Milton's Melting Voices
"Of the two pieces, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso," Samuel Johnson wrote, "I believe opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure" (1266). Though on principle I am tempted to resist his occasionally hideous generalizations, I must also acknowledge that...
...well...I, too, liked them. Of course, I also thought my head was going to implode if I had to hunker one more time over now-obscure Classical references linked to the text not with proper footnotes but difficult-to-keep-track-of lines. This frustration, however, I blame not on Milton but (properly) on cultural changes, those somewhat mysterious occurrences responsible for (among many other things, of course) making most contemporary readers into a strange combination of illiterate literates when it comes to fully understanding and engaging the context of Milton's works.
But anyway, I liked them. Not because the images that they invoked were pretty--although I do not think that many would deny the aesthetic appeal of a "melting voice through mazes running" (Milton 71), or any other line, for that matter. Too often, however, aesthetics are used to justify uncritical readings, analyses unconcerned with historical specificity and intimately dependent upon universalizing, essentialist claims of beauty as the ultimate worth or purpose of a text. Johnson's opening line seems to lean in this direction, citing what appears to be the reading public's universal approval of and pleasure in L'allegro and Il Penseroso. Ultimately, however, he offers what I find to be a sound analysis of what he thinks is going on in these texts and why--not just that he or other readers like them.
This analysis I will not attempt to counter, as my ideas do not radically differ from his (possibly because I found his ideas so engaging that I made them my own), but I will try to expand upon them a bit. Johnson makes a distinction between what he terms the "cheerful man" of L'allegro and the "pensive man" (Johnson 1266-1267) of Il Penseroso. This is a rather specious distinction, however, for to paraphrase Johnson, both men are shockingly similar. The sharp line supposed to divide the dualistic pair of merry and melancholy is blurry beyond recognition, for both characters share in solitary wanderings, removed from human contact and made into mere "spectator[s]" (Johnson 1267). Indeed, this sense of seeing or observing from a distance is almost tangible in line 69: "Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures / While the Landscape round it measures" (Milton 70). And shortly thereafter, line 77 transforms the speaker's eye into an "it," removing even the speaker's subjectivity from himself.
Following another train of thought: The opening lines of L'allegro, those concerned with the birth of Melancholy, resonate strongly with Milton's description of the birth of Death from the womb of Sin in Paradise Lost. Or maybe I just have an unhealthy appreciation for "horrid shapes [...] and sights unholy" (Milton 68) and make connections between them in everything I read. Or maybe both. Cool.
On Edward Phillips and The Life of Milton: It reminded me of hagiographies of medieval saints. There is a definite and fascinating teleology to its (re)telling, as is clearly seen in such cornerstone statements as: "John, our author, who was destined to be the ornament and glory of his country" (Milton 1027). Around these lines the entire work is organized, providing us with a means to engage Milton's many lives (as seen, experienced, heard, and continuously (re)told from various perspectives), as well as a way to interrogate notions of objectivity and representations of "reality" in biography.
WORKS CITED
Johnson, Samuel. "From Milton." Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merrit Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: Odyssey, 1977.
...well...I, too, liked them. Of course, I also thought my head was going to implode if I had to hunker one more time over now-obscure Classical references linked to the text not with proper footnotes but difficult-to-keep-track-of lines. This frustration, however, I blame not on Milton but (properly) on cultural changes, those somewhat mysterious occurrences responsible for (among many other things, of course) making most contemporary readers into a strange combination of illiterate literates when it comes to fully understanding and engaging the context of Milton's works.
But anyway, I liked them. Not because the images that they invoked were pretty--although I do not think that many would deny the aesthetic appeal of a "melting voice through mazes running" (Milton 71), or any other line, for that matter. Too often, however, aesthetics are used to justify uncritical readings, analyses unconcerned with historical specificity and intimately dependent upon universalizing, essentialist claims of beauty as the ultimate worth or purpose of a text. Johnson's opening line seems to lean in this direction, citing what appears to be the reading public's universal approval of and pleasure in L'allegro and Il Penseroso. Ultimately, however, he offers what I find to be a sound analysis of what he thinks is going on in these texts and why--not just that he or other readers like them.
This analysis I will not attempt to counter, as my ideas do not radically differ from his (possibly because I found his ideas so engaging that I made them my own), but I will try to expand upon them a bit. Johnson makes a distinction between what he terms the "cheerful man" of L'allegro and the "pensive man" (Johnson 1266-1267) of Il Penseroso. This is a rather specious distinction, however, for to paraphrase Johnson, both men are shockingly similar. The sharp line supposed to divide the dualistic pair of merry and melancholy is blurry beyond recognition, for both characters share in solitary wanderings, removed from human contact and made into mere "spectator[s]" (Johnson 1267). Indeed, this sense of seeing or observing from a distance is almost tangible in line 69: "Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures / While the Landscape round it measures" (Milton 70). And shortly thereafter, line 77 transforms the speaker's eye into an "it," removing even the speaker's subjectivity from himself.
Following another train of thought: The opening lines of L'allegro, those concerned with the birth of Melancholy, resonate strongly with Milton's description of the birth of Death from the womb of Sin in Paradise Lost. Or maybe I just have an unhealthy appreciation for "horrid shapes [...] and sights unholy" (Milton 68) and make connections between them in everything I read. Or maybe both. Cool.
On Edward Phillips and The Life of Milton: It reminded me of hagiographies of medieval saints. There is a definite and fascinating teleology to its (re)telling, as is clearly seen in such cornerstone statements as: "John, our author, who was destined to be the ornament and glory of his country" (Milton 1027). Around these lines the entire work is organized, providing us with a means to engage Milton's many lives (as seen, experienced, heard, and continuously (re)told from various perspectives), as well as a way to interrogate notions of objectivity and representations of "reality" in biography.
WORKS CITED
Johnson, Samuel. "From Milton." Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merrit Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: Odyssey, 1977.
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