Part of the Introduction on Milton and MacLeish

J. M.

I may have posted an earlier version of this already, but so be it if I have:

A moment's reflection on MacLeish’s dual roles as poet and public figure should lead readers to see that MacLeish not only knew the two roles, he also had the skill set to make good use of them. He was like Milton in these ways, for Milton was definitely both poet and public figure. However, where Milton wants to justify God's ways to humankind, MacLeish will argue that God's ways cannot be justified at all. Both Milton and MacLeish composed short lyrical poems, but also long, epic ones. They both therefore had to deal with myth and even to mythologize. In fact, the similitude of their similarity and the depth of their difference may very well have left MacLeish anxious about there being too much of Milton in MacLeish's filling of the two roles at least as well as Milton had, but also perhaps anxious to fill the two roles still better than Milton had, even while drawing attention away from Milton's influence. This article will explore these various possibilities.

Feel free to suggest improvements!

Reduced Text, Diminished Knight

MacLeish

Here are MacLeish's four pages on Milton, but cut to one page:

A Knight there was, [name of Milton,] rode on a mighty horse along a highway, rough and tortuous; his head held high, his eyes fixed on a distant mount from whose fair summit came a gleam of white, as ever and anon he saw it through the barren hills that lay about . . . . But as he rode and seemed to near the goal he sought, a cry came to his ears from out a narrow glen, and leaping from his saddle to the earth, he ran and . . . entered in the struggle (20). Two parties, at each other’s throats, unmindful of the higher law of patriotism, seemed content to let her[, the nation,] bear the suffering of their strife. On one hand stood a king, false, selfish and tyrannical; on the other, kneeled a group of men, courageous, yet fanatical, freedom loving, brave (21-22). When Milton, who had poured his soul into perhaps the sweetest of all English verse, . . . was made to feel the power of this mighty strife, he found himself forced to a choice . . . . Here, . . . we pause in admiration of his greatness (22). The years went by, . . . and now he would have turned his steps back to the road left years before. But . . . . his sight was taken (23). Then Cromwell died, . . .and Milton, sightless, friendless and alone, stood at the point his love of freedom called him from twenty years before. But in his heart, unchangeable and clear, still lay the vision that had brightened all his former life . . . . [I]n his heart he saw as clearly as before the gleam of white, pure marble in the sun, the terraced walls, and massive towers of the castle on the hill. And . . . . he wrote his epic . . . . The gate was won, the towers and the battlements (23).

Hmm . . . well, it is shorter, but also diminished, as is the knight, too.

Good Knight! It's John Milton!

Red Cross Knight
Not Only the Spenserian One

Archibald MacLeish wrote the following essay, "John Milton," in 1909, when MacLeish was a seventeen-year-old student at Hotchkiss School, and it was published the next year in the Hotchkiss Record Literary Supplement (Volume 17, Issue 1, January 1910, pages 20-23).

A Knight there was, rode on a mighty horse along a highway, rough and tortuous; his head held high, his eyes fixed on a distant mount from whose fair summit came a gleam of white, as ever and anon he saw it through the barren hills that lay about. And oft he passed a traveler on the way, who laughed and mocked, and tempted him to turn from off the winding road into the summer-land of fields and vineyards that lay by. Yet did the Knight not turn, nor drop his glance, which searched the hilltops for the flash of white, pure marble in the sun. And now he passed through villages and towns, where dogs, and apish children followed at his heels and laughed. But still a light of visions touched his face, and raised him from the ranks those who mocked. But as he rode and seemed to near the goal he sought, a cry came to his ears from out a narrow glen, and leaping from his saddle to the earth, he ran and leaving horse and road, and vision and ambition, entered in the struggle. Long time he fought, until the light of victory seemed nearly to unveil the way out of this fearful place. Yet when he would have followed it, his sword was broken, and, weaponless, he stood before the trackless hills. But as he darkly fled across the desert land, he saw again the lordly castle set on its terraced hill, and, swordless as he was, pressed through the laurel and the thorn up to the gates that opened to his step.

Some centuries ago a boy was born in the very heart of London, whose life was destined to have an incalculable effect on the history, political and literary, of his time. In appearance and manner he was hardly different from any other boy of English stock and blood; perhaps even in mental powers he did not surpass them, but the difference lay in his heart. He dreamed, while still a child, a wond'rous dream, and in his vision saw things glorious and beautiful; himself the author of a mighty epic which should shake the world to its foundation, and should make mankind see clearly, face to face, the mighty unseen forces round about them; the world applauding and his name passed down from mouth to mouth into eternity. Here then he rose, in earliest youth, above the rank of his companions. His vision, puissant, splendid, satisfied in him all wishes and desires, and in his soul he vowed that he would live a life, that in its clean, unspotted purity, should elevate his mind to thoughts above the reach of any but the noblest and the best.

