From: Eyeebgjr@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 12:27 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: miltons blindness i apologize in advance for asking such a mundane question in this forum, but i was very frustrated by the ongoing discuassion on kera-net about the cause of Milton's blindness. if anyone in this forum has information regarding the underlying cause of his blindness i would greatly appreciate it. Erich B. Groos, Jr., M.D. Cornea Consultants of Nashville 2011 Murphy Avenue, Suite 602B Nashville, TN 37203 6153207200 voice 6153207203 fax From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 1:36 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: FW: ANNC: Fall Folger Seminar -----Original Message----- From: Owen Williams [mailto:OWilliams@FOLGER.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 1:24 PM Subject: ANNC: Fall Folger Seminar Divulging Household Privacies: The Politics of Domesticity from the Caroline Court to Paradise Lost A semester-length seminar to be directed by Laura Lunger Knoppers in Fall 2001 at the Folger Shakespeare Library This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary seminar brings together aspects of seventeenth-century British art, literature, history, and popular print culture to examine the political nature and impact of domesticity from the Caroline court through the early Restoration. Although matters of state and political theory are often separated from discussions of gender, marriage, maternity, and family, this seminar aims to reconnect public and private, political and domestic by tracing visual, literary, and printed constructions of domesticity. How does print both disseminate and transform the royal image, in particular the "private" image of marriage and family? How does women's writing redefine the domestic sphere while shaping an emergent public one? How do royalists deploy the family to bolster monarchical power? How do oppositional voices use the family/state analogy to argue for contractual and republican forms of government? Likely texts and topics of discussion include: Van Dyck portraiture of Charles I and Henrietta Maria; Stuart court masques and Milton's Comus; the politics of cavalier poetry; family and state in domestic conduct manuals and Milton's divorce tracts; public and private women's writing; royalist satire on Oliver Cromwell's upstart household; images of Charles II as son, father, and king; and Milton's representation of marriage, maternity, and the domestic in Paradise Lost as a response to and critique of Stuart propaganda. Director: Laura Lunger Knoppers is Associate Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. She is author of Historicizing Milton: Spectacle, Power, and Poetry in Restoration England (1994) and of Constructing Cromwell: Ceremony, Portrait, and Print, 1645-1661 (2000). She is currently working on a book-length study of representations of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Schedule: Friday afternoons, 1-4:30 p.m., 21 September through 7 December, except 28 September and 23 November 2001. Application Deadlines: 1 June 2001 for admission and grants-in-aid; 4 September for admission only. For application forms and guidelines, please visit the Folger Institute's website at www.folger.edu/institute . Please direct any questions to institute@folger.edu or to (202) 675-0333. From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 11:35 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies On Mon, 26 Mar 2001 10:39:06 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > > < pragmatic > fiction that their critical texts accurately represent or > reconstruct the > text that the authors intended to produce? You can't very well > perform a > formalist close-reading on multiple manuscripts and/or early > printed > editions that give you a large quantity of variants and whose > provenance > is uncertain. Yet variants and "corrupt" texts of uncertain > provenance > are what have been produced throughout most of the history of > writing due > to a variety of social, political, and technological conditions. > Literary > exegesis that acknowledges these conditions as significantly > constitutive > of literary texts cannot be merely formalist.>> > > Ok...I think there are two issues here. One has to do with the > physical > production of texts, the other has to do with the "meaning" of those > texts. Why do you think the meaning of a text can be discussed apart from its physical form? Take the early editions of paradise lost where Satan is pictured as James or Charles. Can we strip that away as not part of the author's intentions, or are Milton's intentions in the poem mixed with the intentions and interpretations of others? A more extreme example might be The Canterbury Tales or Piers Plowman. Modern critical editions of these texts tell us very little about what they might have meant in the 15th, 16th, or 17th centuries because they are totally different in bibliographicy and linguistic terms. > I think in terms of the physical production of texts, we do need to > assume > authorial intent in the sense that we use textual analysis to > reconstruct > the final version of the text as the author probably intended it to > be. Authorship and intention are not historically static or culturally universal concepts. On those grounds McGann argues that what you sare saying is to impose an idealized Romantic conception of the author on historical texts. Sometimes there isn't a single author, or as in the case of Piers, we aren't sure who the author was, if he was working on his own, and what the "final version" might be, if there is such a thing. Similar situations exist for most dramatic works in the Renaissance. Also, if we try to determine what the scribal and editorial interventions are and remove them, we end up producing a "critical" text that never had any historical existence. > But this is a separate issue from what that text "means" after being > subject to an exegesis or other kind of analysis. We may use the > author as > an anchor for the probably arrangement of the words on the page, but > what > those words "mean" after they've been arranged is a separate issue. Not at all--what those words might mean is already being determined or proscribed to a considerable extent by the textual critic who hand the exgete a critical edition that speculates about the probably arrangement of letters and words on a page. (McGann refers to this information as part of the "linguistic codes" of a text.) Traditionally textual critics ignore and excise the "bibliographic codes" (glosses, woodcuts, typography, etc) which are properly an inextricable part of the linguistic codes. When you attempt to extract the linguistic from the bibliographic and produce an edition accordingly, you produce a text that has no prior historical existence. If you are interested in performing historicized exegesis of a text, don't you want to work from critical editions that more fully represent the actual documents that historical reading communities actually read? -Dan Knauss ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Duran, Angelica [ADuran@sla.purdue.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 9:36 AM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: Theory, Practice, and Milton Hello, Take heart. As a recently-minted Ph.D., I can say that the inquiring graduate student and the young professor who still seeks not to impose on literature but rather to be impressed by it are not mythical entities. And perhaps they are more likely to wander into Milton studies where Milton's writings and senior colleageus encourage those wanderings and wonderings. I'll get back to you in a decade or so to tell you if I have been amply (and justly!) rewarded. P.S. Of course, there's always the problem of my individual, intellectual limitations. Adios, Angelica Duran Assistant Professor Department of English Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (765) 496-3957 > ---------- > From: Dan Knauss > Reply To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 11:17 PM > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton > > Linda, I think you are right up to your last point. Yes, grad. school > typically fosters and rewards a mercenary and largely eisegetical > approach. The grad. student who reads a text because she needs it to fit > a theoretical template is (if lucky) likely to become a junior prof. who > continues doing the same thing in articles and books. Occasionally we > still hear of a few people who begin research in considerably more open > inquiry, but perhaps they are mythical entities. If they are not, then I > think your last point is not accurate. Someone who actually takes the > time and trouble to perform interpretation rather than impose an > interpretive fomula on a text is probably going to produce scholarship > that is less ideologically loaded. By the same token, academic > institutions that encourage and students and faculty to take this time > and trouble are likely to produce scholars who are less ideologically > loaded. -Dan Knauss From: huttar [huttar@hope.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 3:36 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: RE: Richards and Lewis There was an article in Modern Philology about 2 years ago entitled "Lewis and Cambridge," by Brian Barbour, which contains some fascinating information about C. S. Lewis's relation to Cambridge University and "the Cambridge school" of literary study, and I. A. Richards is mentioned several times. He was an important part of the story. Chuck Huttar Hope College From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 11:19 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:20:45 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > In a message dated 03/22/2001 8:04:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, > tiresias@juno.com writes: > > > > I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods > presuppose and > > require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. > > Ok, I'm probably a bit slow, but I don't see exactly how that's > required. Isn't any kind of formalist exegete required to assume the pragmatic fiction that their critical texts accurately represent or reconstruct the text that the authors intended to produce? You can't very well perform a formalist close-reading on multiple manuscripts and/or early printed editions that give you a large quantity of variants and whose provenance is uncertain. Yet variants and "corrupt" texts of uncertain provenance are what have been produced throughout most of the history of writing due to a variety of social, political, and technological conditions. Literary exegesis that acknowledges these conditions as significantly constitutive of literary texts cannot be merely formalist. > I > think those engaged in a New Critical methodology knew they couldn't > stop > there to recover authorial intent. Intent, to the degree that it's > discernible, must be latent within the language, but the language by > itself > (especially of a poem) tends to polyvalent to the point that > information > external to the text is necessary to limit interpretive > possibilities. So > those engaged in the recovery of authorial intent always, Always, > had to go > beyond just the text. They had to go into personal letters, > history > (personal and larger), other texts, etc. Yes--this is what Brooks and Warren say in the last chapter of Understanding Poetry, but they argue that intention is most plausibly discerned from internal information. They draw attention to the train of thought in a poem and take into account earlier drafts. That's fine for a limited number of poets, but not for many who lived prior to the 20th century. > > The inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually > dependent > > activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem > because > > they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their > own > > separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind > of > > separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of > the > > authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary > exegesis that > > further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are > lexical > > intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's > pragmatic > > value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, > theoretically > > coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, > along the > > lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be > confused with > > the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss > > > > I wouldn't say the NC's were ever "exegetical anti-intentionalists." > I think > that's a bit strong. I'd say they were somewhat agnostic toward > intention, > and I think that position is a bit more defensible theoretically. Yes, "agnostic" is better description if we take it to suggest, generally speaking, a tad more skepticism than neutrality. -Dan ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 11:18 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton Linda, I think you are right up to your last point. Yes, grad. school typically fosters and rewards a mercenary and largely eisegetical approach. The grad. student who reads a text because she needs it to fit a theoretical template is (if lucky) likely to become a junior prof. who continues doing the same thing in articles and books. Occasionally we still hear of a few people who begin research in considerably more open inquiry, but perhaps they are mythical entities. If they are not, then I think your last point is not accurate. Someone who actually takes the time and trouble to perform interpretation rather than impose an interpretive fomula on a text is probably going to produce scholarship that is less ideologically loaded. By the same token, academic institutions that encourage and students and faculty to take this time and trouble are likely to produce scholars who are less ideologically loaded. -Dan Knauss On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:28:42 -0800 Linda Tredennick writes: > > If you all don't mind my two cents, I would like to offer a defense > of the > grad. > student comment that started this thread. If I remember the post > properly, > his/her comment was during a study session for a comp. exam -- it > hasn't been > many years since I took such an exam, and I remember that it is a > very > stressful > time. You are trying to develop narratives within and across time > periods, and > are trying to fit texts into those narratives. You are also trying > to second > guess the questions that will be thrown at you. My point is that no > one > has the > leisure to kick back and approach texts the way they might like to, > and the way > they probably normally do. Instead, these texts force a mercenary > approach -- > what can I get out of this text that will help me. I might also add > that > we all > approach texts from a specific methodological vantage, and we should > guard > against privileging an aesthetic or affective approach just because > it seems > natural to us. It is just as ideologically loaded as any more > overtly critical > school. > Just some thoughts from a different perspective. > > Linda Tredennick > Department of English > University of Oregon ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 3:03 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Books and articles submitted for the James Holly Hanford and Irene Samuel Awards Especially if your book or article was NOT published in the US or your article was not published in Milton Studies orMilton Quarterly , or ELR, SEL, ELH, PMLA, or Ren Q, please send three copies to me at my office, Department of English, University of South Carolina, Beaufort, SC 29902, or to Roy Flannagan 119 Green Winged Teal Drive Beaufort, SC 29902 If there is any question that your book or article might not be included, please let me know via the email address listed above (but don't hit "reply" or your message will go to Milton-L). The deadline for submissions is May 1, and the awards will be presented at the Milton Society meeting December 28. Roy Flannagan From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 10:09 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I still love Wordsworth Thanks for the reference to the new Frye book (I wonder if he's related to Northrop, eh? :) ). I guess part of this is dependent upon what we hope to get from poetry. I need to care about the subject matter -- and if all I'm being offered is the poet, I usually don't care for the poetry -- unless the poet is Just Like Me :) I feel Milton gives me more... Jim << Jim writes: >Do you know that even if you were standing next to W you wouldn't really >exist for him? > >We're undoubtedly post Romantic and there's no going back to a pre-Romantic >"Miltonic" outlook. And I won't argue that WW plays a big part in that. > >However, since Romanticism we've had modernism (a serious and deliberate >critique of Romanticism), we've had a something like a Romantic revolution in >the 60's (in America, at least), and now we've moved past that as well. I >see Romanticism now as one of several aesthetic, cognitive, and emotional >streams out of many. All are interdependent to a degree, yes, but it is >certainly possible to be more in one than in the other. > >When I read Milton I feel a bit closer to home than I do reading WW -- quite >a bit -- and I think I can do so with a significant, relative independence of >Romantic sensibilities. Not an absolute independence, no, but significant. > On the first point, be on the lookout for new work by Paul Frye (who has a wonderful chapter on the Nativity Ode in his book on the ode genre). He challenges the familiar view of the egotistical WW. Jim's second point is well-taken, and this post is not meant to answer that point, but to reflect on the relation between intellectual and aesthetic history on the one hand and aesthetic appreciation on the other. >From my perspective, in any event, the questions of egotism or solipsism are, while interesting, irrelevant from a aesthetic perspective. If we are to judge in this manner, Milton will be a casualty. The more I read Milton the more I think that he is writing for and about Milton, and that the fit audience dwindles to fewer than few (or perhaps it's better to cite the second line of Shakespeare's 73). I'll admit that I give Milton a lot of latitude here, as he is so preternaturally wonderful a writer. I'd rather read him being egotistical than read Cowley avoiding that trap. One can feel closer to, more approving of the perspective of, one poet rather than another, without making that a criterion of quality. There are many perspectives in Wallace Stevens that I don't share, but his poetry remains a revelation, stunning in its precision, invention, beauty (of both image and rhythm), philosophical reach, etc. I objected originally to the cartoon characterization (not the point of Jim's post above), which I still don't see. It was good to be reminded that we need a sense of humor (I think by Jeffrey Shoulson?, though I've lost the post), and I didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. And if the comic book line is a way of expressing a preference for Milton's perspective over WW's, who can object? Still the identification of literary excellence is an important part of our jobs as lit critics. Steve Fallon >> From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 7:46 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: More on the Good Old Cause Hi, everyone! Further to our discussions of the derivation and denotation of the term "the Good Old Cause": here is the classification information for a tract by Prynne, the description of which gives his interpretation. (I have left all of the acquisition data intact, in case anyone wants to see the original; this is from the Library of Congress. Best to all -- Carol Barton ============================================================================ ==== > LC Control Number: 31007146 > > Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.) > > Personal Name: Prynne, William, 1600-1669. [from old catalog] > > Main Title: The re-publicans and others spurious good old cause, briefly > and truly anatomized. To preserve our native country, > kingdom, legal government, church, parliaments, laws, > liberties, privileges of parliaments, and Protestant religion from > ruine ... to reform, reclaim all Jesuit ridden seduced > republicans, officers, soldiers, sectaries, heretofore, or now > engaged in the prosecution of this misintituled good old > cause, from any future pursute thereof, and engage them > forever to abominate it, as apparently tending to publike ruin, > their own temporal and eternal condemnation ... By William > Prynne ... > > Published/Created: [London, 1659] > > Related Names: Pre-1801 Imprint Collection (Library of Congress) > > Description: 1 p.l., 18 p. 18 cm. > > Subjects: Great Britain--Politics and government--1642-1660--Pamphlets. > > LC Classification: DA422 1659 .P73 > > Copy, Issue: Copy 2. > > Geog. Area Code: e-uk--- > > CALL NUMBER: DA422 1659 .P73 Pre-1801 Coll > Copy 1 > > -- Request in: Rare Book/Special Collections Reading Room (Jefferson > LJ239) > -- Status: Not Charged > > ------------------- ------------------------------------------------- > DATABASE NAME: Library of Congress Online Catalog > > ==================================================================== > LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ONLINE CATALOG > Library of Congress > 101 Independence Ave., SE > Washington, DC 20540 > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 10:39 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies <> Ok...I think there are two issues here. One has to do with the physical production of texts, the other has to do with the "meaning" of those texts. I think in terms of the physical production of texts, we do need to assume authorial intent in the sense that we use textual analysis to reconstruct the final version of the text as the author probably intended it to be. But this is a separate issue from what that text "means" after being subject to an exegesis or other kind of analysis. We may use the author as an anchor for the probably arrangement of the words on the page, but what those words "mean" after they've been arranged is a separate issue. <> Ok, maybe just a Tad :) Jim From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 11:19 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:20:45 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > In a message dated 03/22/2001 8:04:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, > tiresias@juno.com writes: > > > > I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods > presuppose and > > require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. > > Ok, I'm probably a bit slow, but I don't see exactly how that's > required. Isn't any kind of formalist exegete required to assume the pragmatic fiction that their critical texts accurately represent or reconstruct the text that the authors intended to produce? You can't very well perform a formalist close-reading on multiple manuscripts and/or early printed editions that give you a large quantity of variants and whose provenance is uncertain. Yet variants and "corrupt" texts of uncertain provenance are what have been produced throughout most of the history of writing due to a variety of social, political, and technological conditions. Literary exegesis that acknowledges these conditions as significantly constitutive of literary texts cannot be merely formalist. > I > think those engaged in a New Critical methodology knew they couldn't > stop > there to recover authorial intent. Intent, to the degree that it's > discernible, must be latent within the language, but the language by > itself > (especially of a poem) tends to polyvalent to the point that > information > external to the text is necessary to limit interpretive > possibilities. So > those engaged in the recovery of authorial intent always, Always, > had to go > beyond just the text. They had to go into personal letters, > history > (personal and larger), other texts, etc. Yes--this is what Brooks and Warren say in the last chapter of Understanding Poetry, but they argue that intention is most plausibly discerned from internal information. They draw attention to the train of thought in a poem and take into account earlier drafts. That's fine for a limited number of poets, but not for many who lived prior to the 20th century. > > The inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually > dependent > > activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem > because > > they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their > own > > separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind > of > > separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of > the > > authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary > exegesis that > > further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are > lexical > > intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's > pragmatic > > value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, > theoretically > > coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, > along the > > lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be > confused with > > the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss > > > > I wouldn't say the NC's were ever "exegetical anti-intentionalists." > I think > that's a bit strong. I'd say they were somewhat agnostic toward > intention, > and I think that position is a bit more defensible theoretically. Yes, "agnostic" is better description if we take it to suggest, generally speaking, a tad more skepticism than neutrality. -Dan ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: M J (Mike) Logsdon [mjl@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 8:34 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I A Richards & C S Lewis. Mr Leonard wrote, in part: > How, then, can Lewis be "inimical" to the idea that "reading > poetry" improves our "mental health"? Maybe the answer is that Lewis feels > that Richards has too narrow a sense of "mental health". For Lewis, "mental > health" is not a matter of the "nervous system." (That characterization is > no doubt unjust to Richards, but my concern right now is with Lewis.) > > A perennially interesting question--one we might explore on this list--is > "Can poetry make us better" (in any way)? Thanks, Mr Leonard for your reply, and sorry for my delay. I think the characterization "For Lewis, 'mental health' is not a matter of the 'nervous system'" would only be unjust toward Richards in terminology rather than in principle. Whether or not "nervous system" is a term Lewis actually used in this regard (I, too, do not have the books to hand), he certainly wouldn't have thought twice about doing so (Roman Catholics, after all, were "papists")! In principle, though, it very definitely represents a stance that views "mental health" in much more "spiritual" terms, as Lewis most definitely did. The heart, mind, and soul, for the traditional Christian are, in the end, all one: to improve one is to improve the whole self. Lewis no doubt saw Richards's view of "mental health" as relating strictly to the firing of synapses. "Can poetry make us better?": Since this thread (and, yes, it would be nice if it became one) began with Lewis, I'll continue in that vein for a bit. I think Lewis would begin to answer this question by asking "Why does one read poetry/creative writing in the first place?" We hardly pick up Milton, or Spenser, or Lewis, or whoever, for the hell of it. Mere "interest" doesn't cut it, because it would beg the question. "Why are you interested?" Lewis would no doubt retort. "Because they're good writers?" the student replies nervously. "So we read good writers with no expectation that we'll be better people when we're finished reading them?" One can imagine such an Oxonian tutor-pupil tapdance going on and on. Ultimately, it isn't goodness that we aim for initially, though (ultimately) that's what we're left with if we entered into the issue honestly. Whether we're changed for good or ill from having read a creative writer, one can hardly deny that one is somewhat "changed," nonetheless. Once again, one hardly reads the likes of Milton for the hell of it. There's got to be something higher involved than just mere interest. Lewis would say (I think) that that "something higher" is the desire to be a better person after we put the book back on the shelf. It only slightly relates, but it comes to mind at the moment: A few years ago I was purchasing from a very nice secondhand bookshop in Los Angeles (Sam Johnson's in Mar Vista) the Everyman *Morte D'Arthur" and the 1912 Oxford Spenser. After I wrote the check, I asked the gentleman at the desk if he needed my driver's license number. His reply: "No; anyone who reads Malory and Spenser MUST be okay!" There, in a vague nutshell, are the twin beliefs that poetry both "makes us better" AND indicates a basic desire for goodness in the first place. Now, since I'm sure most listmembers have been impatiently waiting for me to finish so they can proceed to lambaste (sp?) my obviously simplistic reasoning, I hereby bid everyone hang by their thumbs, and to write if they get work, -- Etc, M J "Mike" Logsdon Salinas, CA USA From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 11:18 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton Linda, I think you are right up to your last point. Yes, grad. school typically fosters and rewards a mercenary and largely eisegetical approach. The grad. student who reads a text because she needs it to fit a theoretical template is (if lucky) likely to become a junior prof. who continues doing the same thing in articles and books. Occasionally we still hear of a few people who begin research in considerably more open inquiry, but perhaps they are mythical entities. If they are not, then I think your last point is not accurate. Someone who actually takes the time and trouble to perform interpretation rather than impose an interpretive fomula on a text is probably going to produce scholarship that is less ideologically loaded. By the same token, academic institutions that encourage and students and faculty to take this time and trouble are likely to produce scholars who are less ideologically loaded. -Dan Knauss On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:28:42 -0800 Linda Tredennick writes: > > If you all don't mind my two cents, I would like to offer a defense > of the > grad. > student comment that started this thread. If I remember the post > properly, > his/her comment was during a study session for a comp. exam -- it > hasn't been > many years since I took such an exam, and I remember that it is a > very > stressful > time. You are trying to develop narratives within and across time > periods, and > are trying to fit texts into those narratives. You are also trying > to second > guess the questions that will be thrown at you. My point is that no > one > has the > leisure to kick back and approach texts the way they might like to, > and the way > they probably normally do. Instead, these texts force a mercenary > approach -- > what can I get out of this text that will help me. I might also add > that > we all > approach texts from a specific methodological vantage, and we should > guard > against privileging an aesthetic or affective approach just because > it seems > natural to us. It is just as ideologically loaded as any more > overtly critical > school. > Just some thoughts from a different perspective. > > Linda Tredennick > Department of English > University of Oregon ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 1:09 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Exist for WW ---- Really I take back what I said. WW or his poetry do not need to be resued. It is we readers who need to be rescued. Whether I exist for, or would exist for WW don'tt matter a jot. His poetry exists, which might well have been written by a woman. Woman Wordsworth sounds good, but I prefer the William, it reminds me of WS. Postromantic and postmodern 'I fear those big words which make us so unhappy' Dedalus in Ulysses. > The wonderful thing about Daddy Derrida is that he brought so many readers back to the infinite beauty of the text; I speculate: It is really sad that Derrida could not be G-D and read all the texts of English written literartures and have commented on them; if that had been the case we would be so much busier reading the texts. For instance Milton -- what was it that Keats said 'to have read Milton is to die' or words to that effect; About the Prelude what Keats, Shelly and Bryon did not experience, and what Coleridge did experience -- to have read it and heard Wordsworth read it -- this has made a differerance that cannot be calculated; reading Milton after Derrida changes the whole sense of its presence and absence its meaning and place in 'tradition.' In one tradition at least. As for WW being gnomic before Keats, what could one expect between the grand daddy WW and the young JK? One could expect, like it or not, a petition of indifferance. More at home in any poetry is a marvel at any time. I prefer Harold Bloom's quip:reading Milton each year I sense its strangeness more and more, its almost science-fiction like quality. I quote from memory. In any event sans Worsworth this closeness to ourselves would not exist; my point being without the author of the Prelude our readings of the Pl would be poorer From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 7:02 PM To: Robin Hamilton Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies AAah, but you err. Eliot was not a fellow traveler at all. He was the poet of his time, and they knew it, and he knew it, and everyone knows it, like it or not, ; And Ezra Pound knew it and he was delighted. Of course your remarks are common knowledge, received opinion. And apart from that you ought not to drag your personal love for me into this. Cheers On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, Robin Hamilton wrote: > From: "Orpheus" > > > A typically reductionist remark. Eliot was not a new critic. > > I never said he was (try reading posts before you reply to them) but I'd > stand by my description of him as a fellow-traveller. And if we're trading > reductionist remarks, at least no one has yet raised the canard that New > Crit is simply Old Southern Confederacy writ large. > > > First and foremost a poet whatever his politics; and that, whether you > > agree with it or not was and is one of the points of close reading > > and the practice of new criticism. > > Baffled From Brighton Says ... > > I was (gently) trying to make the point that more than most of the New > Critics were poets (a plus in my book). While (which I didn't say) too many > of the pomo are (Barthes on) stikket potes. > > Robin Hamilton > > > > > From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 7:24 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: Robin Hamilton Subject: Blind/Ps Was Milton truly blind when he wrote? Or was he partially blind, was he as blind as Homer, or was it more like Joyce's eye problem. Did his daughters enjoy working for him? Were they new critics before the fact? Were they interested in authorial intention? Were they new historical daughters? Or feminist marxists with an axe to grind on big daddy blind bard Milton? Now something which I forgot to add about Robin's comments -- One last thing which I forgot to add. I know you are bitter because things did not work out between us. But you must let all this go, I do love you, but it just won't work between us./ You are a bitter something scholar and a failed poet, I know that you and you do to. You acted this way in the Irish/British list and it only showed you as a hurt person. You confuse the true and the real, just like you did in school when reading Milton's Lycidas. From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 9:25 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: I still love Wordsworth Jim writes: >Do you know that even if you were standing next to W you wouldn't really >exist for him? > >We're undoubtedly post Romantic and there's no going back to a pre-Romantic >"Miltonic" outlook. And I won't argue that WW plays a big part in that. > >However, since Romanticism we've had modernism (a serious and deliberate >critique of Romanticism), we've had a something like a Romantic revolution in >the 60's (in America, at least), and now we've moved past that as well. I >see Romanticism now as one of several aesthetic, cognitive, and emotional >streams out of many. All are interdependent to a degree, yes, but it is >certainly possible to be more in one than in the other. > >When I read Milton I feel a bit closer to home than I do reading WW -- quite >a bit -- and I think I can do so with a significant, relative independence of >Romantic sensibilities. Not an absolute independence, no, but significant. > On the first point, be on the lookout for new work by Paul Frye (who has a wonderful chapter on the Nativity Ode in his book on the ode genre). He challenges the familiar view of the egotistical WW. Jim's second point is well-taken, and this post is not meant to answer that point, but to reflect on the relation between intellectual and aesthetic history on the one hand and aesthetic appreciation on the other. >From my perspective, in any event, the questions of egotism or solipsism are, while interesting, irrelevant from a aesthetic perspective. If we are to judge in this manner, Milton will be a casualty. The more I read Milton the more I think that he is writing for and about Milton, and that the fit audience dwindles to fewer than few (or perhaps it's better to cite the second line of Shakespeare's 73). I'll admit that I