew reads "oseh shalom uvoreh ra." (King James: "I make peace, and create evil.") In the Hebrew Bible I'm looking at right now, which happens to be one that was published by the Israel Defense Forces for distribution to soldiers, the commentary, by Shlomo Zalmen Ariel, has it that the word "evil" (ra) here means "war, which is the opposite of peace," so that God is understood to be saying "I make peace and war." There must be dozens of other interpretations of this, though. All the best, Nancy Rosenfeld. From: Gardner Campbell [gcampbel@mwc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 11:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil id f4NFIHt25005 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Until a proper Hebraist weighs in.... Strong's Hebrew/Chaldee dictionary specifies a range of meanings for the word A.V. and Geneva translate as "evil" (Strong's number 7451): adversity, affliction, bad, distress, evil, harm, hurt, misery, sorrow, trouble, etc. This word derives from a primary root word (Strong's number 7489) meaning, literally, to spoil by breaking to pieces, but which can also mean to punish, vex, afflict, etc. In Genesis, the word "evil" in "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is 7451, just like Isaiah 45:7. But Geneva paraphrases Isaiah 45:7 (note h) as "I send peace and warre, prosperitie and adversitie," and compares Amos 3:6, which reads "Or shal a trumpet be blowen in the citie, and the people be not afraied? or shal there be evil in a citie, and the Lord hathe not done it?", and which Geneva paraphrases (note g) "Doeth anie adversitie come without Gods appointement?" It seems possible, then, to distinguish "evil" as a metaphysical category from "evil" in the sense of adversity, though anyone suffering from the latter sense of "evil" will find that distinction pretty cold comfort. It's also worth noting that when the Fall occurs and the possibility of evildoing that is, in Milton's mind, necessary to freedom becomes actualized, what had been created for trial becomes, instead, trouble. Gardner Campbell Mary Washington College >>> jleonard@uwo.ca 05/22/01 09:06AM >>> Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > > Well, JM would surely know one of the most > thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the > logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form > light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I > am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). > A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its implications? j.l. From: Noam Flinker [flinker@research.haifa.ac.il] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 2:26 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Creator of good and evil The Hebrew (Isaiah 45.7) is simple and accurately rendered in the AV and Geneva. A crude, literal version might go as follows: "I form [or "am former of"] light and create [or "creator of"] darkness, make [or "maker of"] peace and create [or "creator of"] evil; I Yahweh do all these." The verb rendered "create" is identical for darkness and evil. Thus, the theological difficulty is not to be resolved on the level of translation. Isaiah's text is simple yet powerful. The "logical consequences of monotheism" makes a great deal of sense here. The idea is that God is responsible for the entire universe, including good and evil. The description goes beyond mythic dualism which may comfort the simple but undermines the implications of monotheism. The God of Isaiah, like that of Job is disturbing because such is the nature of the world. If there is comfort, it is not on the level of a reassuring myth about the material advantages of goodness. Noam Flinker on 5/22/01 4:06 PM, John Leonard at jleonard@uwo.ca wrote: > Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > >> >> Well, JM would surely know one of the most >> thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the >> logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form >> light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I >> am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). >> > > A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and > create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its > implications? > > j.l. > > From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 10:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil The Hebrew of Isaiah's verse may be roughly transliterated as follows: Yotzer or u-voreh choshekh, oseh shalom u-voreh rah, ani YHWH oseh khol eleh. The verse makes use of the three verbs of creation we find in Genesis 1-2 (which, incidentally, are three of the verbs used to describe the process by which God's presence emanates into the world in the kabbalistic system known as the Four Worlds), yetzirah, b'riyah, and assiyah (the fourth, which does not appear in Genesis, is atzilut, which might be rendered as emanation). The verb yotzer, which is here used to characterize the creation of light, "or," can probably best be rendered as formation. It suggests a kind hands-on process and it is the verb used to describe YHWH's creation of Adam out of the red clay in Genesis 2:7. The creation of light in Genesis 1:3 is famously by fiat, without any specific verb of creation. The bodies of light created on the fourth day in 1:16 are created via assiyah. The verb boreh (or voreh), which is here used to characertize the creation of darkness (choshekh) and evil (rah), is the verb about which Milton (yes, Milton) writes in the De Doctrina I.vii, arguing that it means creatio ex materia and not ex nihilo. It is the very first verb of creation used in the hexameral narrative, Genesis 1:1, "B'reshith bara elohim..." Darkness, as we all remember, exists over the face of the deep in Genesis 1:2, not having been explicitly created by any action. When light is created, it is distinguished from darkness, through the Hebrew process of havdalah, division, in Genesis 1:4. The verb oseh, which is here used to characterize the creation of peace or wholeness (shalom can mean both) and "these things" (khol eleh), suggests action as well as creation. Hope that helps move this interesting thread along. Best, Jeffrey From: Al Shoaf [rashoaf@clas.ufl.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 9:33 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: rashoaf@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu Subject: Re: Creating woe/evil This matter touches on an issue that has concerned me for many years. In PL 2, at lines 622-3, M. writes A Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good and Roy Flannagan observes (p. 399, n. 159), "Line 623, despite looking as if it is 'short,' actually contains eleven syllables and as such might be unique in the epic. An elision across 'for evil' may be intended in order to make the stresses in the line regular." If the line is unique, is it so that M. can play with the juncture "Created evil > Create/devil" and thus suggest the greater justice of God's "creation of evil" (Isaiah 45:7) by implicating the "devil" in the original "curse"? I am studying juncture in PR as part of a monograph on alliteration in PR, and I would be grateful for your thoughts on instances in PL of what I provisionally call "dynamic juncture." Thanks, Al Shoaf At 09:06 AM 5/22/01 -0400, you wrote: >Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > > > > > Well, JM would surely know one of the most > > thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the > > logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form > > light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I > > am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). > > > >A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and >create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its >implications? > >j.l. > From: Harvey Wheeler [verulan@mindspring.