Thus then he lived, a hermit among men, led by a hope of dim foreshadowed things, content to spend his life, his being in their consummation. Such faith, such trust may not be passed without the deepest reverence and the highest praise. He was a man marked out from other men, marked by the sweet, stern beauty of his face, marked by the look of dreaming in his eyes. He seemed to live in youth, unconscious of the awful struggle that had swept his nation off her feet. Two parties, at each other's throats, unmindful of the higher law of patriotism, seemed content to let her bear the suffering of their strife. On one hand stood a king, false, selfish and tyrannical; on the other, kneeled a group of men, courageous, yet fanatical, freedom loving, brave. Around the standard of the king, had gathered gay, light hearted pleasure lovers; around the sombre altar of the Puritans, the sober worshipers, the stern undoubting seekers after truth. The king, false as he was, loved, in his heart, the beautiful. The Puritans, high though their purposes and aims, destroyed and ruined all that smacked of beauty and the earth. To half the world all life was pleasure, to the other half all happiness was sin. The Puritan rebellion was a war inevitable as the storms of winter. As truly as God-fearing men may feel the weight of a despotic hand, as truly as broad minded patriots foresee the rule of tyranny and force, so truly will an awful war be waged, and men be made to take a dauntless stand.

When Milton, who had poured his soul into perhaps the sweetest of all English verse, and from his hermit cell, had viewed the world through colored mists, was made to feel the power of this mighty strife, he found himself forced to a choice, which, with his soul, he hated; a choice between his vision and his land, between the dream which had become himself, and the duty which was calling him from off the road, to lead him down the soggy glen. Here, at the most momentous period of his life, we pause in admiration of his greatness. To him who loved the beautiful so well, who could, while yet a youth, write his "Il Penseroso," was offered association with those who hated beauty, and who destroyed it, when it lay within their grasp. But if he turned and followed Cavalier and King, he must accept the standard which they raised; tyranny, licentiousness, irreverence. How well he chose, his works have long since witnessed. He dropped his hopes and his ambitions, he left his horse and way and entered in the strife. His pen, which once had traced the sweetest poetry, was turned to work that any scribbler could have done. Yet even here, he stands pre-eminent; his quibbles and his heavy treatises have won a place and held it for the simple grandeur of their style.

The years went by, he gained distinction in the Common-wealth, victory seemed almost in his hands; and now he would have turned his steps back to the road left years before. But his sacrifice to liberty and truth was not yet quite complete. In the writing of his final work as minister of Cromwell's government, his sight was taken - his sword had fallen from his hand.

Then Cromwell died, and with him right and justice in the land. Back to the thrones they had disgraced were led the Stuart kings, and Milton, sightless, friendless and alone, stood at the point his love of freedom called him from twenty years before. But in his heart, unchangeable and clear, still lay the vision that had brightened all his former life. Still in the darkened chambers of his brain, fantastic figures moved, and scenes of rarest beauty were portrayed. His spirit, high, and yet unbroken, strove to place before the world the thoughts that crowded through his mind. He saw no way before him in the hills, but in his heart he saw as clearly as before the gleam of white, pure marble in the sun, the terraced walls, and massive towers of the castle on the hill. And now there gathered in his brain the threads of the great realities of life and death, and exalted by the scenes of noble beauty in his sightless eyes, he wrote his epic through the hand of one who did not know the greatness of the thing he wrote. The gate was won, the towers and the battlements.

The 'story' reminds me of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Probably, it would remind one of any story concerning a quest pursued despite the many impediments.

Anyway, we've made our way through the text, and it doubtless has a lot to tell us about Archibald MacLeish, but does it tell us anything about John Milton?

Was Milton or MacLeish Ever Subject to Wordlessness in Their Youth?

Wordiness?

I finally managed to access an early essay by Archibald MacLeish. I had tracked down the bibliographical details and was advised on whom to contact. Here are those details:

Archibald MacLeish, "John Milton," Hotchkiss Record Literary Supplement, Volume 17, Issue 1 (January 1910), 20-23.

On advice, I contacted the librarians at Hotchkiss School, the boarding school attended by MacLeish, and requested the essay on Milton. Here is the beginning:

A Knight there was, rode on a mighty horse along a highway, rough and tortuous; his head held high, his eyes fixed on a distant mount from whose fair summit came a gleam of white, as ever and anon he saw it through the barren hills that lay about. And oft he passed a traveler on the way, who laughed and mocked, and tempted him to turn from off the winding road into the summer-land of fields and vineyards that lay by. Yet did the Knight not turn, nor drop his glance, which searched the hilltops for the flash of white, pure marble in the sun. And now he passed through villages and towns, where dogs, and apish children followed at his heels and laughed. But still a light of visions touched his face, and raised him from the ranks those who mocked. But as he rode and seemed to near the goal he sought, a cry came to his ears from out a narrow glen, and leaping from his saddle to the earth, he ran and leaving horse and road, and vision and ambition, entered in the struggle . . .

Perhaps I'll continue typing this down tomorrow, but note for now the "narrow glen," which reminds me of the "ravine" in Dante. I also hear a distant echo of the Faerie Queen, and maybe even Pilgrim's Progress.

Influential Anxiety?

Harold Bloom

I've been looking into Harold Bloom's famous lit-crit book, The Anxiety of Influence, in which he presents his view that strong poets write in response to powerful poets before them out of an anxiety of influence that drives the latter poets to test their poetic strengths against such powerful poets of the past and thereby reveal their own poetic strengths through creative reinterpretations surpassing those of the earlier poets.