give Milton a lot of latitude here, as he is so preternaturally wonderful a writer. I'd rather read him being egotistical than read Cowley avoiding that trap. One can feel closer to, more approving of the perspective of, one poet rather than another, without making that a criterion of quality. There are many perspectives in Wallace Stevens that I don't share, but his poetry remains a revelation, stunning in its precision, invention, beauty (of both image and rhythm), philosophical reach, etc. I objected originally to the cartoon characterization (not the point of Jim's post above), which I still don't see. It was good to be reminded that we need a sense of humor (I think by Jeffrey Shoulson?, though I've lost the post), and I didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. And if the comic book line is a way of expressing a preference for Milton's perspective over WW's, who can object? Still the identification of literary excellence is an important part of our jobs as lit critics. Steve Fallon From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 12:54 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies A typically reductionist remark. Eliot was not a new critic. First and foremost a poet whatever his politics; and that, whether you agree with it or not was and is one of the points of close reading and the practice of new criticism. On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Robin Hamilton wrote: > ... two naive points about The New Criticism ... > > A large number of The New Critics (and fellow-travellers) were poets -- from > Ransom, _The New Criticism_ (1940) via Richards, Empson, Eliot, Penn Warren, > et. alia .... > > The New Criticism was (in the sixties) a liberationist doctrine > [anti-historicism of whatever brand] -- "All you need is the text and the > OED" -- thing was, it often worked. > > > > On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:59:19 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > > > I think it's a mistake to say New Critics were in the business of > > > recovering authorical intent. As you said above, they would > > > probably say > > > we may be recovering that intent, or we may not -- we just can't > > > know. I > > > think it would be better to say that New Critical methods have been > > > and > > > could been, and perhaps even originated with, people concerned with > > > recovering authorial intent. > > > > I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods presuppose and > > require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. The > > inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually dependent > > activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem because > > they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their own > > separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind of > > separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of the > > authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary exegesis that > > further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are lexical > > intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's pragmatic > > value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, theoretically > > coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, along the > > lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be confused with > > the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss > > ________________________________________________________________ > > GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! > > Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! > > Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: > > http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. > > > > > From: Robin Hamilton [robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 1:37 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies From: "Orpheus" > A typically reductionist remark. Eliot was not a new critic. I never said he was (try reading posts before you reply to them) but I'd stand by my description of him as a fellow-traveller. And if we're trading reductionist remarks, at least no one has yet raised the canard that New Crit is simply Old Southern Confederacy writ large. > First and foremost a poet whatever his politics; and that, whether you > agree with it or not was and is one of the points of close reading > and the practice of new criticism. Baffled From Brighton Says ... I was (gently) trying to make the point that more than most of the New Critics were poets (a plus in my book). While (which I didn't say) too many of the pomo are (Barthes on) stikket potes. Robin Hamilton From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 8:25 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth >Gosh, "the wild branch of the cork forest": pretty racy. In the >process of getting a grip on himself doesn't Juan pore over leaves, >too, very near this passage (many thanks for reminding us of it, >John; and yes, bravo Steve)? > Yes, two stanzas later: If *you* think 'twas philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted. He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers, And heard a voice in all the winds; and then He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers, And how the goddesses came down to men. Typing this makes me wonder if Milton might make the same pun (albeit with a different kind of pouring in mind) when he writes: A book was writ of late called Tetrachordon, And woven close, both matter, form, and style; The subject new: it walked the town a while, Numb'ring good intellects; now seldom pored on. If the pun is there, it might be evidence that Milton's target is the invective-pouring detractors, rather than the sectaries who admired his divorce pamphlets. There is probably also a joking swipe at Wither's poem on Prince Henry ("He was himself a book for kings to pore on, / And might have been thy Basilikon Doron"). John Leonard From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 12:06 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies In a message dated 03/23/2001 7:31:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com writes: > A large number of The New Critics (and fellow-travellers) were poets -- from > Ransom, _The New Criticism_ (1940) via Richards, Empson, Eliot, Penn Warren, > et. alia .... > > The New Criticism was (in the sixties) a liberationist doctrine > [anti-historicism of whatever brand] -- "All you need is the text and the > OED" -- thing was, it often worked. > > Robin Hamilton. > see, technically, I don't think Richards, Eliot, and Empson were New Critics, even though their work anticipated New Criticism. I can think of a couple places Eliot definitely seemed to be working with intentionalist assumptions... Jim From: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 3:47 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Good Old Cause The date of the citation of Monck would appear to be a misprint. It was in February 1659, not 1653, that Monck was ordering Parliamentarians around. Nor is it likely that the "Cause" could have been "Old" in the days of the Nominated Assembly, since the nominees in power were very much associated in the public mind (whatever their other failings) with grass-roots reformation. The "Cause" becomes old when Cromwell abolishes the Assembly and assumes the mantle of a Protector; for by that time those opposed to Cromwell's ascendance could argue that a form of monarchy was being restored and the Cause they had been agitating for was in danger of being a thing of the past. Cheers, Robert Appelbaum Carol Barton wrote: Robert Applebaum writes, inter alia, "The term, 'the good cause,' begins appearing around 1653, and the term the good old cause about a year later." I think, Robert, that the phrase is good deal older than that. The _OED_ is unfortunately of no help in this instance, since it doesn't list it at all; at least not the vintage compact I have (c.1985). Friends tell me it isn't in the electronic version either. Robert Ayers notes in his introduction to _The Readie and Easie Way_ (CPW 7:341) that "Almost daily thereafter [6 Feb 1653], Monck pressed the Parliament to prepare for new elections. On the 9th, reporting to the House his partial compliance with orders to act against the rebellious City of London, he besought the members to "hasten your Qualifications, that the Writs may be sent out." On the same day, "Lovers of the Good Old Cause," "constant Adherers to this Parliament," noting the "general Boldness . . . to plead a Necessity of returning to the Government of Kings and Lords, a taking in of the King's son; or, which is all one, for a Return of the justly-secluded Members, or a Free Parliament, without due Qualifications," submitted to the House a "Representation and Address," in which they asked that no one be allowed to sit or vote in Parliament or the Council of State who would not abjure Charles, or any other single person, and that anyone who should move to introduce any single person would be declared guilty of high treason." Those who have ready access to the Milton concordance or the _Milton Encyclopedia_ (which unfortunately I don't, though I can check them at the Folger later this week) may be able to point us to even earlier usages; in the passage cited above, it already appears to be a commonplace, since no attempt is made to define it. Best to all, Carol Barton 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! Mail Personal Address - Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. From: Roy Flannagan [roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 10:25 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Fwd: REV: Allen on King, _Milton and Religious Controversy_ I thought the list-members might be interested in a review of John King's = recent book, from the H-Albion list, devoted to English history. Roy Flannagan Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:02:38 -0500 From: Richard Gorrie Subject: REV: Allen on King, _Milton and Religious Controversy_ Sender: H-Net List for British and Irish History To: H-ALBION@H-NET.MSU.EDU Reply-to: H-Net List for British and Irish History Message-id: <01K1HJ2FIKQO8WX6XV@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 17:19:23 -0500 From: H-Net Reviews H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Catholic@h-net.msu.edu (March, 2001) John N. King. _Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost_. New York and Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xx + 227 pp. Preface, illustrations, footnotes, appendix, bibliography, index. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-77198-6. Reviewed for H-Catholic by Stephen A. Allen , Independent Scholar "Controversial Merriment" in _Paradise Lost_ Anyone who has read extensively in the works of John Milton is aware of a seeming bifurcation in the character of his writings. On the one side are his polemical tracts, which are full of satire, sarcasm, and what Samuel Johnson described as "controversial merriment." On the other side is the sublime achievement of _Paradise Lost_, which seems concerned with grand, universal themes and distant from the religious and political conflicts of seventeenth-century England. In _Milton and Religious Controversy_, John N. King sets out to show that this split between the satirical and the sublime is not as complete as previous critics have allowed. King's reading of Milton leads him to conclude that "_Paradise Lost_ demonstrates a deep engagement with religious complaint and satire, one that is fundamental to the interplay among the poem's many literary genres and modes" (p. 191). Satirical passages, such as Satan's encounter with Sin and Death and the Paradise of Fools, are "an essential component of the poem" (p. 193). In this, King reverses the opinion of eighteenth-century readers of Milton, such as Addison and Johnson, who applied neoclassical standards of taste to _Paradise Lost_ and found these passages wanting. King examines the wider social and religious context of _Paradise Lost_ in some detail. He pays particular attention to the polemic vocabulary and iconography of Commonwealth and Restoration England, and draws parallels with certain themes in Milton's epic. Milton's own works provide the first level of context.[1] King is able to find similarities between Milton's polemical tracts and _Paradise Lost_, especially in Milton's attacks on religious formalism -- both that of the Roman Catholic Church and that of the established Church of England. A wider context is provided by the long tradition of religious satire in England, from Piers Plowman and Chaucer to Spenser, who was one of Milton's acknowledged influences. In addition, King takes into account contemporary visual polemic and the ways in which it reinforced and even influenced written works. King begins with a reading of Milton's poem, _Lycidas_, and its Spenserian antecedents, primarily the latter poet's May Eclogue. _Lycidas_ is important because it clearly demonstrates that Milton was not above inserting satire and polemic into an otherwise "serious" piece. It also shows that in poetry, as well as in his prose tracts, Milton was deeply engaged with the religious issues of his day. In the case of _Lycidas_, his concern was with unworthy priests, whether Laudian reformers in England or Roman Catholics abroad. For King, _Lycidas_ "anticipates the more subtle instances of anticlerical attack in _Paradise Lost_" (p. 23). The remainder of _Milton and Religious Controversy_ involves a close reading of selected passages from _Paradise Lost_. King's aim in these chapters is to tie Milton's epic to seventeenth-century political and religious polemic, primarily by drawing parallels between the specific vocabulary Milton uses in the poem and that of his -- and his contemporaries' -- prose works. King first addresses the demonic "conclave" that meets in Book 1 of _Paradise Lost_. Here, the parallels with papal conclaves are obvious, but King reminds us that Milton's anti-papal satire can also be read as a concealed attack on the Restoration monarchy and Church, or on formalist tendencies in the Church of England as a whole. The publishers of the 1688 edition of _Paradise Lost_ apparently chose to concentrate on the later possibility when they included illustrations showing Satan with the face of James II in one instance and Charles II in another. King finds similar coded attacks on ecclesiastical disorder and empty formalism in the allegory of Sin and Death in Book 2 of _Paradise Lost_, and The Paradise of Fools in Book 4. The War in Heaven in Book 6 carries with it echoes of the Gunpowder Plot and subsequent Fifth of November celebrations. King concludes with an extended discussion of how the events surrounding the Fall reflect Milton's ideas of true and false religion. The simple meal shared in Eden between Adam and Raphael becomes a type of the egalitarian Protestant communion service, whereas Eve's idolatry and Adam's postlapsarian concern with altars and ceremony foreshadow the rituals and -- from a Protestant perspective -- idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church. There are some minor problems with _Milton and Religious Controversy_. King uses boldface to indicate emphasis, which takes some getting used to, and not all of the emphasized words appear in the index (for example, "bull" on p. 9). The index itself seems incomplete and is occasionally inaccurate. But these are, indeed, minor cavils. On the whole, this book constitutes a necessary correction to the general understanding of the place of satire in _Paradise Lost_, and it succeeds in "complicating and enriching our understanding of an encyclopedic poem" (p. 13). Note [1]. King's use of one text ascribed to Milton, _De Doctrina Christiana_, is problematic. Milton's authorship of this work has been called into question, something which King acknowledges in passing (p. 10, n. 31). King, however, was unable to address a recent, substantial work on the topic: William Hunter, _Vision Unimplor'd: Milton and the Authorship of_ De Doctrina Christiana (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998). Whether or not Milton wrote _De Doctrina Christiana_ is not of central importance to King's arguments, but any future editions of _Milton and Religious Controversy_ should probably address the debate over its authorship in greater detail. Copyright (c) 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu. From: Robin Hamilton [robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 11:09 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies ... two naive points about The New Criticism ... A large number of The New Critics (and fellow-travellers) were poets -- from Ransom, _The New Criticism_ (1940) via Richards, Empson, Eliot, Penn Warren, et. alia .... The New Criticism was (in the sixties) a liberationist doctrine [anti-historicism of whatever brand] -- "All you need is the text and the OED" -- thing was, it often worked. Robin Hamilton. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Knauss" To: Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 3:31 AM Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies > On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:59:19 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > > I think it's a mistake to say New Critics were in the business of > > recovering authorical intent. As you said above, they would > > probably say > > we may be recovering that intent, or we may not -- we just can't > > know. I > > think it would be better to say that New Critical methods have been > > and > > could been, and perhaps even originated with, people concerned with > > recovering authorial intent. > > I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods presuppose and > require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. The > inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually dependent > activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem because > they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their own > separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind of > separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of the > authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary exegesis that > further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are lexical > intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's pragmatic > value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, theoretically > coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, along the > lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be confused with > the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss > ________________________________________________________________ > GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! > Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! > Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: > http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. > > From: Linda Tredennick [treden@darkwing.uoregon.edu] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 12:29 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton If you all don't mind my two cents, I would like to offer a defense of the grad. student comment that started this thread. If I remember the post properly, his/her comment was during a study session for a comp. exam -- it hasn't been many years since I took such an exam, and I remember that it is a very stressful time. You are trying to develop narratives within and across time periods, and are trying to fit texts into those narratives. You are also trying to second guess the questions that will be thrown at you. My point is that no one has the leisure to kick back and approach texts the way they might like to, and the way they probably normally do. Instead, these texts force a mercenary approach -- what can I get out of this text that will help me. I might also add that we all approach texts from a specific methodological vantage, and we should guard against privileging an aesthetic or affective approach just because it seems natural to us. It is just as ideologically loaded as any more overtly critical school. Just some thoughts from a different perspective. Linda Tredennick Department of English University of Oregon From: john rumrich [rumrich@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 10:17 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth Gosh, "the wild branch of the cork forest": pretty racy. In the process of getting a grip on himself doesn't Juan pore over leaves, too, very near this passage (many thanks for reminding us of it, John; and yes, bravo Steve)? >Bravo, Steve. Yes, Wordsworth is Milton's Begotten Son. But he also = >lends himself to parody (as does our main man.) My favourite joke at = >Wordsworth's expense is this, from Byron's Don Juan. Juan, aged 17, and = >still a virgin, is bewildered by his stirring passion for Donna Julia. = >Wandering in the woods, tortured by raging hormones, he attempts to = >"deal with" what Milton might call his "commotion strange." =20 > >Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks > Thinking unutterable things; he threw=20 >Himself at length within the leafy nooks > Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew; >There poets find materials for their books, > And every now and then we read them through, >So that their plan and prosody are eligible, > Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible. > >He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued=20 > His self-communion with his own high soul, >Until ihis mighty heart, in its great mood, > Had mitigated part, though not the whole >Of its disease; he did the best he could > With things not very subject to control. (I 90-91) > > >This puts a whole new light on WW's "In which the burthen of the = >mystery, / In which the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this = >unintelligible world, / Is lightened" and "The coarser pleasures of my = >boyish days, / And their glad animal movements"! Byron. Wicked, = >wicked, wicked. From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 8:13 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth In a message dated 03/22/2001 8:01:50 AM Eastern Standard Time, cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca writes: > Thanks for resuceing WW. I love his work to a fault. > I agree with nearly everything you say: I even postulate that in > Bloomian revision that we cannot indeed Milton except via > the long lens of autobiographical WW of the Prelude. -- what is > unfortunate is that neither Keats or Shelly had the chance > to read the Prelude. There are many passages in the Prelude > I probably should have responded to the other post along these lines, but here I am :) Do you know that even if you were standing next to W you wouldn't really exist for him? We're undoubtedly post Romantic and there's no going back to a pre-Romantic "Miltonic" outlook. And I won't argue that WW plays a big part in that. However, since Romanticism we've had modernism (a serious and deliberate critique of Romanticism), we've had a something like a Romantic revolution in the 60's (in America, at least), and now we've moved past that as well. I see Romanticism now as one of several aesthetic, cognitive, and emotional streams out of many. All are interdependent to a degree, yes, but it is certainly possible to be more in one than in the other. When I read Milton I feel a bit closer to home than I do reading WW -- quite a bit -- and I think I can do so with a significant, relative independence of Romantic sensibilities. Not an absolute independence, no, but significant. Jim From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 8:53 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Book Review: King on Milton & Religious Controversy Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 17:19:23 -0500 From: H-Net Reviews H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Catholic@h-net.msu.edu (March, 2001) John N. King. _Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost_. New York and Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xx + 227 pp. Preface, illustrations, footnotes, appendix, bibliography, index. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-77198-6. Reviewed for H-Catholic by Stephen A. Allen , Independent Scholar "Controversial Merriment" in _Paradise Lost_ Anyone who has read extensively in the works of John Milton is aware of a seeming bifurcation in the character of his writings. On the one side are his polemical tracts, which are full of satire, sarcasm, and what Samuel Johnson described as "controversial merriment." On the other side is the sublime achievement of _Paradise Lost_, which seems concerned with grand, universal themes and distant from the religious and political conflicts of seventeenth-century England. In _Milton and Religious Controversy_, John N. King sets out to show that this split between the satirical and the sublime is not as complete as previous critics have allowed. King's reading of Milton leads him to conclude that "_Paradise Lost_ demonstrates a deep engagement with religious complaint and satire, one that is fundamental to the interplay among the poem's many literary genres and modes" (p. 191). Satirical passages, such as Satan's encounter with Sin and Death and the Paradise of Fools, are "an essential component of the poem" (p. 193). In this, King reverses the opinion of eighteenth-century readers of Milton, such as Addison and Johnson, who applied neoclassical standards of taste to _Paradise Lost_ and found these passages wanting. King examines the wider social and religious context of _Paradise Lost_ in some detail. He pays particular attention to the polemic vocabulary and iconography of Commonwealth and Restoration England, and draws parallels with certain themes in Milton's epic. Milton's own works provide the first level of context.[1] King is able to find similarities between Milton's polemical tracts and _Paradise Lost_, especially in Milton's attacks on religious formalism -- both that of the Roman Catholic Church and that of the established Church of England. A wider context is provided by the long tradition of religious satire in England, from Piers Plowman and Chaucer to Spenser, who was one of Milton's acknowledged influences. In addition, King takes into account contemporary visual polemic and the ways in which it reinforced and even influenced written works. King begins with a reading of Milton's poem, _Lycidas_, and its Spenserian antecedents, primarily the latter poet's May Eclogue. _Lycidas_ is important because it clearly demonstrates that Milton was not above inserting satire and polemic into an otherwise "serious" piece. It also shows that in poetry, as well as in his prose tracts, Milton was deeply engaged with the religious issues of his day. In the case of _Lycidas_, his concern was with unworthy priests, whether Laudian reformers in England or Roman Catholics abroad. For King, _Lycidas_ "anticipates the more subtle instances of anticlerical attack in _Paradise Lost_" (p. 23). The remainder of _Milton and Religious Controversy_ involves a close reading of selected passages from _Paradise Lost_. King's aim in these chapters is to tie Milton's epic to seventeenth-century political and religious polemic, primarily by drawing parallels between the specific vocabulary Milton uses in the poem and that of his -- and his contemporaries' -- prose works. King first addresses the demonic "conclave" that meets in Book 1 of _Paradise Lost_. Here, the parallels with papal conclaves are obvious, but King reminds us that Milton's anti-papal satire can also be read as a concealed attack on the Restoration monarchy and Church, or on formalist tendencies in the Church of England as a whole. The publishers of the 1688 edition of _Paradise Lost_ apparently chose to concentrate on the later possibility when they included illustrations showing Satan with the face of James II in one instance and Charles II in another. King finds similar coded attacks on ecclesiastical disorder and empty formalism in the allegory of Sin and Death in Book 2 of _Paradise Lost_, and The Paradise of Fools in Book 4. The War in Heaven in Book 6 carries with it echoes of the Gunpowder Plot and subsequent Fifth of November celebrations. King concludes with an extended discussion of how the events surrounding the Fall reflect Milton's ideas of true and false religion. The simple meal shared in Eden between Adam and Raphael becomes a type of the egalitarian Protestant communion service, whereas Eve's idolatry and Adam's postlapsarian concern with altars and ceremony foreshadow the rituals and -- from a Protestant perspective -- idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church. There are some minor problems with _Milton and Religious Controversy_. King uses boldface to indicate emphasis, which takes some getting used to, and not all of the emphasized words appear in the index (for example, "bull" on p. 9). The index itself seems incomplete and is occasionally inaccurate. But these are, indeed, minor cavils. On the whole, this book constitutes a necessary correction to the general understanding of the place of satire in _Paradise Lost_, and it succeeds in "complicating and enriching our understanding of an encyclopedic poem" (p. 13). Note [1]. King's use of one text ascribed to Milton, _De Doctrina Christiana_, is problematic. Milton's authorship of this work has been called into question, something which King acknowledges in passing (p. 10, n. 31). King, however, was unable to address a recent, substantial work on the topic: William Hunter, _Vision Unimplor'd: Milton and the Authorship of_ De Doctrina Christiana (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998). Whether or not Milton wrote _De Doctrina Christiana_ is not of central importance to King's arguments, but any future editions of _Milton and Religious Controversy_ should probably address the debate over its authorship in greater detail. Copyright (c) 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu. From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 9:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton List members - I'm essentially in agreement with Carol's toolbox analogy, and that's how I teach our new gateway to the (undergraduate) major course, which introduces students in literary research conventions and strategies (we have a terrific library liaison person) basic literary terms, and a selection of theoretical approaches. The students - in the two times I've taught it - often come to the same conclusion on their own. They understandably often object to critical articles which are dense in undefined or elaborately redefined unfamiliar terminology. I ask them to stretch their vocabularies, but understand their frustration at, for example, using a term in English that's based on a pun in French that isn't a pun in English... Cynthia A metaphor I use is that of different kinds of lenses - magnifying, infrared, 3-D - can show us different things. On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 10:56:02 -0500 Carol Barton wrote: > To pick up the toolbox analogy again: a screwdriver is great for > un-driving screws, and a woodsaw is great for sawing planks -- but > I'd hate to try loosening screws with a saw, or sawing planks with a > screwdriver. I can accept the value of various theoretical approaches > without agreeing that we should throw out every other tool, and > henceforth use only screwdrivers -- > > sadly, the latter seems to be precisely what too many of the new > theorists writ large seem to be proposing. > > Best to all, > > Carol Barton > > > > I don't see this. Do we all have feathers in our whiskers? Lit crit > > curricula have become more preoccupied with theory, so all lit critics > have > > fostered the move? Sounds like guilt (or merit) by association. One can > > learn from and use theory (deconstructive, feminist, psychoanalytic, > reader > > response, etc., etc.) and still be troubled by its current weight in > > curricula. > > > > Steve Fallon > > > > >Feigning shock at such as response is a trifle like the innocence of the > > >cat that ate the canary: we've got feathers in our whiskers. > > > > > >-Gregory C. Benoit > > >Dubuque, IA > > > -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT Cynthia A. Gilliatt English Department MSC 1801 James Madison University Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ 540-568-3762 or 6202 From: Jeffrey Shoulson [jshoulson@miami.edu] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 9:21 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth Thanks, John Leonard, for reminding us of that mad, bad, and hilarious to know passage from Don Juan. The last few lines of the second stanza he has quoted are equally wicked about Wordsworth's sometime companion: ...he did the best he could With things not very subject to control, And turned, without perceiving his condition, Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician. When it comes to comparing poets--apples and cherries, is it?--a sense of humor is always useful. Best to all, Jeffrey -- Jeffrey Shoulson Assistant Professor Department of English PO Box 248145 University of Miami Coral Gables, FL 33124 (o) 305-284-2182 (f) 305-284-5635 http://www.as.miami.edu/english/jshoulson/ From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 8:21 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies In a message dated 03/22/2001 8:04:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, tiresias@juno.com writes: > I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods presuppose and > require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. Ok, I'm probably a bit slow, but I don't see exactly how that's required. I think those engaged in a New Critical methodology knew they couldn't stop there to recover authorial intent. Intent, to the degree that it's discernible, must be latent within the language, but the language by itself (especially of a poem) tends to polyvalent to the point that information external to the text is necessary to limit interpretive possibilities. So those engaged in the recovery of authorial intent always, Always, had to go beyond just the text. They had to go into personal letters, history (personal and larger), other texts, etc. > The inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually dependent > activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem because > they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their own > separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind of > separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of the > authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary exegesis that > further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are lexical > intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's pragmatic > value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, theoretically > coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, along the > lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be confused with > the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss > I wouldn't say the NC's were ever "exegetical anti-intentionalists." I think that's a bit strong. I'd say they were somewhat agnostic toward intention, and I think that position is a bit more defensible theoretically. But I'd like to hear you talk more about McGann -- I tend to see textual meaning as the product of a reading community (of which the author is, or can be, a part), so I'm curious about the idea of a "socialized text." Jim From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 10:31 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:59:19 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > I think it's a mistake to say New Critics were in the business of > recovering authorical intent. As you said above, they would > probably say > we may be recovering that intent, or we may not -- we just can't > know. I > think it would be better to say that New Critical methods have been > and > could been, and perhaps even originated with, people concerned with > recovering authorial intent. I think it's a bit more than that. New Critical methods presuppose and require the recovery of authorial intent by textual critics. The inconsistency between these two co-existing and mutually dependent activities (exegesis and textual criticism) presents a problem because they really cannot be walled off as separate domains with their own separate rules. I think the New Critics did try to make this kind of separation. They accepted their literary texts as the product of the authors' final intentions but then called a ban on literary exegesis that further attempted to divine authorial intention. I.e., they are lexical intentionalists but exegetical anti-intentionalists. There's pragmatic value and good sense in this, but it is not, I believe, theoretically coherent or defensible. Something better can be had, i think, along the lines of McGann's idea of the socialized text. (Not to be confused with the famously hoaxed journal, Social Text.) -Dan Knauss ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Derek Wood [dwood@stfx.ca] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 3:46 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Paradise lost and found topic list Chris Hair wrote: > I am a Ph.D. student attempting to compile a topic list concerning paradise > and the search for lost paradise.... See Astolfo's journey to the Earthly Paradise and the moon in Cantos 34 and 35 of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. dw > From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 12:32 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth Thanks for resuceing WW. I love his work to a fault. I agree with nearly everything you say: I even postulate that in Bloomian revision that we cannot indeed Milton except via the long lens of autobiographical WW of the Prelude. -- what is unfortunate is that neither Keats or Shelly had the chance to read the Prelude. There are many passages in the Prelude whihc rival PL. If one can speak of rivalry between such grand equals. On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Steve Fallon wrote: > I'm not sure I understand the current round of Wordsworth bashing. > Keats' response to Milton and Wordsworth, both of whom he admired very > deeply, might give one pause here if the excellence of many of > Wordsworth's lyric poems does not. I would count my life more than > well-spent if I could write something to rival, much less equal, "A > slumber did my spirit seal," the Immortality Ode, or "Tintern Abbey." > Wordsworth has his shallows, his failed lines, and his work does not > progress toward greater perfection as he grew older (like Keats, one of > our greatest poets, in the former but not in the latter). I've not > read through The Prelude recently, and I need > for all kinds of reasons to return to it, but there are great things in > it. John Leonard has, characteristically, a shrewd point to make about > the "comic book" barb (although there are stories in WW, especially in > some of the lyrics). > > > Milton husbanded his resources, and the result is a body of poetry more > uniformly excellent than what Wordsworth has left, but WW's best is > wonderful. There's no disputing taste, I realize, but I'm uneasy about > what our curt condescension to a great poet says about us. > > > Steve Fallon > > > > >And to children's wall-scribbling, when I go to Ginsberg or his poor > > >e-immitators. > > > > > >Timothy Sandefur > > > > > >In a message dated 3/16/2001 4:54:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, > > >gregwa@gregwa.com writes: > > > > > > > > > > I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go > from > > > > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > > > > > > > >But that's just me... > > > > > > > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > > > > > > > Gregory C. Benoit > > > > Dubuque, IA > > > > ________________________ > From: Ingram, Randy [raingram@davidson.