Engaged in Single Combat
...so...Milton's prose...
Take heart, dear audience, I can guarantee you that reading this entry will not consume a large chunk of your time. It's important to stress that my reticence is not due to a lack of interest--I'm interested, quite actually, I just don't know what the hell Milton's saying. Also, the genre of poetry easily lends itself to various interpretations (both historically informed and hideously ignorant) while prose is a bit more concrete, requiring, I feel, a bit more responsibility. Therefore, the thought of offering detailed analyses on subjects that I know nothing about makes me uncomfortable.
...
Well, I would like to point out a few things of interest before you close the browser window (disclaimer: these thoughts are not so much interpretations and constructions of meaning as they are a highlighting of particular points with an acknowledgement of my positionality as modern reader). In the "Second Defense of the English People," Milton asks "who is there who does not identify the honor of his country with his own?" (818). Upon reading this passage, my initial thoughts were of (in order) 1) Bendict Anderson's Imagined Communities, 2) contemporary theories of the nation-state, and 3) identity politics. The major connective theme running through these seemingly disparate (I assure you, they are not) avenues is a fascination with the ways in which Milton and others struggled to justify the execution of a king without turning their worldviews completely inside-out.
To overthrow one's king was seen as a violation of the natural hierarchy, the divine order, of life. In "Second Defense of the English People," we see Milton attempting to transform and employ this sense of the natural to glorify the actions of the people and cement British identity at its most tremulous moment. Rather than nature coming undone at this "unnatural" exercise of power, Milton invokes images of earth and fertility in his description of Britain in the aftermath of revolution: "And Britain, which was formerly styled a hotbed of tyranny, will hereafter deserve to be celebrated for endless ages as a soil most genial to the growth of liberty" (818). He continues this theme onto the next page, equating liberty with a particularly British plant exported to and disseminated among foreign countries and peoples (819). For Milton, then, violent, even monstrous uprising and overthrow is agricultural renewal, the happy return of a long-absent, almost Edenic spring.
The last point which I wish to briefly touch on here is the place and duties that Milton assigns himself in the revolutionary army. Proclaiming his mind sharper than his body, Milton writes that "with the better part of my frame I contributed as much as possible to the good of my country and to the success of the glorious cause in which they were engaged" (819). His contributions, though not "bodily" in the fleshly, sword-waving sense, were nevertheless highly active and integral to the victories experienced. In "Second Defense of the English People," we see Milton construct himself not as a rather passive collector of history, but as a kind of ink-stained warrior ordained by God to "[record] with dignity and elegance, and that the truth, which had been defended by arms, should also be defended by reason; which is the best and only legitimate means of defending it" (819). The wall erected between thought and action, speech and war, is severely destabilized, allowing us to engage historical record not as recitation but as creation, and even more so, a valuable (if not the most valuable) weapon.
God Himself, Milton writes, is an "Author" (819).
Take heart, dear audience, I can guarantee you that reading this entry will not consume a large chunk of your time. It's important to stress that my reticence is not due to a lack of interest--I'm interested, quite actually, I just don't know what the hell Milton's saying. Also, the genre of poetry easily lends itself to various interpretations (both historically informed and hideously ignorant) while prose is a bit more concrete, requiring, I feel, a bit more responsibility. Therefore, the thought of offering detailed analyses on subjects that I know nothing about makes me uncomfortable.
...
Well, I would like to point out a few things of interest before you close the browser window (disclaimer: these thoughts are not so much interpretations and constructions of meaning as they are a highlighting of particular points with an acknowledgement of my positionality as modern reader). In the "Second Defense of the English People," Milton asks "who is there who does not identify the honor of his country with his own?" (818). Upon reading this passage, my initial thoughts were of (in order) 1) Bendict Anderson's Imagined Communities, 2) contemporary theories of the nation-state, and 3) identity politics. The major connective theme running through these seemingly disparate (I assure you, they are not) avenues is a fascination with the ways in which Milton and others struggled to justify the execution of a king without turning their worldviews completely inside-out.
To overthrow one's king was seen as a violation of the natural hierarchy, the divine order, of life. In "Second Defense of the English People," we see Milton attempting to transform and employ this sense of the natural to glorify the actions of the people and cement British identity at its most tremulous moment. Rather than nature coming undone at this "unnatural" exercise of power, Milton invokes images of earth and fertility in his description of Britain in the aftermath of revolution: "And Britain, which was formerly styled a hotbed of tyranny, will hereafter deserve to be celebrated for endless ages as a soil most genial to the growth of liberty" (818). He continues this theme onto the next page, equating liberty with a particularly British plant exported to and disseminated among foreign countries and peoples (819). For Milton, then, violent, even monstrous uprising and overthrow is agricultural renewal, the happy return of a long-absent, almost Edenic spring.
The last point which I wish to briefly touch on here is the place and duties that Milton assigns himself in the revolutionary army. Proclaiming his mind sharper than his body, Milton writes that "with the better part of my frame I contributed as much as possible to the good of my country and to the success of the glorious cause in which they were engaged" (819). His contributions, though not "bodily" in the fleshly, sword-waving sense, were nevertheless highly active and integral to the victories experienced. In "Second Defense of the English People," we see Milton construct himself not as a rather passive collector of history, but as a kind of ink-stained warrior ordained by God to "[record] with dignity and elegance, and that the truth, which had been defended by arms, should also be defended by reason; which is the best and only legitimate means of defending it" (819). The wall erected between thought and action, speech and war, is severely destabilized, allowing us to engage historical record not as recitation but as creation, and even more so, a valuable (if not the most valuable) weapon.
God Himself, Milton writes, is an "Author" (819).
posted by alh at 11:03 PM
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