I think that this describes Archibald MacLeish in his attempts to wrestle with John Milton, whom he, of course, cannot best.

Or so I hope to show . . .

MacLeish - Conquistador

Cortés

MacLeish's"Conquistador" can be found in Collected Poems, 1917-1982, and here are the lines that preface the tale of Bernal Díaz del Castillo:

The Argument

Of that world's conquest and the fortunate wars:
Of the great report and expectation of honor:
How in their youth they stretched sail: how fared they

Westward under the wind: by wave wandered:
Shoaled ship at the last at the ends of ocean:
How they were marching in the lands beyond:

Of the difficult ways there were and the winter's snow
Of the city they found in the good lands: how they lay in it:
How there were always the leaves and the days going . . . (page 184)

This actually sounds rather like Milton, to my ear, anyway. Recall the opening lines of Paradise Lost, which I've borrowed from The John Milton Reading Room and which begin immediately after an argument (see Reading Room):

OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, [ 5 ]
Sing Heav'nly Muse . . .

I hear a distant echo of Milton in MacLeish's lines. I also hear an echo of Beowulf. Consider this: "Westward under the wind: by wave wandered." All that alliteration? There's even a caesura! Very like Beowulf. But I didn't come here today to talk to you about Beowulf. You already know about Beowulf. He's either alive in your mind, or he's not.

I mean to talk here today about Milton and MacLeish. Notice, then, the fact that MacLeish, like Milton, prefaces the beginning lines with an 'Argument.' As I said before, go to the Reading Room, and see just above the opening lines of Paradise Lost.

Of course, there will be differences . . .

Robert Vanderlan: Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas Inside Henry Luce's Media Empire

Robert Vanderlan

Vanderlan connects Milton and MacLeish, as we see in the following passages:

From a very young age MacLeish was already trying to sort out his conflicting feelings about the relationship between art and the rest of the world. During his time at Hotchkiss, he wrote an essay on John Milton. The great poet had been called away from his art to serve the cause of Cromwell, a decision MacLeish depicted in these terms: "His pen, which once had traced the sweetest poetry, was turned to work any scribbler could have done." Yet MacLeish maintained Milton had been correct in his choice, for his active engagement with the world prepared him for the greater poems to follow. "Now there gathered in his brain the threads of the great realities of life and death," he concluded, and it was this that enabled him to write Paradise Lost. Negotiating the line between art and a broader engagement with the world became and remained the animating question of his intellectual life. (page 32)

While compiling a sterling academic, social, and athletic record MacLeish still worried over how to balance his competing interests. At Yale, he found it hard to sustain the optimism contained in his earlier Milton essay. He felt it to be an inopportune place to write poetry. His athletic achievements were celebrated, his classroom success venerated, but his poetry (or maybe it was his odd combination of poet/athlete) fell somehow outside the narrowly prescribed bounds of Yale identity. (page 32)

Here he gave full voice to his determination to live for art and art alone. As he wrote in the famous last lines of "Ars poetica," "A poem should not mean, but be." Forsaking the example of Milton, MacLeish had joined Mason and the idealists. (page 34-35)

As school friend Culbreth Sudler remembered, Luce’s favorite poet was Milton, probably for the same reasons he appealed to the young Archibald MacLeish. Luce "said he wanted to be a poet," Sudler recalled, "He would have liked to be as good as Milton." His pursuit of poetry seems to have subsided only after he took Henry Seidel Canby's advanced writing course. The class included Stephen Vincent Benét and Thornton Wilder and was often visited by recent alumni, among them MacLeish, John Farrar, and Philip Barry. (page 68)

In "Public Speech and Private Speech in Poetry" MacLeish had invoked a poetic tradition running back to Milton and Dante. It was time to revive that tradition, he argued, "to regain that conception of poetry in which a poem, like a war or an edict, is an action on this earth." (page 133)

We now see that MacLeish returned again and again to Milton, comparing and contrasting Milton and himself, at times, siding with Milton, at other times, not siding with Milton.

A Young Archibald MacLeish's Essay on John Milton

Amazon

In Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, Scott Donaldson (2016) informs us of an essay on John Milton by a 17-year-old MacLeish, an essay on Milton's dilemma, which was also MacLeish's dilemma, a:

dilemma that was to confront him time and again in his career: how to reconcile the demands of private poetry with those of public service. Using the kind of concrete detail notably missing from his Lincoln essay and from the fable of the westerner, MacLeish focuses on the choice the great English poet had to make between his art and his country, "between the dream which had become himself, and the duty which was calling him from off the road." Milton chose to do his duty, to give up the artistic career that had already produced such brilliant work as "Il Penseroso," in order to become a pamphleteer and treatise writer for the Puritan cause and Oliver Cromwell's government. "His pen, which once had traced the sweetest poetry, was turned to work that any scribbler could have done." In the process "his sight was taken - his sword was fallen from his hand." When the Stuart kings returned to the throne, Milton was left “sightless, friendless, and alone.” Yet Milton made the right choice, the essay maintains, for not only did he serve when needed, but Paradise Lost lay ahead. As Archie expressed it in a flight of rhetoric, "Now there gathered in his brain the threads of the great realities of life and death, and exalted by the scenes of noble beauty in his sightless eyes, he wrote his epic through the hand of one who did not know the greatness of the thing he wrote." At the annual literary contest between the Forum and its rival society the Agora, in December 1909, Archie read his "John Milton," which won the bestessay award and contributed to the Forum's victory. [40 . . . "John Milton," Hotchkiss Record Literary Supplement, (January 1910), 20-23]