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 1:30 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: another marathon reading of _PL_ Inspired largely by colleagues on this list, the English 355 (Milton) class at Davidson College will host an all-day reading of _Paradise Lost_ on Saturday, March 31, beginning at 9:00 AM. The reading will take place in the Carolina Inn, an antebellum inn on Main Street in Davidson. The event will benefit the Ada Jenkins After-School Program in Davidson; used books in good condition and donations for the purchase of books are welcomed but certainly not required. If those of you who have organized such readings have suggestions, the students I will appreciate them, either on the list or off. We've benefited from the learning about other readings on this list, but this is a thing unattempted yet at Davidson. Best, Randy Ingram From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 7:01 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: some good news Hey there! In these days of part-time, adjunct, revolving term appointments and other anti-tenure measures, it's ALWAYS good news to hear of a colleague getting a tenure-track position! Cynthia G. -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT Cynthia A. Gilliatt English Department MSC 1801 James Madison University Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ 540-568-3762 or 6202 From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 10:22 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth In a message dated 03/21/2001 6:21:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, fallon.1@nd.edu writes: > I've not > read through The Prelude recently, and I need > for all kinds of reasons to return to it, but there are great things in > it. John Leonard has, characteristically, a shrewd point to make about > the "comic book" barb (although there are stories in WW, especially in > some of the lyrics). > > > Milton husbanded his resources, and the result is a body of poetry more > uniformly excellent than what Wordsworth has left, but WW's best is > wonderful. There's no disputing taste, I realize, but I'm uneasy about > what our curt condescension to a great poet says about us. > > > Yep, as a poet, some of Wordsworth's poetry is remarkable. There's no disputing that. What annoys me about him is the inherent solipsism in his outlook. I just don't Really Don't Care to read that much about **him** sooo exclusively, and while what he advocated in _The Prelude_ was intended for everyone (everyone capable), I have a feeling that were I to meet I, too, would vanish as an individual human being and disappear into the vagaries of his poetic imagination. When I read Blake and Keats and Coleridge, I feel that they're at least partly telling me something about the object, while when I read Wordsworth I feel like he's never, ever, telling me about anything other than himself. If he weren't such a great poet this wouldn't bother me so much. Jim From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 2:57 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth Like religion and politics, the topic of favorite poets and their worth will lead to lively but seldom productive discussion. Let's apply that quote so long attributed (probably incorrectly) to Voltaire: "I cannot agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it." I have found good food for thought in Wordsworth, although he does not compare to Milton or to Shakespeare. After all, why should he? To compare oranges and cherries does little good; each has its distinctive qualities. The question was asked of the list "Does poetry do us good?" I believe poetry is a voice which expresses that which is almost inexpressible; I find a great relief in recognizing my own half-formed thoughts in the words of a poet, be he (or she) Greek, Roman, Italian, French, Renaissance English, or modern Whatever. I wish everyone joy of many different poets; I agree with the ancients that they are the messengers of the divine. Rose Williams From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 11:03 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I love Wordsworth Bravo, Steve. Yes, Wordsworth is Milton's Begotten Son. But he also = lends himself to parody (as does our main man.) My favourite joke at = Wordsworth's expense is this, from Byron's Don Juan. Juan, aged 17, and = still a virgin, is bewildered by his stirring passion for Donna Julia. = Wandering in the woods, tortured by raging hormones, he attempts to = "deal with" what Milton might call his "commotion strange." =20 Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks Thinking unutterable things; he threw=20 Himself at length within the leafy nooks Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew; There poets find materials for their books, And every now and then we read them through, So that their plan and prosody are eligible, Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible. He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued=20 His self-communion with his own high soul, Until ihis mighty heart, in its great mood, Had mitigated part, though not the whole Of its disease; he did the best he could With things not very subject to control. (I 90-91) This puts a whole new light on WW's "In which the burthen of the = mystery, / In which the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this = unintelligible world, / Is lightened" and "The coarser pleasures of my = boyish days, / And their glad animal movements"! Byron. Wicked, = wicked, wicked. From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 10:56 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton In response to the posts below: I agree with Steve. I subscribe to the "toolbox" theory of Theory (which, unlike the panacea theory of Theory, does not posit that one approach is supreme above the others for the analysis of every text): I can see the validity of applying a Marxist approach to Dickens or the Brontes, and little or none to applying it to _PL_ (especially to the extreme of saying that Milton wrote the poem because of the economic conditions of his time and space), and agree that Freudian/Jungian/Kristevan/Lacanian psychology might help to explain the almost Manichaean split between the Agnes Whitfields and the Miss Murdstones of the Dickensian oeuvre, without agreeing that it applies universally and willy-nilly to every other text I've ever read, or anyone else has ever written. A deconstructionist approach to Milton's linguistics is certainly very useful, to a point -- carried too far, it becomes silly and speculative (as when it is used with a heavy Freudian sauce to "psychoanalyze" the author). And so on. Recognizing that broccoli is good for you, in moderation, and as an appropriate entree or side-dish for lunch or supper (depending on your mood and carnivorous proclivities) does not mean that you want to have it in any case for breakfast every morning. To pick up the toolbox analogy again: a screwdriver is great for un-driving screws, and a woodsaw is great for sawing planks -- but I'd hate to try loosening screws with a saw, or sawing planks with a screwdriver. I can accept the value of various theoretical approaches without agreeing that we should throw out every other tool, and henceforth use only screwdrivers -- sadly, the latter seems to be precisely what too many of the new theorists writ large seem to be proposing. Best to all, Carol Barton > I don't see this. Do we all have feathers in our whiskers? Lit crit > curricula have become more preoccupied with theory, so all lit critics have > fostered the move? Sounds like guilt (or merit) by association. One can > learn from and use theory (deconstructive, feminist, psychoanalytic, reader > response, etc., etc.) and still be troubled by its current weight in > curricula. > > Steve Fallon > > >Feigning shock at such as response is a trifle like the innocence of the > >cat that ate the canary: we've got feathers in our whiskers. > > > >-Gregory C. Benoit > >Dubuque, IA > From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 7:09 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Good Old Cause Robert Applebaum writes, inter alia, "The term, 'the good cause,' begins appearing around 1653, and the term the good old cause about a year later." I think, Robert, that the phrase is good deal older than that. The _OED_ is unfortunately of no help in this instance, since it doesn't list it at all; at least not the vintage compact I have (c.1985). Friends tell me it isn't in the electronic version either. Robert Ayers notes in his introduction to _The Readie and Easie Way_ (CPW 7:341) that "Almost daily thereafter [6 Feb 1653], Monck pressed the Parliament to prepare for new elections. On the 9th, reporting to the House his partial compliance with orders to act against the rebellious City of London, he besought the members to "hasten your Qualifications, that the Writs may be sent out." On the same day, "Lovers of the Good Old Cause," "constant Adherers to this Parliament," noting the "general Boldness . . . to plead a Necessity of returning to the Government of Kings and Lords, a taking in of the King's son; or, which is all one, for a Return of the justly-secluded Members, or a Free Parliament, without due Qualifications," submitted to the House a "Representation and Address," in which they asked that no one be allowed to sit or vote in Parliament or the Council of State who would not abjure Charles, or any other single person, and that anyone who should move to introduce any single person would be declared guilty of high treason." Those who have ready access to the Milton concordance or the _Milton Encyclopedia_ (which unfortunately I don't, though I can check them at the Folger later this week) may be able to point us to even earlier usages; in the passage cited above, it already appears to be a commonplace, since no attempt is made to define it. Best to all, Carol Barton From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 8:29 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Cc: chair0@pop.uky.edu Subject: Re: Paradise lost and found topic list In a message dated 3/20/2001 7:00:32 AM Central Standard Time, crhair0@pop.uky.edu writes: I am a Ph.D. student attempting to compile a topic list concerning paradise and the search for lost paradise. The idea is centered on Milton, but I wanted to go back to at least Dante (if not before). I also plan on extending the focus to at least the Romantic poets, though Tennyson and CS Lewis look promising. I have many texts already--including works by Tasso, Spenser, Bunyan, Swift, Voltaire, Johnson, Blake, Coleridge, and Shelley--but I would more than invite the suggestions of this learned and eclectic list-serv. What primary texts would you suggest that focus on paradise (earthly, inner, celestial)? What criticism can you recommend (aside from Giamatti and Duncan)? Check out several of the Old Testament landscape pastoral poems of Henry Vaughan for some particularly rich primary material: "The Search" ("Made those wild shades a paradise"); "The Retreat"; "Vanity of Spirit" (of course check out Martz's study The Paradise Within); "Thou that know'st"; "Corruption" (lament for a lost Eden). This list is by no means exhaustive but enough to get your started. I can also email you a recently scannedin text version of my MA thesis, "Biblical Landscape Images in Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans I" in which I cover this theme in some detail. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: Norman Burns [nburns@binghamton.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 11:34 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and the Weather Despite my doubts, I will enter into this discussion of paleometeorology and add something on whether the English complained much about their weather. We visitors from more fortunate climes are sure the answer is, "not as much as they should have." In sonnets 33, 34, and 35 Shakespeare works through a complaint about changeable weather to a more important matter --the comparison of disappointing weather to the disappointing behavior of his beloved friend and finally declaring his shame for having thus excused the beloved's apparently unrepented sin. I leave you to it, noting only that your Russian saying is borne out by the poet's chiding that he was led to "travel forth without my cloak" [34:2]. --Norm Burns At 07:58 AM 3/20/01 -0500, Carl Bellinger wrote: ><4.3.1.2.20010315075452.00b96280@mail.sdsu.edu> >Subject: Re: Milton and the weather >Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 18:18:16 -0500 >Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > >There's a Russian saying to the effect that there's no bad weather only bad >clothing, and I wonder how 17 c. accommodations to the elements might be a >factor in the need or lack of need to complain; and also, more generally: >might there be such an imaginative gulf between us and those on the far side >of the 18th c., regarding "nature" and what kind of act of mind/soul/body it >is to experience or "enjoy" nature, that our hunt for complaints about >weather might miss the best places to look in and the right phrases to look >for. > >The first quatrain in Sh's sonnet 73 ["That time of yeare..."] certainly >sounds like an implicit complaint of seasonal cold such as I feel I can >identify with (esp. living here in New England), but when in the second >quatrain, the twilight after sunset progresses to "blacke night...Deaths >second selfe that seals up all in rest," it seems clear there is a radically >different imaginative relation to nature there, which makes me wonder if >even my reading of the earlier lines "when yellow leaves, or none, or few do >hang/ Upon those boughs that shake against the cold," may be missing >something essential. > >Before the 18th c. (I'm told) hotels near the Alps had no windows on the >sides facing the mountains... > >-Carl > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Peter C. Herman" >To: >Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:58 AM >Subject: Re: Milton and the weather > > > > At 01:45 PM 3/14/01 -0800, you wrote: > > > > > Since geological time wasn't discovered until the late eighteenth >century > > >or early nineteenth century, it seems unlikely that Milton or anyone of >his > > >day and age would have conceived of weather evolving over periods of >time, > > >much less that they were living in an ice age. And indeed if one reads > > >through the popular literature of the era one is struck by how little > > >English people complain about the weather. > > > > > > The major exception to Bob's comment would be the many comments about the > > incredibly lousy weather in 1596 (see, for example, the passage in > > Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream by, I believe, Oberon, about how the > > oxen have plowed in vain because of the massive rains). People noted the > > weather because it caused crop failures, dearth, and real unrest. Now, > > while this is obviously well before Milton, he certainly would have known > > this passage from MND. > > > > Peter C. Herman > > > > From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 8:59 PM To: Milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM But aren't these two gentlemen somewhat similar (and perhaps I have Mr. Eliot as an influence in my post, namely, his "dissociation of sensibility" theory) in their diction? Wordsworth's "Ruth" might make an interesting comic book. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: James Dougal Fleming [jdf26@columbia.