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 11:02 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study Isn't that what Milton tells us right up front? H -----Original Message----- From: Tony Hill To: milton-l@richmond.edu Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 4:54 AM Subject: Re: Neglect study >Harvey Wheeler wrote (amongst other things): >"Please check me if I'm wrong about the opening arguments: Satan >creates Evil and God cannot take that away because of giving Satan >freedom; nor can he save Adam from Satan's evil because of not >detracting >from his gift of freedom to Adam. ____________" > >I have a bit of a problem over the creation of evil in PL. I think we can >attribute the ability to "create" (in the rigid sense of "make from nothing") >only to God. So how is Satan able to "create" evil? Help anyone please > >Tony Hill. > From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 9:06 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Creating woe/evil Cynthia Gilliatt writes: > > Well, JM would surely know one of the most > thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the > logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form > light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I > am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). > A.V. and Geneva are arguably even more disturbing: "I make peace, and create evil". Can someone enlighten us about the Hebrew and its implications? j.l. From: George V. Simmons [geosim@tmlp.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 4:45 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study But wouldn't Milton, as someone at least broadly in the Augustinian tradition, have held the "privative" view of evil, in which it is a pure defect, and in virtue of which evil could not strictly speaking be "created," (not even by God), but only goodness destroyed (which God would merely permit, but never himself actively accomplish). George V. Simmons ---------- >From: "Tony Hill" >To: milton-l@richmond.edu >Subject: Re: Neglect study >Date: Mon, May 21, 2001, 10:04 AM > > Harvey Wheeler wrote (amongst other things): > "Please check me if I'm wrong about the opening arguments: Satan > creates Evil and God cannot take that away because of giving Satan > freedom; nor can he save Adam from Satan's evil because of not > detracting > from his gift of freedom to Adam. ____________" > > I have a bit of a problem over the creation of evil in PL. I think we can > attribute the ability to "create" (in the rigid sense of "make from nothing") > only to God. So how is Satan able to "create" evil? Help anyone please > > Tony Hill. > > > From: David Wilson-Okamura [david@virgil.org] Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 11:29 AM To: Milton-L@richmond.edu Subject: Jonson/Cavalier Poets Edition Query Forwarded from John Rumrich and Suzanne Penuel: >Have you had occasion to use the Norton Critical Edition of Ben Jonson >and the Cavalier Poets, ed. Hugh Maclean? If so, I would very much >appreciate hearing from you, off-list, as to its merits and shortcomings >as a college textbook. I am updating it for a second edition. Comments >regarding format, annotation, and critical contexts and essays would all >be welcome. My address is as follows: rumrich@mail.utexas.edu. Please >cc the email to penuel@mail.utexas.edu as well. Please respond privately to rumrich@mail.utexas.edu and penuel@mail.utexas.edu. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org david@virgil.org Macalester College Virgil Tradition: discussion, bibliography, &c. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tony Hill [Mjksezth@fs1.ce.umist.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 10:05 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Neglect study Harvey Wheeler wrote (amongst other things): "Please check me if I'm wrong about the opening arguments: Satan creates Evil and God cannot take that away because of giving Satan freedom; nor can he save Adam from Satan's evil because of not detracting from his gift of freedom to Adam. ____________" I have a bit of a problem over the creation of evil in PL. I think we can attribute the ability to "create" (in the rigid sense of "make from nothing") only to God. So how is Satan able to "create" evil? Help anyone please Tony Hill. From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 8:12 AM To: Milton-l list Cc: Milton-l Subject: Re: creation not out of need On Fri, 18 May 2001 15:39:59 +0100 P J Stewart wrote: Well, JM would surely know one of the most thought-provoking [if not chilling] expressions of the logical consequences of monotheism: Isaiah 45:7: "I form light and I create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things." (RSV). Apologies if someone else has weighed in with this - I've been gone to the beach and rather whirled through e-mail backlog when I got back. Cynthia > The trouble with saying that God created the world out of love is that it > means 'he' created hell out of love too, which brings us pretty rapidly back > to Empson's monster. From: Harvey Wheeler [verulan@mindspring.com] Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 2:52 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: marshall@uic.edu Subject: Pleroma Does not Biblical archeology indicate: 1. Anthropomorphic Gods have been known through vernacular testaments; female fertility/calendrical priestesses in horticultural Eden-type (Gimbutas;Marshack) cultures; male Priest-King shamans in sweat-of-brow plow/oxen; agricultural/herding (Mann)cultures. 2. Non-anthropomorphic Pleroma Gods (e.g. Eleusus type mysteries) have been cult mystery-experienced - in contrast to Mountain-top bull-roarer Demiurgos demotic Logos-bearing tribal Gods. Doesn't Milton describe a Baconian (_Valerius Terminus_) 'brooding omnipresence'? HW From: P J Stewart [philip.stewart@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 10:40 AM To: Milton-l Subject: creation not out of need The trouble with saying that God created the world out of love is that it means 'he' created hell out of love too, which brings us pretty rapidly back to Empson's monster. Incidentally, a solution to the problem of English gendered pronouns is to replace them by a(n). In its full form, 'one', this word is already a pronoun. There is no danger of confusion with the indefinite article, as context will remove ambiguity. I have found that if this usage is adopted in speaking, most people don't even notice. Philip Stewart