This passage includes some of MacLeish's essay on Milton. From such an essay by one so young, we can infer that MacLeish entertained a desire to be like Milton, if duty should call him to do so. I will refer to this passage again in another blog entry when I have more on MacLeish's familiarity with Milton.

Meanwhile, does anyone have access to MacLeish's entire essay?

Salomé, Oscar Wilde (Joost Daalder's Analysis)

Oscar Wilde

Wikipedia

Oscar Wilde's drama Salome is a complex text in its English translation from the French original. It was first translated by Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas in 1894, but this version was considered unsatisfactory and was replaced in 1906 by a much superior translation by Wilde's lifelong friend and literary executor Robert Ross. This fact that the text of 1894 was not very good was suppressed by Wilde and Ross in order that Douglas's feelings not be hurt, which could lead to Wilde's loss of his lover (i.e., Douglas). I have pasted the first two pages of Joost Daalder's article as a way of introducing these issues.

Daalder, incidentally, notes that Douglas tends to 'biblicize' the text, which means that he puts the English translation into the language of the Authorized Version (i.e., the King James Version). Here is an example of this biblicizing (W = Wilde; D = Douglas; R = Ross) by Douglas:

Aussi j'ai entendu un battement d'ailes dan l'air, un battement d'ailes gigantesques. Ce sont de tres mauvais presages. Et i1 y en avail d'autres. Je suis sur qu'il y en avait d'autres, quoique je ne les aie pas vus. Eh bien! Salome, vous ne voulez pas qu'un maIheur m'arrive? Vous ne voulez pas cela. Enfin, ecoutez-moi W; Also did I not hear a beating of wings in the air, a beating of vast wings?'These are ill omens. And there were other things. I am sure that there were other things, though I saw them not. Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me, Salome? Listen to me again D; Also, I heard a beating of wings in the air, a beating of mighty wings. These are very evil omens, and there were others. I am sure there were others though I did not see them. Well, Salomé, you do not wish a misfortune to happen to me? You do not wish that. Listen to me, then R

Note the biblical "Thou" and the subjunctive of "will" (want) in "wouldst": "Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me." (Note also the shift from Douglas's "vast" wings to Ross's "mighty" wings, though this is not a biblicizing move.)

Here begins Joost Daalder's opening pages:

[Page 131]

"A History of Confusion: The Two Earliest English Translations of Oscar Wilde's Salomé," Bibliographical Society of Australia New Zealand Bulletin, Vo1. 26, No. 3, and 4, 2002, 131-172

Joost Daalder

Introducing the Issues

Salome is now one of Oscar Wilde's most highly regarded plays - no longer only in continental Europe, but also in English-speaking countries. As is well known, it was originally written in French and published in 1893:

Oscar Wilde, Salome: Drame en un Acte, Paris: Librairie de l'Art Indépendant; London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1893. - Stuart Mason, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde, London: Bodley Head and T. Werner Laurie, 1914 (new ed., London: Bertram Rota, 1967), no. 348.[1].

[1]This is an extremely rare book. As most readers will have great difficulty locating a copy, I cite Wilde's French from Robert Ross's first collected edition of the Works, London: Methuen, 1908, reproduced under the title The First Collected Edition of the Works of Oscar Wilde, 1908-1922, in 15 vols, London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1969. Salomé is part of vo1. l3 (though of vo1. 2 in the 1908 version). I use the form Salome instead of the French Salomé wherever the texts cited allow me to do so, and also when I refer to the play in general terms. In English the second syllable normally receives the stress, in French it is always the last.

Page 132

It is also common knowledge that an unsatisfactory translation of the play into English by Wilde's beloved 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas, appeared in 1894:

Salome - A Tragedy in One Act: Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde: Pictured by Aubrey Beardsley, London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane; Boston: Copeland and Day, 1894 - Mason Nr. 350[2]

[2]This, again, is a very rare book. The illustrations in this article are from a copy in the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne.

The 1894 text does not bear Douglas's name, but does include an acknowledgement: 'To my friend Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas the translator of my play'. What until now has not been realised, however, is that this translation has been persistently confused with a later, drastically overhauled version - virtually a new translation - first published in 1906 and almost certainly prepared by Robert Ross, Wilde's life-long friend, and his literary executor after his death in 1900.[3] This later version has been repeatedly mistaken for Douglas's original translation. Thus many - indeed most - judgements formed about what is held to be Douglas's translation are in fact based on Ross's amended version, which has often been re-printed by later publishers, and presented to an unknowing public, as though it was Douglas's. Vice versa, those who concern themselves with Douglas's version are unaware of the existence of Ross's.

