Where did you say you studied literature again?

And anyway, the point I was making is that overtly, there isn’t that much to understand; while really understanding Milton is like cooks discussing why a cake fell.

Whatever I say against Milton, I’d never say I couldn’t understand him.

Jim

Let’s take the cited passage in the post. Sonnet 23 has a slightly irregular scheme, ABBA ABBA CD CD CD. Hercules rescued Alcestis from Hades, but only after Admetus f’d up for the second time, and only after she had had to sacrifice herself for him AT THE WEDDING. Milton’s wife, OTOH, left him shortly after the wedding. This is not to condemn Milton, but it’s typical of both Milton and Blake to break off pieces of a mythological cookie (even of their own baking, as with Blake) and leave the rest on the floor.

Someone expresses admiration for Milton’s rhetoric. Find another example, because we could hardly expect to find a better example of what Pound said about Milton: that his mind was “chock-a-block with Latin”. It’s not even a rhetorical problem, but a syntactical one. The first “period” ends with the comma before “And such…” It is twisted by the need to cram mythological details into the relative clause (suspended from “Whom…etc.”). This causes the meter to come apart in lines 5 and 6, where “Mine, as…” requires a tiny pause for the line to scan, and Line 6 not only requires torsion of “Purification…”, but we have to endure yet another relative pronoun (“whom” again). Perhaps “And such, as yet…” made sense to Milton (= and as such did I dream her), but it is very awkward. In fact, lines 8-14 would read much more naturally if the first 6 words of line 7 were simply omitted. However, if we do this we see more clearly that the material of the poem, stripped of its mythological overlay, is rather banal. The only piece that hints at some deeper significance is the beginning of line 10, “Her face was veiled…” Why? And how did he see all the rest of her qualities through the veil? But this mystery turns out to be a throwaway, and Milton finishes with the most common oxymoron.

In comments, someone says this is one of the greatest sonnets in English:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day labour, light denied,
I fondly ask; but patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Despite the fame of the final apothegm, this sonnet is hardly readable, indeed, it is hardly English at all. The personification of patience is awkward because it is his own patience that reproves his own impatience. The “who best…” clause is another example of that bent Latinate syntax Pound rolled his eyes about.

The best way to criticize this one is simply to rewrite it.

When I consider how my light is spent,
My days half gone in this dark world and wide,
My talent hidden that is death to hide,
Though for so much the more my soul’s intent
To make it serve my Maker, and present
A fair account, lest he returning chide,
I ask: does God ask true eye of the blind?
My mind’s strength answers the weakness of my mind:
Who bears his yoke most willing bears it best;
He biddeth one to hasten, one to rest;
To one the way of wandering, one the strait.
They also serve who only stand and wait.

And finally – dear miltonista – I do hope to serve in the angelic host, but not in the harness of a coach horse.

I did find the reference to “lustral waters” confusing, though. “Lustral” means “purifying,” not anything to do with lust or sex. Surely Milton of all people wouldn’t have used the word as if it had anything to do with the English word that happens to share its first four letters?

But see the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious Song should here have ending:
Heav’ns youngest teemed Star
Hath fixt her polisht Car,
Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending,
And all about the Courtly Stable,
Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.

“On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” XXVII

Indeed, it is precisely the notion that “chastity” means the same as “sexual abstinence” that has (erroneously) led to the notion of Christianity (and especially Catholicism) as “anti-sex”. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth, as one could readily discover by digging a bit: as an example, the late John Paul II wrote a number of essays and books on “theology of the body” that are relevant.

Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.

His question was, where in Milton do we see two words enlarging the meanings of the individual words joined, as we do here in “rooky wood”?

I don’t see it happening in On His Blindness, though it’s true every word furthers the argument in some way. There’s also a lot of sonnets I’d place higher than Milton’s, mostly Shakespeare’s, even that Donne holy sonnet you turned me onto a few months ago.

Oh, Shara? Meet my mother-in-law, Gretchen Mieszkowski.

Gretchen, meet my fellow bard Shara Lessley.

Gretchen’s a Chaucer scholar and author who teaches at University of Houston – Clear Lake. She’s also a pretty excellent reader.

Jim

Dead language?

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day labour, light denied,
I fondly ask; but patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

“fondly” means “foolishly” here.

Surely this is one of the greatest sonnets in the English language.

And as for memorable lines from PL, how about, describing Adam and Eve: “these two / Imparadised in one another’s arms”?

Gretchen