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:53 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: More Illumination . . . pro se defensio 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 Is the final passage you quote from _CP_ or _Of True Rel_? (Yale Prose page refs, maybe?) I am interested because I have in the past been so convinced by Janel Mueller's argument (in the Dobranski-Rumrich _Milton and Heresy_) that these two texts, of 1659 and 73 respectively if I have that right, represent an ideological about-face on the turnpike of heresy. In the preface to _CP_ M makes the radical free-conscience argument, congenial to your view (as I take it) of his thougts on "inner light," that "haeresis" really just means "choice"; there can, therefore, be no possibility of a true Protestant accusing another Protestant (or simply another Christian?), pejoratively, of heresy. In Of True Rel, however (and again, this is my understanding of the text as read through Mueller), M reverses himself, insisting that good Protestants are in large part defined by their ability, right and duty to recognize and excoriate heresy -- now understod as willfully _incorrect_ theological choice. _CP_, in short, would apear to offer much less ground for a coherent anti-Catholic "toleration exception" than _Of True Rel_ -- where, as is often noted, M insists that such people must not even be allowed to err in secret. JD Fleming On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Carol Barton wrote: > Dear All, > > In case it isn't obvious, I am working througth the prose texts again at the > moment; in _Treatise of Civil Power_ and _Of True Religion_, I found a > couple of important passages which I think will ->ahem<- shed further light > (?!) on our discussions. > > Definining "matters of religion" in the _Treatise_ as "such things as belong > chiefly to the knowledge and service of God: and are either above the reach > and light of nature without revelation from above, and therefore liable to > be variously understood by human reason, or such things as are enjoined or > forbidden by divine precept, which else by the light of reason would seem > indifferent to be done or not done; and so likewise must needs appear to > every man as the precept is understood," Milton writes: > > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > "Whence I here mean by conscience or religion that full persuasion, whereby > we are assured that our belief and practice, as far as we are able to > apprehend and probably make appear, is according to the will of God and his > Holy Spirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather than any law of > man, as not only his word everywhere bids us, but the very dictate of reason > tells us . . . . It cannot be denied, being the main foundation of our > protestant religion, that we of these ages, having no other divine rule or > authority from without us, warrantable to one another as a common ground, > but the holy scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the > Holy Spirit, so interpreting that scripture as warrantable only to > ourselves, and to such whose consciences we can persuade, can have no other > ground in matters of religion but only from the scriptures. And these being > not possible to be understood without this divine illumination, which no man > can know at all times to be in himself, much less to be at any time certain > in any other, it follows clearly, that no man or body of men in these times > can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters if religion to any > men's consciences but their own. . . . If then we count it so ignorant and > irreligious in the papist, to think himself discharged in God's account, > believing only as the church believes, how much greater condemnation will it > be to the protestant his condemner, to think himself justified, believing > only as the state believes?" > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > > His basis for excluding the Catholics, but insisting on toleration for all > of the protestant sects, is that the Catholics do not require individual > engagement with the scripture -- rather, they actively (at this time in > history) prevent it. Milton mistrusts "the papal antichristian church [that] > permits not her laity to read the Bible in their own tongue," because "their > ignorance in scripture chiefly upholds popery" -- of the sort that Luther > decried in the _Ninety-Five Theses_. This is clear in the following passage, > also from _Of True Religion_: > > > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > St. Paul judged, that not only to tolerate, but to examine and prove all > things was no danger to our holding fast of that which is good. How shall we > prove all things, which includes all opinions at least founded on scripture, > unless we not only tolerate, but patiently hear them, and seriously read > them? If he who thinks himself in the truth professes to have learnt it, not > by implied faith, but by attentive study of the scriptures, and full > persuasion of heart, with what equity can he refuse to hear or read him who > demonstrates to have gained his knowledge by the same way? Is it a fair > course to assert truth by arrogating to himself the only freedom of speech, > and stopping the mouths of others equally gifted? This is the direct way to > bring in that papistical implicit faith, which we all disclaim. They pretend > it would unsettle the weaker sort: that same groundless fear is pretended by > the Romish clergy in prohibiting the scripture." > ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ > > Best to all, > > Carol Barton > From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 4:16 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM But why does a mind like yers seee Blake as being as you call him 'a poet..." and not WW. Even Harold Bloom knows better than this. And he has taste. On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote: > I had a feeling there wouldn't be much argument for that on this list :) > > Now Blake...that was a poet... > > Jim > > > >I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > > > >But that's just me... > > > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > > > Gregory C. Benoit > > > > > From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 10:29 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies Sorry Jim, I left part of the long domain name out. Here is the correct URL: http://www.svcc.cc.il.us/academics/classes/gadamer/gadartpl.htm The index/home page it is connected to is: http://www.svcc.cc.il.us/academics/classes/gadamer/gad.htm Dan On Sat, 17 Mar 2001 00:06:30 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > I read the second URL but the first didn't work for me -- it's > possible the > "l" at the end of "htm" was cut off, I haven't checked. > > The second article was pretty interesting -- My current > understanding of > Heidegger is that he's, in part, a critique of phenomenology, so > it's > interesting to me to see him invoked in a phenomenological approach > to > reading. I had problems with the article right from the start > (although I > want to emphasize I appreciate the author's presentation -- I felt > like it > was an honest attempt, and a pretty good one), but I mean I had > problems > right from the start literally -- with his point 1. :) > > 1. We live in the world: in history, in concretion: we do not live > any where > else, and all meaning is only meaning in relation to particular, > concrete, > historical existence. > > That's a pretty big statement. He seems to almost be invoking a > kind of > materialism, but then he goes on... > > 4. Our symbolic world is not separate from our beings, especially in > regard > to language: we 'are' language, in that what distinguishes us as > persons is > that we are beings who are conscious of themselves, that is, can > know > themselves symbolically and self-reflexively. As Heidegger > remarked, > "language speaks man." We are not beings who 'use' symbols, but > beings who > are constituted by their use. > > At this point I had some difficulty, because he doesn't really > narrow the > word "constituted." I don't think our fundamental "being" is > "constituted" > by the way we talk about it, but that what we _think about_ our > fundamental > "being" is constituted by the way we talk about it. In other words, > our > being itself isn't shaped by our language about it, just what we > think about > our being. > > Now, that's not to say that what we think about our being is not > important. > I'm reading Heidegger's _Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics_ and he > is > striving for his readers to recognize or acheive a "fundamental > attunement" > to our Dasein, being-there, that almost sounds like a > pseudo-mystical > experience. The point, so far as I can tell, is that we meet being > by the > way we think about it, and we think about it following the way we > talk about > it. So Heidegger's job seems to be to get us to think and talk > about it > differently so we can face being and not run from it. > > So while all this is implied in the statement, Language speaks man, > this > process is somewhat suppressed by the web article you posted. I'm > open to > correction (especially since this is my first approach to this > text), of > course, and misunderstanding Heidegger is about as easy as > misunderstanding a > language you've never heard before... > > Then in point five, when he goes on to talk about "excess meaning to > being," > he almost seems to contradict what he established in point one. If > the > "concrete" is all there is, what we live in, and the concrete is > represented > by language, then there's no use going on about "excess meaning," or > even > "being." I am, of course, equating "concrete" with "material," but > the > article didn't really do anything to keep me from doing so. > > Now, with all my complaining, the guy is still doing some > interesting work. > I still think he falls into the fundamental mistake of equating "the > way we > think about something" with "what something is," but at the same > time he > seems to be working very hard to justify this mistake in a very > straightforward manner. > > Good for him :) > > Jim > > > You may be interested in this article by G.T. Karnezis, "Gadamer, > Art, > > and > Play"--http://www.svcc.il.us/academics/classes/gadamer/gadartpl.htm > > as well as "Some Principles of Phenomenological > > Hermeneutics"--http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/ph.html > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Cobelli@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 8:38 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton Cynthia Gilliate writes: On the use and misuse of theory ... at JMU we have set texts for the MA 'comprehansive' exam, and last spring one of the texts I suggested was Browne's 'Religio Medici' - the grad students got together to ask faculty to talk with them about each of the texts, and when they got together with me, after I talked to them about Browne, about the philosophical and religious climate, about English prose, etc etc, one of the very brightest asked me, "But why is this text supposed to be interesting? It doesn't seem to fit any current theory. Is it just because he writes well?" What do you make of that? To quote Fricka in Die Walkure: "Mir schaudet das Herz" Or, rather, should I lament this "late and dusky" age? Dusky, because the text in its literal beauty once again veiled, hidden beneath the theoretical constructs. Perhaps something of an analogy what Luther thought when he attacked the fourfold method of approaching Biblical texts, or more specifically, what he saw as excessive unncessary allegorization. Scott Grunow Editor-in-Chief Office of Publications Services University of Illinois at Chicago scottgr@uic.edu From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:15 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I A Richards & C S Lewis. Mike, Re: "C. S. Lewis, Memorable Host." That is a wonderful story! Thank you for posting it. It really made my day--especially the bit about Lewis forgetting to book a room for his distinguished guest. Silly sod. And to think that this is the same Lewis who in *A Preface to Paradise Lost* has the cheek to preach (beautifully) about "the highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men" (p. 136). Highly selective indeed. One part of the story puzzled me. It was this: > >Unlike America's New Critics, however, Richards constructed an affective >theory of reading -- how reading poetry affects a reader's psyche, >improving his or her mental health. As we shall see, this theory was >inimical to C. S. Lewis's concept of reading literature. > This puzzles me because I seem to recall that Lewis himself argues for poetry's power to be morally edifiying. Doesn't he make this point in his discussion of Sidney's *Defence* in his Cambridge guide to Sixteenth-century Literature? Other modern critics had dismissed the idea that poetry can make us better. Lewis points out that we readily accept the idea that some kinds of writing (hate literature, pornography, etc.) can make us worse, so why can't other kinds make us better? I think he makes similar arguments for Spenser (sorry, I don't have the books to hand). He certainly strikes a moral tone throughout *A Preface*. Just look at the last sentence. Who else would end a book on Milton by exhorting us not to "make common cause with Mordred"? How, then, can Lewis be "inimical" to the idea that "reading poetry" improves our "mental health"? Maybe the answer is that Lewis feels that Richards has too narrow a sense of "mental health". For Lewis, "mental health" is not a matter of the "nervous system." (That characterization is no doubt unjust to Richards, but my concern right now is with Lewis.) A perennially interesting question--one we might explore on this list--is "Can poetry make us better" (in any way)? The question would be a good one for this list because many people (I suspect) would take positions that others would not expect them to take. John Leonard From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 10:34 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Richards It's footnote 2 in chapter 2 on pages 45-47 in the Macmillan paperback editions. On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 10:19:29 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com writes: > Yep, that's it. I believe he does mention Richards specifically. I > don't > have a copy of that particular Lewis anymore, though, so I can't > look it up... > > Jim > > > Lewis makes the argument you cite in *The Abolition of Man*. I > can't > > remember whether he mentions Richards. > > > > Gardner Campbell > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: J. Morgan [jhmorg@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 6:20 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <000b01c0ae63$3b8c0000$122f193f@compaq> Subject: Re: Paradise lost and found topic list Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 09:40:04 -0500 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Chris, I am not quite sure what you will count as texts concerning paradise and the search for lost paradise (is a Christian/religious context assumed, what about utopian works?), but if you are going to pull in the romantics, then you should probably read Harold Bloom's essay "Internalization of Quest Romance." I believe you can find this in _Romanticism and Consciousness_. I know you said you were only taking this list through the Victorians, but I can't help wonder if a post-modernist work, say Bartheleme's _The Dead Father_, might make for a nice juxtaposition with _PR_. Good luck with the lists and the exams! J. Morgan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Hair" To: Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 4:51 PM Subject: Paradise lost and found topic list I am a Ph.D. student attempting to compile a topic list concerning paradise and the search for lost paradise. The idea is centered on Milton, but I wanted to go back to at least Dante (if not before). I also plan on extending the focus to at least the Romantic poets, though Tennyson and CS Lewis look promising. I have many texts already--including works by Tasso, Spenser, Bunyan, Swift, Voltaire, Johnson, Blake, Coleridge, and Shelley--but I would more than invite the suggestions of this learned and eclectic list-serv. What primary texts would you suggest that focus on paradise (earthly, inner, celestial)? What criticism can you recommend (aside from Giamatti and Duncan)? Any feedback at all would be appreciated. Chris Hair From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 4:15 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM/Prelude Doctor L - this inspires me. I shall start postehaste!! The first person comic book adventures of the AutoBiographical I of WW> thanks! ). How would one even begin to translate the > Prelude into a comic book? > > jl > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:41 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: I A Richards & C S Lewis. That was a great anecdote, Mike, thanks for sharing it... Jim From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 10:21 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Bad weather I thought it was that there's no bad weather, only a lack of vodka... On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 07:58:33 -0500 (EST) "Carl Bellinger; lp3" writes: > There's a Russian saying to the effect that there's no bad weather > only bad > clothing.... ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 4:13 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM o well. without wordsworth you could not read even retrospectively yer Milton. Our Miltonis filtered via WW. 