[3]Salome: A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1906. Mason (no. 352) points out that this book was reprinted in the form he describes in 1908 and 1911. An upgraded version of the 1906 publication (Mason no. 355) had meanwhile appeared, dated 1907 but published in September 1906: Salome: A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, with Sixteen Drawings by Aubrry Beardsley, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1907. The text of the play remained unaltered from the 1906 publication, though some significant material was added. Either the 1906 or the 1907 volume provided the basis for all subsequent reprints of Ross's 1906 version, which will from here on be referred to as '1906-7'. Page references are to the 1907 volume.

Thus ends Joost Daalder's opening pages. Shift now below to the confused notes that I took when I thought that Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas was the sole authoritative translator of the French into English, despite the fact that I am first quoting from Daalder himself:

HEROD (6): C'etait le vent sans doute W; It was the blowing of the wind D; - of the wind, no doubt R # un battement d'aiIes W; a beating of wings D; the beating - R# HEROD (7): C'est votre

[Page 166]

fille qui est malade. Elle a rair tres malade, votre fille W; It is your daughter who is sick to death D; It is your daughter who is sick. She has the mien of a sick person R #

The Two Earliest English Translations of Oscar Wilde's Salome [Page 171]

Aussi j'ai entendu un battement d'ailes dan rair, un battement d'ailes gigantesques. Ce sont de tres mauvais presages. Et i1 y en avail d'autres. Je suis sUr qu'il y en avait d'autres, quoique je ne Ies aie pas W5. Eh hien! Salome, VOllS ne voulez pas qu'un maIheur m'arrive? VOllS ne voulez pas cela. Enfin, ecoutez-moi W; Also did I not hear a beating of wings in the air, a beating of vast wings?'These are ill omens. And there were other things. I am sure that there were other things, though I saw them not. Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me, Salome? Listen to me again D; Also, I heard a beating of wings in the air, a beating of mighty wings. These are very evil omens, and there were others. I am sure there were others though I did not see them. Well, Salome, you do not wish a misfortune to happen to me? You do not wish that. Listen to me, then R # HEROD (2): Vous voyez, vous ne m'ecoutez pas. Mais soyez calm•.· Moi, je suistres calme. Je suis tout afait calme W; Ah! thou art not listening to me. Be calm. As for me, am I not calm? I am altogether calm D; Ah! you are not listening to me. Be calm. I - I am calm. I am quite calm

Away from Daalder, here is my confused analysis:

In Oscar Wilde's Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act, we find two passages in which the expression "vast wings" occurs, depending on which translation from French to English is used. Lord Alfred Douglas translated Wilde's French original into English three years later, in 1894. There have been other translations. The authoritative version is that of Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde's lover, since Wilde chose him as translator.

Here is the first passage:

HEROD: His father was a king. I drove him from his kingdom. And you made a slave of his mother, who was a queen, Herodias. So he was here as my guest, as it were, and for that reason I made him my captain. I am sorry he is dead. Ho! why have you left the body here? I will not look at it - away with it! [They take away the body.] It is cold here. There is a wind blowing. Is there not a wind blowing?

HERODIAS: No; there is no wind.

HEROD: I tell you there is a wind that blows . . . . And I hear in the air something that is like the beating of wings, like the beating of vast wings. Do you not hear it?

HERODIAS: I hear nothing.

HEROD: I hear it no longer. But I heard it. It was the blowing of the wind, no doubt. It has passed away. But no, I hear it again. Do you not hear it? It is just like the beating of wings.

HERODIAS: I tell you there is nothing. You are ill. Let us go within.

Here is the original translation of the first passage from French into English in 1894:

Herod. His father was a king. I drove him from his kingdom. And his mother, who was a queen, you made a slave, Herodias. So he was here as my guest, as it were, and for that reason I made him my captain. I am sorry he is dead. Ho! why have you left the body here? It must be taken to some other place. I will not look at it — away with it! (They take away the body). It is cold here. There is a wind blowing. Is there not a wind blowing?

Herodias. No; there is no wind.

Herod. I tell you there is a wind that blows. And I hear in the air something that is like the beating of wings, like the beating of vast wings. Do you not hear it?

Herodias. I hear nothing.

Herod. I hear it no longer. But I heard it. It was the blowing of the wind. It has passed away. But no, I hear it again. Do you not hear it? It is just like a beating of wings.

Herodias. I tell you there is nothing. You are ill. Let us go within.

Here is the second passage:

Herod: Be silent! You cry out always; you cry out like a beast of prey. You must not. Your voice wearies me. Be silent, I say Salomé, think of what you are doing. This man comes perchance from God. He is a holy man. The finger of God has touched him. God has put into his mouth terrible words. In the palace as in the desert God is always with him.... At least it is possible. One does not know. It is possible that God is for him and with him. Furthermore, if he died some misfortune might happen to me. In any case, he said that the day he dies a misfortune will happen to some one. That could only be to me. Remember, I slipped in blood when I entered. Also, I heard a beating of wings in the air, a beating of mighty wings. These are very evil omens, and there were others. I am sure there were others though I did not see them. Well, Salomé, you do not wish a misfortune to happen to me? You do not wish that. Listen to me, then.

Here is the original translation of the second passage from French into English in 1894:

Herod: Peace! you are always crying out. You cry out like a beast of prey. You must not cry in such fashion. Your voice wearies me. Peace, I tell you! . . . Salomé, think on what thou art doing. It may be that this man comes from God. He is a holy man. The finger of God has touched him. God has put terrible words into his mouth. In the palace, as in the desert, God is ever with him . . . It may be that He is, at least. One cannot tell, but it is possible that God is with him and for him. If he die also, peradventure some evil may befall me. Verily, he has said that evil will befall some one on the day whereon he dies. On whom should it fall if it fall not on me? Remember, I slipped in blood when I came hither. Also did I not hear a beating of wings in the air, a beating of vast wings? These are ill omens. And there were other things. I am sure that there were other things, though I saw them not. Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me, Salomé? Listen to me again.

Note that I here turn to another text, Milman's Belshazzar, a text which I am elsewhere among these texts analyzing, a text that I thought showed parallels to a passage in Salome in which Herod considered the beating of wings to be evil omens, perhaps omens as found in Belshazzar:

A dim oppression loads the air, and sounds
As of vast wings do somewhere seem to brood
And hover on the winds; and I that most
Should tremble for myself, the appointed prey
Of sin, am bow'd, as with enforced compassion,
To think on sorrows not mine own, to weep
O'er those whose laughter and whose song upbraids
My prodigality of mis-spent pity.

But one must remember that Wilde's drama was first published in a French version, only three years later to be translated into English, so there is not so much to be uncovered, perhaps.

Two Creation Passages in Paradise Lost

John Milton:

Creation Water?
As Conceived by
Terrance Lindall

Paradise Lost has two creation passages, both of which I'll post here for easy reference.

Here's the first creation passage in PL:

PL 1:17-26

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Here is the second creation passage in PL:

7:232-242

Thus God the Heav'n created, thus the Earth,
Matter unform'd and void: Darkness profound
Cover'd th' Abyss: but on the watrie calme
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspred, [ 235 ]
And vital vertue infus'd, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid Mass, but downward purg'd
The black tartareous cold Infernal dregs
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglob'd
Like things to like, the rest to several place [ 240 ]
Disparted, and between spun out the Air,
And Earth self ballanc't on her Center hung.

There is much to say about these two passages, and of special interest to me are the lines with the term "brooding." Readers interested in this term can find an article of mine where much is said, even going back to antiquity.

Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, Scott Donaldson

Archibald MacLeish

An American Life

Scott Donaldson

MacLeish here says much the same as what he says in "Reflections" when asked how he had come to write the poem "The End of the World":

In August the weather off the Atlantic turned foul. A tempest washed the beach away, and the winds, howling at night, spoke of menace. A small traveling circus — "one tent, a very few animals, a few clowns, a few acrobats, and that was it." All the MacLeishes went one evening, watching the performers in the eerie light of torches: "One touch of the torch on the canvas roof and we were gone." The phrase that came to Archie a few days later, as he sat in his room high above the Atlantic trying to shut out the noise of the yelping dogs and of Ada singing Stravinsky, was “quite unexpectedly.” Just that most unpoetic phrase, "quite unexpectedly," and then the repetition, "quite unexpectedly the top blew off." So commenced the composition of "The End of the World," another of his best and most widely anthologized poems:

Quite unexpectedly as VasserotThe armless ambidextrian was lightingA match between his great and second toeAnd Ralph the lion was engaged in bitingThe neck of Madame Sossman while the drumPointed, and Teeny was about to coughIn waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb --Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung overThose thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,There with vast wings across the canceled skies,There in the sudden blackness the black pallOf nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

The jury is deadlocked on how to interpret this poem. To some, it reads like yet another statement of postwar disillusionment and emptiness: man confronted with a universe that has no connection with him and nothing to say. Yet others detect a kind of excitement at the very prospect of the tabula rasa out in space, awaiting those who will inscribe their message. Technically, most critics agree that the poem derives its power from the extraordinary contrast between the lively and busy octet – the hurly-burly of the circus underneath the tent – and the slow, measured pace of the sestet depicting the starless skies and ending in a memorable string of four negations. Because of this remarkable contrast, it is one of MacLeish’s poems most often set to music.

But my question is: what is the connection between this poem above with its "vast wings" (in what appears to be an un-creation) and Milton's lines on the mighty wings outspread (in what is clearly a creation event).

Archibald MacLeish: Reflections

MacLeish

In this book, edited by Bernard A. Drabeck and Helen E. Ellis, we find MacLeish reflecting on his writing of "The End of the World" (1926), and he spends pages 32 through 39 (eight pages give or take) doing nothing but talk mostly about the writing of that poem, pages in which he never mentions Milton, though he surely is thinking (isn't he?) of Milton and Milton's image of the Spirit of God hovering over the abyss and impregnating it.