'wall scribbling of Ginsberg harumph some critical comment! On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 Tmsandefur@aol.com wrote: > And to children's wall-scribbling, when I go to Ginsberg or his poor > e-immitators. > > Timothy Sandefur > > In a message dated 3/16/2001 4:54:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, > gregwa@gregwa.com writes: > > > > I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > > > >But that's just me... > > > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > > > Gregory C. Benoit > > Dubuque, IA > > ________________________ > > > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:36 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Richards In a message dated 03/20/2001 8:02:42 AM Eastern Standard Time, tiresias@juno.com writes: > I have some memory of being told or reading that this was ultimately a > critique of Richards. This would seem to be the case since Lewis is > arguing that there are such things as congruous and incongruous responses > to reality. In other words, Richards' "stock responses" can be "proper > Hmm...honestly, I don't recall the notion "stock responses" in what I read. I do recall the argument in The Abolition of Man, and thank you very much for the reference to the books under discussion. I do recall Richards being specifically mentioned, however -- mentioned by name. From other listmembers' responses similar ideas were expressed in several of Lewis' works, however, and he seems to have elaborated on his ideas more in some places than in others. I think the only way I can know what I was thinking of is to chase down the books I've actually read. I've never read Lewis' _Preface to Paradise Lost_ but I have read (I think), all of the other works mentioned... Jim From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 12:09 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: some good news I am happy to report that Hong Won Suh, a young Miltonist from whom we can expect much, has taken an excellent tenure-track position at one of South Korea's leading universities, Yonsei. He is revitalizing the Milton Society of Korea, and establishing ties between that group and Miltonists in Japan. He writes that he hopes that "this will eventually lead to a consortium of Milton societies in East Asia." I hate to clog the list with something of interest to only some members, but there are so many of you that have met Hong Won at Murfreesboro, York, or elsewhere that this seemed the best way to get the news out. Steve Fallon ********************************************************** Stephen M. Fallon Program of Liberal Studies and Department of English 368 Decio Hall U of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 219/631-6598 o 219/287-9414 h fallon.1@nd.edu From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 4:14 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, John Leonard wrote: --- Dear M. Leonard -- thank goodness you make this intelligble remark! Milton is the avant-gardist of all comic book Classics as was WW and Ginsberg too. Nice to hear yer connections and links > > > > But comic books are terse and have stories; WW is longwinded and has none. > Paradise Lost could make quite good comic book (Satan addressing his troops, > flying through Chaos, the war in heaven, Adam naming the animals, seeing Eve > for the first time, etc. etc.: it's surprising no-one has done a comic of > PL--as they have of Shakespeare). How would one even begin to translate the > Prelude into a comic book? > > jl > From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:50 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton I don't see this. Do we all have feathers in our whiskers? Lit crit curricula have become more preoccupied with theory, so all lit critics have fostered the move? Sounds like guilt (or merit) by association. One can learn from and use theory (deconstructive, feminist, psychoanalytic, reader response, etc., etc.) and still be troubled by its current weight in curricula. Steve Fallon >Feigning shock at such as response is a trifle like the innocence of the >cat that ate the canary: we've got feathers in our whiskers. > >-Gregory C. Benoit >Dubuque, IA From: Braden J. Hosch [bjhosch@facstaff.wisc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 5:53 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Answer: "Charles the First, Christ the Second" = Owen Feltham Thanks to Joe Black at the Univ. of Tennessee, who provided this answer: it's a line from Owen Felltham, "Epitaph to the eternal memory of Charles the First." ("Here Charles the First, and Christ the second lies"). Felltham added 41 of his poems to a 1661 edition of his _Resolves_, but I'm not sure if this piece was included (though I would certainly *imagine* it was!) Thanks to everyone else who responded! Braden J. Hosch Department of English University of Wisconsin - Madison 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 From: Steve Fallon [fallon.1@nd.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 8:20 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: I love Wordsworth I'm not sure I understand the current round of Wordsworth bashing. Keats' response to Milton and Wordsworth, both of whom he admired very deeply, might give one pause here if the excellence of many of Wordsworth's lyric poems does not. I would count my life more than well-spent if I could write something to rival, much less equal, "A slumber did my spirit seal," the Immortality Ode, or "Tintern Abbey." Wordsworth has his shallows, his failed lines, and his work does not progress toward greater perfection as he grew older (like Keats, one of our greatest poets, in the former but not in the latter). I've not read through The Prelude recently, and I need for all kinds of reasons to return to it, but there are great things in it. John Leonard has, characteristically, a shrewd point to make about the "comic book" barb (although there are stories in WW, especially in some of the lyrics). Milton husbanded his resources, and the result is a body of poetry more uniformly excellent than what Wordsworth has left, but WW's best is wonderful. There's no disputing taste, I realize, but I'm uneasy about what our curt condescension to a great poet says about us. Steve Fallon >And to children's wall-scribbling, when I go to Ginsberg or his poor >e-immitators. > >Timothy Sandefur > >In a message dated 3/16/2001 4:54:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, >gregwa@gregwa.com writes: > > > > I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > > > >But that's just me... > > > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > > > Gregory C. Benoit > > Dubuque, IA > > ________________________ From: Rose Williams [rwill627@camalott.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 6:14 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <000b01c0ae63$3b8c0000$122f193f@compaq> Subject: Re: Paradise lost and found topic list Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 08:04:40 -0000 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu > I am a Ph.D. student attempting to compile a topic list concerning paradise > and the search for lost paradise. The idea is centered on Milton, but I > wanted to go back to at least Dante (if not before). I also plan on > extending the focus to at least the Romantic poets, though Tennyson and CS > Lewis look promising. I have many texts already--including works by Tasso, > Spenser, Bunyan, Swift, Voltaire, Johnson, Blake, Coleridge, and > Shelley--but I would more than invite the suggestions of this learned and > eclectic list-serv. Dear Chris, You might look in ancient literature at Atlantis, the Isles of the Blest, and the Land of the Hyperboreans. This may be too modern, but Philip Caraman's THE LOST PARADISE (published 1975) deals with the South American republic for Native Americans which the Jesuits established in the sixteenth century. Rose Williams From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:31 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM > But comic books are terse and have stories; WW is longwinded and has none. > Paradise Lost could make quite good comic book (Satan addressing his troops, > flying through Chaos, the war in heaven, Adam naming the animals, seeing Eve > for the first time, etc. etc.: it's surprising no-one has done a comic of > PL--as they have of Shakespeare). How would one even begin to translate the > Prelude into a comic book? > > HA...I stand corrected :) Jim From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 7:59 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: stock responses Thanks, Greg, for reminding us of this. Does anyone think that Lewis might have a point about stock responses? He also says of Paradise (p. 51) that "the unexpected here has no place." That now sounds silly (after Stein, Ricks, Fish, McColley etc.), but does the expected not have a place? John Leonard >Lewis does not precisely attack Richard's views on stock responses; on the >contrary, he largely agrees with his perception. Lewis disagrees that this >decay in society is a good thing, and argues that stock responses in the >human psyche are critical to a correct understanding of the higher ideals. >His views on this can be found most completely explained in Preface to >Paradise Lost, chapters 7 and 8. > >-Gregory C. Benoit >Dubuque, IA >________________________ > >gregwa@gregwa.com >http://www.gregwa.com From: M J (Mike) Logsdon [mjl@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 12:06 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: I A Richards & C S Lewis. [From the *Salinas Valley Lewisian*, Summer 1995.] "C S Lewis, Memorable Host" by George Musacchio, Univ of Mary Hardin-Baylor In the late 1920s or early 1930s, C. S. Lewis hosted I. A. Richards, of Cambridge University's English faculty, when the latter gave a lecture at Oxford. Many years later (1977) Richards himself recounted the episode to his biographer, John Paul Russo. Apparently Lewis was an unforgettable host. Before we see why, let's look at some background. During the 1920s-30s I. A. Richards became a prominent and influential literary critic at Cambridge, pushing his English students to perform the "close reading" of lyric poetry that would soon characterize the New Criticism in the United States (e.g., Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren's *Understanding Poetry* first appeared in 1938). Through publication, Richards spread his influence far beyond Cambridge. His best-known books are *Principles of Literary Criticism* (1924) and *Practical Criticism* (1929). Unlike America's New Critics, however, Richards constructed an affective theory of reading -- how reading poetry affects a reader's psyche, improving his or her mental health. As we shall see, this theory was inimical to C. S. Lewis's concept of reading literature. Lewis's *Experiment in Criticism*, not published until much later (1961), makes clear Lewis's view of Richards's affective theory. Early in the book Lewis mentions the "doctrine of Dr I. A. Richards in which the correct reading of good poetry has a veritable therapeutic value" (10). Near the end he explicitly rejects "Richards's theory that the 'calm of mind' we feel after a great tragedy really means 'All's well with the nervous system here and now'" (134-35). Citing *Principles of Literary Criticism*, Lewis shows the absurdity of Richards's somewhat mechanical psychology, rejecting it because it comes so close to sanctioning the "lowest and most debilitating form of egoistic castle-building," which he has pilloried earlier in the *Experiment*. He explains that, for Richards, tragedy "enables us to combine, at the incipient or imaginal level, impulses that would clash in explicit action -- the impulse to approach, and the impulse to shun, the terrible." Then he applies that concept to literature in order to reveal the absurdity: "Just so when I read about the beneficence of Mr Pickwick I can combine (at the incipient level) my wish to give money and my wish to keep it; when I read [*The Battle of] Maldon* I combine (at the same level) my wish to be very brave and my wish to be safe. The incipient level is thus a place where you can eat your cake and have it, where you can be heroic without danger and generous without expense." (135) Lewis concludes, "If I thought literature did this sort of thing to me I should never read again" (135). With that orientation, we are ready to watch Lewis host Richards at Oxford University. Richards's lecture was followed by a question-and-answer period in which adverse critic John Sparrow pressed him roughly. Afterwards, Lewis took Richards to Magdalen College to spend the night. Unfortunately, Lewis had forgotten to reserve a room for his guest. The day was not going well for the visitor from Cambridge. Fortunately, R. G. Collingwood, Magdalen's outstanding philosopher of history, was out of town, so his rooms were available. When Lewis installed his guest there, they noticed there were no books anywhere in the rooms. Lewis said something like "I'll be right back" and disappeared. Soon he returned from his own rooms with a copy of Richards's *Principles of Literary Criticism*. "Here's something that should put you to sleep," he said. But it had the opposite effect. Richards could not get to sleep after reading the marginalia consisting of "Lewis's biting comments" (Russo 795, n. 28). Works Cited Lewis, C. S. *An Experiment in Criticism*. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 1961. Richards, I. A. *Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgement*. London: Routledge, 1929. -------. *Principles of Literary Criticism*. 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt, 1926. Russo, John Paul. *I. A. Richards: His Life and Work*. London: Routledge, 1989. From: Carol Barton [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2001 1:38 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: More Illumination . . . pro se defensio Dear All, In case it isn't obvious, I am working througth the prose texts again at the moment; in _Treatise of Civil Power_ and _Of True Religion_, I found a couple of important passages which I think will ->ahem<- shed further light (?!) on our discussions. Definining "matters of religion" in the _Treatise_ as "such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God: and are either above the reach and light of nature without revelation from above, and therefore liable to be variously understood by human reason, or such things as are enjoined or forbidden by divine precept, which else by the light of reason would seem indifferent to be done or not done; and so likewise must needs appear to every man as the precept is understood," Milton writes: ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ "Whence I here mean by conscience or religion that full persuasion, whereby we are assured that our belief and practice, as far as we are able to apprehend and probably make appear, is according to the will of God and his Holy Spirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather than any law of man, as not only his word everywhere bids us, but the very dictate of reason tells us . . . . It cannot be denied, being the main foundation of our protestant religion, that we of these ages, having no other divine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one another as a common ground, but the holy scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit, so interpreting that scripture as warrantable only to ourselves, and to such whose consciences we can persuade, can have no other ground in matters of religion but only from the scriptures. And these being not possible to be understood without this divine illumination, which no man can know at all times to be in himself, much less to be at any time certain in any other, it follows clearly, that no man or body of men in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters if religion to any men's consciences but their own. . . . If then we count it so ignorant and irreligious in the papist, to think himself discharged in God's account, believing only as the church believes, how much greater condemnation will it be to the protestant his condemner, to think himself justified, believing only as the state believes?" ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ His basis for excluding the Catholics, but insisting on toleration for all of the protestant sects, is that the Catholics do not require individual engagement with the scripture -- rather, they actively (at this time in history) prevent it. Milton mistrusts "the papal antichristian church [that] permits not her laity to read the Bible in their own tongue," because "their ignorance in scripture chiefly upholds popery" -- of the sort that Luther decried in the _Ninety-Five Theses_. This is clear in the following passage, also from _Of True Religion_: ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ St. Paul judged, that not only to tolerate, but to examine and prove all things was no danger to our holding fast of that which is good. How shall we prove all things, which includes all opinions at least founded on scripture, unless we not only tolerate, but patiently hear them, and seriously read them? If he who thinks himself in the truth professes to have learnt it, not by implied faith, but by attentive study of the scriptures, and full persuasion of heart, with what equity can he refuse to hear or read him who demonstrates to have gained his knowledge by the same way? Is it a fair course to assert truth by arrogating to himself the only freedom of speech, and stopping the mouths of others equally gifted? This is the direct way to bring in that papistical implicit faith, which we all disclaim. They pretend it would unsettle the weaker sort: that same groundless fear is pretended by the Romish clergy in prohibiting the scripture." ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Best to all, Carol Barton From: Robert Appelbaum [r_appel@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 12:54 PM To: List Milton Subject: Good Old Cause Thank you, Carol Barton, for the interesting selection from Isaac Pennington. The term, the good Old Cause, is even older though, as Pennington's own remarks suggests. The term, "the good cause," begins appearing around 1653, and the term the good old cause about a year later. It seems to identify an impulse rather than a program: the impulse that caused the members of the New Model Army to fight, and certain members of the Rump and their supporters to continue agitiating against idolatry, bishopry, and monarchy and in favor of the various social, religious, and political reforms that became attached to the fight against the bishops and cavaliers. The term applies then not to any actual "cause," but to the supposed good intentions of those who supported what we now (sometimes) term a revolution, and what people at mid-century didn't seem to have any word for at all. Or can anyone find earlier or more specific uses than I am aware of? From a connotative point of view, if Milton and others during the Restoration were still referring to the Good Old Cause it was, I think, as in Marvell's famous remarks about it, in association with the more general, and more universally admired idea of Reformation and "God's plot" for the world. The "cause," which is to say, the impulse to participate in God's plot and contribute to the general Reformation of the world, was "too good to have fought for," Marvell said. Whatever it entailed programmatically, it was an impulse around which people rallied as early as the convening of the Long Parliament in 1640. I think it's especially interesting that Pennington uses the good old cause primarily as a relational term--that is, he contrasts support for the good cause, whatever it is (and Pennington too is vague about programmatic specifics) against "blacksliding." I have a few references I can look up if anyone is interested. But one text to look into for sure is Henrvy Vane the Younger's A Healing Question Propounded, which in 1656 anticipates Pennington's remarks from a more optimistic point of view. Cheers, 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! Mail Personal Address - Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 12:07 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: New Critical Mythologies I read the second URL but the first didn't work for me -- it's possible the "l" at the end of "htm" was cut off, I haven't checked. The second article was pretty interesting -- My current understanding of Heidegger is that he's, in part, a critique of phenomenology, so it's interesting to me to see him invoked in a phenomenological approach to reading. I had problems with the article right from the start (although I want to emphasize I appreciate the author's presentation -- I felt like it was an honest attempt, and a pretty good one), but I mean I had problems right from the start literally -- with his point 1. :) 1. We live in the world: in history, in concretion: we do not live any where else, and all meaning is only meaning in relation to particular, concrete, historical existence. That's a pretty big statement. He seems to almost be invoking a kind of materialism, but then he goes on... 4. Our symbolic world is not separate from our beings, especially in regard to language: we 'are' language, in that what distinguishes us as persons is that we are beings who are conscious of themselves, that is, can know themselves symbolically and self-reflexively. As Heidegger remarked, "language speaks man." We are not beings who 'use' symbols, but beings who are constituted by their use. At this point I had some difficulty, because he doesn't really narrow the word "constituted." I don't think our fundamental "being" is "constituted" by the way we talk about it, but that what we _think about_ our fundamental "being" is constituted by the way we talk about it. In other words, our being itself isn't shaped by our language about it, just what we think about our being. Now, that's not to say that what we think about our being is not important. I'm reading Heidegger's _Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics_ and he is striving for his readers to recognize or acheive a "fundamental attunement" to our Dasein, being-there, that almost sounds like a pseudo-mystical experience. The point, so far as I can tell, is that we meet being by the way we think about it, and we think about it following the way we talk about it. So Heidegger's job seems to be to get us to think and talk about it differently so we can face being and not run from it. So while all this is implied in the statement, Language speaks man, this process is somewhat suppressed by the web article you posted. I'm open to correction (especially since this is my first approach to this text), of course, and misunderstanding Heidegger is about as easy as misunderstanding a language you've never heard before... Then in point five, when he goes on to talk about "excess meaning to being," he almost seems to contradict what he established in point one. If the "concrete" is all there is, what we live in, and the concrete is represented by language, then there's no use going on about "excess meaning," or even "being." I am, of course, equating "concrete" with "material," but the article didn't really do anything to keep me from doing so. Now, with all my complaining, the guy is still doing some interesting work. I still think he falls into the fundamental mistake of equating "the way we think about something" with "what something is," but at the same time he seems to be working very hard to justify this mistake in a very straightforward manner. Good for him :) Jim > You may be interested in this article by G.T. Karnezis, "Gadamer, Art, > and Play"--http://www.svcc.il.us/academics/classes/gadamer/gadartpl.htm > as well as "Some Principles of Phenomenological > Hermeneutics"--http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/ph.html > > From: Carl Bellinger; lp3 [carlb@shore.