Here is the correctly punctuated poem, the critical edition (I hope):

"The End of the World"

Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb --
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the canceled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

MacLeish recalls very well the 'raw ingredients' that he says goes into this poem: a gypsy circus with an elephant, a mangy lion, a large, buxom lady who had seen better days, and lots of clowns, plus the gales coming in off the channel, threatening to blow the tents away, or perhaps getting the tents to flapping into the torches and leaving everyone watching the entire performance go up in smoke? Some of this can also be read in Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, by Scott Donaldson.

But why the end of the world? Maybe the carnival atmosphere, that reflection of pandemonium, had come under judgement, the Last Judgement.

Note, anyway, the connection between creating and un-creating.

John T. Shawcross, Milton Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 69-77

John T. Shawcross

The Milton expert John T. Shawcross, in a thoughtful reaction to the terror of 9/11, published the article 'What is Faith, Love, Vertue unassaid': Some Literary Answers to Our Ever‐Present Evils," in the Milton Quarterly after several years of deliberation (Volume 42, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 69-77), and I quote a passage relevant to my current interests:

Our current times have brought an onslaught of terror and scandal and crisis all together in one fell swoop, and we can easily be overwhelmed. The questions pertinent to these ever‐present evils have been "answered" (well, that's not the right word, perhaps "allayed"? perhaps "invalidated"?) in literature by faith, though it may be, as one knows, but a chimera, or by no answer, a mere void, a black hole, the nihilism of the nineteenth century continued. I think of Archibald MacLeish's little poem, for one expression of this vacuum that many feel and that he envisioned as "The End of the World":

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the canceled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

Though Shawcross as Milton scholar published the above passage in the Milton Quarterly (Volume 42, Issue 1, March 2008, pages 69-77), he simply notes that this (part of the) short poem by Archibald MacLeish might express the moral vacuum that many people feel in our era of terror, scandal, and crisis. He does not call attention to the parallels between this stanza above and the lines from Paradise Lost (Book 1, lines 17-26), though he surely must have recognized the allusions to Milton in MacLeish's wording. Let's take a look at that passage in Paradise Lost to refresh our memory:

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Shawcross neither quotes nor cites these lines from Milton; I have placed them here for ease of reference. This enables us to see the parallels between Milton's understanding of creation and MacLeish's expression of un-creation. MacLeish's use of Milton is not 'plagiarism' but a re-imagining of Judgement Day envisioned through echoes of Milton, if one will allow me this paradox.

Belshazzar: A Dramatic Poem (London, 1822) by Henry Hart Milman

Henry Hart Milman
(1863)

George Frederic Watts

My blogposts might be more boring than usual over the next several weeks as I investigate the expression "vast wings" and similar expressions, as in Belshazzar: A Dramatic Poem (London, 1822), by Henry Hart Milman:

A dim oppression loads the air, and sounds
As of vast wings do somewhere seem to brood
And hover on the winds; and I that most
Should tremble for myself, the appointed prey
Of sin, am bow'd, as with enforced compassion,
To think on sorrows not mine own, to weep
O'er those whose laughter and whose song upbraids
My prodigality of mis-spent pity.

(page 93)

My Notes:

Milman (1791-1868) was a clergyman, a historian, and a poet, and as poet was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1821. We should compare his lines above with those of Milton below in Book 1 of Paradise Lost:

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer [17]
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men. [26]

[From Dartmouth's Milton Reading Room]

David Barber, "In Search of an 'Image of Mankind': The Public Poetry and Prose of Archibald MacLeish"

Archibald MacLeish
Wikipedia

Last spring, I noted on the Milton List that Archibald MacLeish had a Miltonic moment (vast) and might have had Miltonic pretensions (cancelled skies) in writing the poem "The End of the World" (1926). Here's that poem:

"The End of the World"

Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb --
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the canceled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

There is clearly something of Milton in this sonnet, as we can see by even a mere glance at these lines from Paradise Lost (Book 1, lines 17-26):

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

This is taken from Dartmouth's John Milton Reading Room.

David Barber, in his article "In Search of an 'Image of Mankind': The Public Poetry and Prose of Archibald MacLeish," (31-56) (29 American Studies 3 i, 36 (Fall 1988)) circles around a Miltonic conception of MacLeish (but does not note the parallels between the passages above):

"In 1931 Archibald MacLeish conceived a goal which he never afterward abandoned, though his idea of how to accomplish it changed: to identify or generate a vision for humanity, a motivating 'image of mankind in which men can again believe.'"[p 31, f 2]

[Footnote 2: "Nevertheless One Debt," Poetry 38 (1931), 216]

"His defects are in little danger of being forgotten, they are so visible. He failed to explain in prose, or demonstrate in poetry, just how poets can influence society's vision and direction. During World War II he claimed to want a national dialogue but contrived to set limits of allowable debate. He misused the podium of public office attempting to coerce the image makers: poets and artists and historians and journalists and film makers, into supporting his position. Perhaps his later opposition to McCarthyism, or his primary role in securing the release of Ezra Pound, or his repeated public reminders throughout the postwar period that Americans must know what they are for, not just what they are against -- perhaps such activities were his atonement. Not that he ever expressed a need to repent, or failed ultimately to prove his sincerity if not his judgment. Though Edmund Wilson always believed him a charlatan, MacLeish was doing, admittedly in a patronizing way, what Americans and all cultures need: exhorting them to conceive 'a good idea of themselves.' Thinking for a time that poetry alone could generate that vision, he eventually moderated this hope; and though he continued to seek a modern Dante to give our age its motivating vision, he lived to see no such genius appear. Certain of his enemies believed that MacLeish saw himself in this role; possibly at some point he did."[p 52, f 76]

[Footnote 76: "Rosenberg, for example, scorned MacLeish as 'the Poet Leader who has put poetry in the place formerly occupied by God' ("The God in the Car," 338, 340), and Zabel surmised that the opening of World War II gave MacLeish 'his chance to impress on his fellow-citizens the fact that a Milton not only should be living in this hour but by miraculous good fortune is" ("The Poet on Capitol Hill," 4).]

"To think that the people merely need someone to give them their vision, this perhaps was his failure of faith. It was a weakness he shared with Walt Whitman. And also — to descend from the sublime - with Amy Lowell. In MacLeish's pivotal year 1931 she had doubted whether MacLeish could play such a role. Perhaps, she mused, he lacked a certain 'gusto.' Perhaps we needed to wait for 'some poet of grit and brawn, some prophet of grandeur and laughter, some cross between John Milton and Ogden Nash, to tell us the whole truth and save the world.'"[77]

[Footnote 77: "Comment: Archibald MacLeish," Poetry 38 (1931), 155.]

We have reason to expect more on Milton and MacLeish . . .

Milton and Middle Knowledge?

John Milton

The following brief passage is taken from Milton's essay Areopagitica, and note especially his references to Jesuits and to Arminius:

But of our Priests and Doctors how many have bin corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists, and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people, our experience is both late and sad. It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted meerly by the perusing of a namelesse discourse writt'n at Delf, which at first he took in hand to confute. (Areopagitica, Dartmouth, Milton Reading Room)

I call attention to the Jesuits and Arminius here because they developed a theology that is called Middle Knowledge, which refers to God's Middle Knowledge and which is of interest to me because it attempts to maintain human freedom and divine foreknowledge, a theology not so far from the one Milton himself eventually adopted.

Learn more about Middle Knowledge here.

Turning Milton's Prose into Poetry

John Savoie

A few days back, I quoted from Milton's Areopagitica, breaking Milton's prose and making it look like poetry:

And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose
to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field,
we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting
to misdoubt her strength.
Let her and Falshood grapple;
who ever knew Truth put to the wors,
in a free and open encounter.
Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

I borrowed my Milton quote from Dartmouth's Milton Reading Room site, but I broke the prose into the free verse that you see just above. I received this prose-broken-into-poetry response from John Savoie on the Milton List:

Of late I too have grown fond of linebreaking prose;
Milton's prose especially rewards the segmentation.

Note that John Savoie is also a poet and a Milton scholar, so he's a voice to listen to . . .

Milton on Truth

Areopagitica

Milton speaks out for free speech and argues that truth can fend for itself against falsehood:

Let her and Falshood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors, in a free and open encounter. (Milton Reading Room: Darthmouth)

My question: Is Milton correct? Can truth fend for itself? Or can falsehood sometimes defeat truth?

Grace Shulman Speaks on Jefferson and Milton

Grace Shulman

There's some squabble going on about some poet or other who, though not African American, used African American lingo in a prize-winning poem published in the Nation. Both the poet and the Nation have apologized. I haven't seen the poem. I address a different issue here, namely, individual influence.

Here are some words of note by Grace Shulman in her comment
on the Nation's apology for publishing a poem many found offensive.
Shulman was critical of the apology, but she misattributed
some words to Milton and was apologetic about that:

Correction: August 5, 2018

An earlier version of this article misattributed a quotation;
it was Thomas Jefferson, not John Milton,
who said that "error of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it."

But one can see how Jefferson's view derives from Milton's view in Areopagitica:

And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose
to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field,
we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting
to misdoubt her strength.
Let her and Falshood grapple;
who ever knew Truth put to the wors,
in a free and open encounter.
Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

Jefferson knew his sources well, no doubt (and I borrowed my Milton sources from the Dartmouth site), so there is more than lingo at stake here when one speaks of influence.

Something to think about . . .

Writer's Block 4: Windfall

Satan Arousing
Rebel Angels
(1808)
William Blake

I'm still suffering writer's block, so I've commiserated with myself by drawing lines from John Milton to write today's poem:

Writer's Block 4: Windfall

When I consider how my life is spent,
Which far as angel's ken once held purview,
Above Most High insatiate to pursue,
Too well I see and rue the dire event.

Oh how unlike the place from whence we fell,
But here at least, we shall be fondest free,
And what I should be, all but less than He,
To rule th'infernal world, this deepest Hell.

We glory to've escaped the heavenly host,
As gods, thus through our own recovered strength,
Not by the grace of some supernal Power.

Here may we reign secure, and might I boast,
To reign is worth ambition, whate'er the length.
In Hell thus reign; serve not in Heaven's bower.

*With apologies to John Milton.

Milton's not around to receive my apology, but I think that he would have understood, and even approved.

Homework: Who is the speaker in this poem? Obviously, it's . . .