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 7:59 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <4.3.1.2.20010315075452.00b96280@mail.sdsu.edu> Subject: Re: Milton and the weather Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 18:18:16 -0500 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu There's a Russian saying to the effect that there's no bad weather only bad clothing, and I wonder how 17 c. accommodations to the elements might be a factor in the need or lack of need to complain; and also, more generally: might there be such an imaginative gulf between us and those on the far side of the 18th c., regarding "nature" and what kind of act of mind/soul/body it is to experience or "enjoy" nature, that our hunt for complaints about weather might miss the best places to look in and the right phrases to look for. The first quatrain in Sh's sonnet 73 ["That time of yeare..."] certainly sounds like an implicit complaint of seasonal cold such as I feel I can identify with (esp. living here in New England), but when in the second quatrain, the twilight after sunset progresses to "blacke night...Deaths second selfe that seals up all in rest," it seems clear there is a radically different imaginative relation to nature there, which makes me wonder if even my reading of the earlier lines "when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang/ Upon those boughs that shake against the cold," may be missing something essential. Before the 18th c. (I'm told) hotels near the Alps had no windows on the sides facing the mountains... -Carl ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter C. Herman" To: Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:58 AM Subject: Re: Milton and the weather > At 01:45 PM 3/14/01 -0800, you wrote: > > > Since geological time wasn't discovered until the late eighteenth century > >or early nineteenth century, it seems unlikely that Milton or anyone of his > >day and age would have conceived of weather evolving over periods of time, > >much less that they were living in an ice age. And indeed if one reads > >through the popular literature of the era one is struck by how little > >English people complain about the weather. > > > The major exception to Bob's comment would be the many comments about the > incredibly lousy weather in 1596 (see, for example, the passage in > Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream by, I believe, Oberon, about how the > oxen have plowed in vain because of the massive rains). People noted the > weather because it caused crop failures, dearth, and real unrest. Now, > while this is obviously well before Milton, he certainly would have known > this passage from MND. > > Peter C. Herman > > From: Hiroko Sano [hiroko.sano@hertford.oxford.ac.uk] Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2001 8:22 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: 7th International Milton Symposium I am writing with the introduction of Prof. John Creaser. I am a Japanese standing committee of the 7th International Milton Symposium to be held in South Carolina next year. I am responsible for informing Japanese Miltonists of 7IMS. I heard that call for papers has recently issued. Would you please email me concerning 7IMS including call for papers? Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. Hiroko Sano, Ph.D Professor of Aoyama Gakuin University Visiting Scholar at Hertford College, University of Oxford 2000-1 From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 6:12 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Richards You may be remembering the first chapter, "Men Without Chests," which deals with two recently published textbooks for the upper forms of English schools. Lewis refers to one as "The Green Book," by "Gaius and Titius" and another as being the work of "Orbilius." The real books were Alex King and Martin Ketley's The Control of Language (1940) and E. G. Biaggini's The Reading and Writing of English (1936). "The Green Book" is criticized for leading students to believe that all statements containing a predicate of value are really just unimportant statements about the subjective/emotional state of the subject, not an external reality. I have some memory of being told or reading that this was ultimately a critique of Richards. This would seem to be the case since Lewis is arguing that there are such things as congruous and incongruous responses to reality. In other words, Richards' "stock responses" can be "proper sentiments" and not "merely propaganda." -Dan Knauss On Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:23:45 -0500 "Gardner Campbell" writes: > Lewis makes the argument you cite in *The Abolition of Man*. I can't > > remember whether he mentions Richards. > > Gardner Campbell > Mary Washington College > > >>> AntiUtopia@aol.com 03/12/01 10:09AM >>> > I'm sorry I can't help you with biographical information, but C.S. > Lewis > attached Richards somewhere -- you may find it interesting to read. > I > think he saw Richards as locating beauty in the subject (seeing > something > as beautiful is a certain type of response) instead of in the > object > (that's a beautiful thing) and had a bit of a problem with that. If > I can > find the reference I'll send it on to you. > > Jim > > Dan Knauss daniel.knauss@marquette.edu - tiresias@juno.com Faerspel Studios: http://www.malaspina.com/faerspel ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: James Dougal Fleming [jdf26@columbia.edu] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 3:17 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton But a Theoretician's irritation is on tap for exactly this pedagogic case: see Stanley Fish on Browne as the bad physician in _Self-Consuming Artifacts_. Fish's construction of _Religio Medici_, as the artifact that refuses to consume itself, illuminates both Fish's theory and Browne's charms. JD Fleming On Thu, 15 Mar 2001 AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote: > Good lord -- that's absolutely horrible. > > Theory is spilt religion... > > Jim > > << Ont he use and misuse of theory ... at JMU we have set > texts for the MA 'comprehansive' exam, and last spring one > of the texts I suggested was Browne's 'Religio Medici' - > the grad students got together to ask faculty to talk with > them about each of the texts, and when they got together > with me, after I talked to them about Browne, about the > philosophical and religious climate, about English prose, > etc etc, one of the very brightest asked me, "But why is > this text supposed to be interesting? It doesn't seem to > fit any current theory. Is it just because he writes well?" > > What do you make of that? > > -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT > > Cynthia A. Gilliatt > English Department MSC 1801 > James Madison University > Harrisonburg VA 22807 > gilliaca@jmu.edu > http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ > 540-568-3762 or 6202 > > >> > From: Carl Bellinger; lp3 [carlb@shore.net] Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 6:38 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Fwd: [METAVIEWS] 012: Galileo's Troubles, by Aritgas, Martivez,and Frances Yates has it that "Bruno believed that the ancient Egyptian religion descending from ... Hermes Trismegistus, was superior to Judaism and Christianity..." [p 110, History & Imagination, ed. Hugh Lloyd-Jones et al, 1981, London, Duckworth] ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Leonard" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 8:21 AM Subject: Re: Fwd: [METAVIEWS] 012: Galileo's Troubles, by Aritgas, Martivez,and > > > > > > > I was on sabbatical in 1984 when I read a review in, I think, TLS of a > book > > > which argued that Galileo was in trouble not so much because of his > >astronomy > > > but because his physics interfered with the doctrine of > transubstantiation. > > > This is interesting. I once read something similar about Bruno. Does > anyone know why he was burnt in 1600? Was it really because he argued for > an infinite universe? > > John Leonard > > From: Orpheus [cwduff@alcor.concordia.ca] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 5:44 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM That is a fascinating comment in and of it self and worthy critical scrutiny and discussion but I am in a hurry today. On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote: > I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > Milton to Wordsworth :) > > But that's just me... > > Jim > > Now if you want to talk about Blake, Coleridge, or Keats, I'd love that :) > > Did you know Dorothy died before she could finish the Grasmere > Journals? Pity she didn't die before she could start them... > > << > think it wld. be intertstin' t'compare&contrast these two big > poets > Wordsworth whose words were worth and Milton's whose were > deterritorialized againstthe pop speak of his day; his latined > ringing english. with WW baaack to speech policy > > >> > From: Braden J. Hosch [bjhosch@facstaff.wisc.edu] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 6:01 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Query: "Charles the First, Christ the Second"? Hi everyone! I remember (or seem to remember) running across an elegy on Charles I written between 1649 and not too much later than 1660 that hails the late king as "Charles the First, Christ the Second." Does anyone know the source? I remember the line but can't locate the poem. Replies to directly to me are welcome, and to avoid clogging Milton-L, I'll post the answer back to the list. Thanks in advance! Braden J. Hosch Department of English University of Wisconsin - Madison 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 From: Chris Hair [crhair0@pop.uky.edu] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 4:51 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Paradise lost and found topic list I am a Ph.D. student attempting to compile a topic list concerning paradise and the search for lost paradise. The idea is centered on Milton, but I wanted to go back to at least Dante (if not before). I also plan on extending the focus to at least the Romantic poets, though Tennyson and CS Lewis look promising. I have many texts already--including works by Tasso, Spenser, Bunyan, Swift, Voltaire, Johnson, Blake, Coleridge, and Shelley--but I would more than invite the suggestions of this learned and eclectic list-serv. What primary texts would you suggest that focus on paradise (earthly, inner, celestial)? What criticism can you recommend (aside from Giamatti and Duncan)? Any feedback at all would be appreciated. Chris Hair From: Greg Benoit [gregwa@gregwa.com] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 10:56 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton Feigning shock at such as response is a trifle like the innocence of the cat that ate the canary: we've got feathers in our whiskers. -Gregory C. Benoit Dubuque, IA At 08:59 AM 3/12/2001 -0500, you wrote: >Ont he use and misuse of theory ... at JMU we have set >texts for the MA 'comprehansive' exam, and last spring one >of the texts I suggested was Browne's 'Religio Medici' - >the grad students got together to ask faculty to talk with >them about each of the texts, and when they got together >with me, after I talked to them about Browne, about the >philosophical and religious climate, about English prose, >etc etc, one of the very brightest asked me, "But why is >this text supposed to be interesting? It doesn't seem to >fit any current theory. Is it just because he writes well?" > >What do you make of that? > >-- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT > >Cynthia A. Gilliatt >English Department MSC 1801 >James Madison University >Harrisonburg VA 22807 >gilliaca@jmu.edu >http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ >540-568-3762 or 6202 > > ________________________ gregwa@gregwa.com http://www.gregwa.com From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 10:19 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM I had a feeling there wouldn't be much argument for that on this list :) Now Blake...that was a poet... Jim > >I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > >But that's just me... > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > Gregory C. Benoit > From: AntiUtopia@aol.com Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 10:19 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Richards Yep, that's it. I believe he does mention Richards specifically. I don't have a copy of that particular Lewis anymore, though, so I can't look it up... Jim > Lewis makes the argument you cite in *The Abolition of Man*. I can't > remember whether he mentions Richards. > > Gardner Campbell > From: Greg Benoit [gregwa@gregwa.com] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 9:43 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Richards Lewis does not precisely attack Richard's views on stock responses; on the contrary, he largely agrees with his perception. Lewis disagrees that this decay in society is a good thing, and argues that stock responses in the human psyche are critical to a correct understanding of the higher ideals. His views on this can be found most completely explained in Preface to Paradise Lost, chapters 7 and 8. -Gregory C. Benoit Dubuque, IA ________________________ gregwa@gregwa.com http://www.gregwa.com From: Cynthia A. Gilliatt [gilliaca@jmu.edu] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 9:00 AM To: Milton-l list Subject: Re: Theory, Practice, and Milton why I am looking forward to retirement in 5 or 6 years - lots of my younger colleagues would see nothing wrong with this question. C On Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:25:34 EST AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote: > Good lord -- that's absolutely horrible. > > Theory is spilt religion... > > Jim > > << Ont he use and misuse of theory ... at JMU we have set > texts for the MA 'comprehansive' exam, and last spring one > of the texts I suggested was Browne's 'Religio Medici' - > the grad students got together to ask faculty to talk with > them about each of the texts, and when they got together > with me, after I talked to them about Browne, about the > philosophical and religious climate, about English prose, > etc etc, one of the very brightest asked me, "But why is > this text supposed to be interesting? It doesn't seem to > fit any current theory. Is it just because he writes well?" > > What do you make of that? > > -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT > > Cynthia A. Gilliatt > English Department MSC 1801 > James Madison University > Harrisonburg VA 22807 > gilliaca@jmu.edu > http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ > 540-568-3762 or 6202 > > >> > -- JMU SAFE ZONES PARTICIPANT Cynthia A. Gilliatt English Department MSC 1801 James Madison University Harrisonburg VA 22807 gilliaca@jmu.edu http://raven.jmu.edu/~gilliaca/ 540-568-3762 or 6202 From: Tmsandefur@aol.com Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 9:25 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM And to children's wall-scribbling, when I go to Ginsberg or his poor e-immitators. Timothy Sandefur In a message dated 3/16/2001 4:54:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, gregwa@gregwa.com writes: > I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > >But that's just me... > > amen, brother! and it ain't just you!! > > Gregory C. Benoit > Dubuque, IA > ________________________ From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 8:33 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: WW/JM -----Original Message----- From: Greg Benoit To: milton-l@richmond.edu Date: March 16, 2001 8:12 AM Subject: Re: WW/JM >At 10:23 AM 3/12/2001 EST, you wrote: > >I feel like I'm going from literary novel to comic book when I go from > >Milton to Wordsworth :) > > > >But that's just me... But comic books are terse and have stories; WW is longwinded and has none. Paradise Lost could make quite good comic book (Satan addressing his troops, flying through Chaos, the war in heaven, Adam naming the animals, seeing Eve for the first time, etc. etc.: it's surprising no-one has done a comic of PL--as they have of Shakespeare). How would one even begin to translate the Prelude into a comic book? jl