The Peach as Forbidden Fruit?

Fantasia
Foreboding, Not Forbidden?
Upright Brewing

Yesterday, I posted a link on the Milton List to the above image, labeling it "A Twist on the Eve Motif?" I wrote:

Eve clothed (sort of) and just biting [into] a peach from which music winds serpentine up into the nearby peach tree . . .

One scholar suggested:

If Eve were wearing a slip, it probably wouldn't so tatty!

I posted a rejoinder:

Anyone can slip up now and then . . .

Another scholar wondered if the fruit was really a peach:

I'm not so sure those are peaches, either--they look more like little pumpkins (which, granted, don't grow on trees)--but then, violins wouldn't have been lying in the grass, either--not even broken ones. And Eve wouldn't have looked so common before she bit into the Fruit.

All in all, pretty bizarre.

I rather agreed:

The fruit does look odd, but I checked and made sure that they are peaches.

Another scholar liked the idea of peaches:

Peaches always seem right to me. Apples have settled in as the traditional interpretation, but as many of you likely know there were other candidates among early exegetes, including grapes. There's something cheeky about a peach, though, with that little cleft and all that fuzziness. The taste is also something to die for.

That one, perhaps, prompted Salwa Khoddam to post on our work together:

Jeffrey and I have already written a paper on the apple/peach image as used by Milton, Marvell, and T. S. Eliot. It includes all the motifs and related fruits that you mention. We have submitted our paper for publication and we are hoping that it would by published soon. We'll let you know what happens.

Since the list has a "Jeffrey," I thought I'd better jump in and correct my name:

Lest there be any confusion, that "Jeffrey" would be me, i.e., "Jeffery."

One scholar who has explored the peach image in Milton's Paradise Lost is Robert Appelbaum, in Aguecheek's Beef, Belch's Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, Culture, and Food Among the Early Moderns.

I believe Professor Appelbaum subscribes to this list -- at least, he used to.

As for Upright Brewing's own account of Fantasia, just click the image below:

Hmmm . . . doesn't say if the beer comes in bottomless bottles . . .

C. S. Lewis: Converted Later than Believed?

Christianity Today

Jerry Root, associate director of the Billy Graham Center Institute of Strategic Evangelism at Wheaton College and an expert on Lewis, asks, "Does C. S. Lewis Have Something to Hide?" in a review of Alister McGrath's C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet for Christianity Today (November 22, 2013). Root thinks not, but he does acknowledge this:

McGrath does uncover some information that's barely known even among Lewis scholars and aficionados. For example, Lewis's conversion to Christianity actually took place several months to a year later than the dates Lewis himself seems to suggest. The chronology of these events reveals how carefully McGrath pays attention to detail.

I noted this point on the Milton List -- Lewis was an expert on Milton's Paradise Lost -- and Professor Salwa Khoddam, another expert on Lewis, filled in the details:

What Alister McGrath in C. S. Lewis: Eccentric Genius. Reluctant Prophet--A Life writes is that Lewis came to believe in God in 1930 rather in 1929. But the famous conversation between him, Tolkien, and Dyson in Sept. 19, 1931 is still the pivoting event that drove the process of his conversion to Christianity, by his accepting the true "myth" of Christianiy. According to McGrath, this conversion process culminated not in what is traditionally taken to be the correct date of his belief in the divinity of Christ (28 Sept. 1931), during a trip to the Whipsnade Zoo in a motorbike driven by his brother Warnie, but in June 1932, while being driven to the Whipsnade Zoo in a car by Edward Foord-Kelcey. McGrath has interesting evidence to prove these new landmarks (135-59).

There it is, for all you Lewis fans: The Truth! Well, accuracy about dating, anyway . . .

Bird of Paradise (Lost)

Twitter Bird Logo
Wikipedia

A few days ago on the Milton List, one of the participating scholars, David Ainsworth, posted this informational bulletin:

As Milton Society Communications Director, I'm here to announce that our Twitter account . . . will begin activity on February 4th with our (and my) first tweet. At the moment, I expect to limit activity to CFPs [=Calls for Papers] and other news and to "Milton Monday," a short quotation from Milton to start off each week. Your feedback and following may dictate changes from there.

And to get us all into the right frame of mind, Professor Ainsworth added a parodic poem in Miltonic style:

On the New Readers of Twitter under the Milton Society

Because you have thrown off your Luddite ways,
And with stiff Vows embrac'd the Internet
To Tweet, email, wall post and I forget
The other terms (to list 'em would take days),
Dare I for this adjure the Civil Word
To force abbreviations (OMG!)
And conform to mere One hundred Forty
Required by /Dorsey/ and that small /Bird/?
Scholars whose Learning, Life and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul
Must now be nam'd @MiltonHeresy
By shallow Tumblr and Face' what d'ye call:
But we hope @MiltonSociety
You'll follow and find worthy of your meed;
This brand-new Twitter feed
May entertain and update you for years,
Clip URLs, though balk at "Me, too" Cheers,
And succor my just Fears
That you shall think, when I take up this charge:
"/New Twitterer/ is but /Old Twit/ writ Large."

Quite an ingenious parody, all the more clearly so if one takes the time to compare it -- particularly line by line -- with Milton's 1646 original:

On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament

Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality,
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a Classic Hierarchy,
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rutherford?
Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent,
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul
Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch What-d'ye-call!
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent,
That so the Parliament
May with their wholesome and preventive shears
Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your ears,
And succour our just fears,
When they shall read this clearly in your charge:
New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.

See the parallels, the borrowing of words and phrases from Milton's 1646 poem in Ainsworth's parody? Ironically, such poetic parodies won't be seen on Twitter. But I'm no Twitterer, anyway, nor intend to be, so I posted the following response:

I doubt that I can ever please
With poems as short as Twitterese.

In similar spirit, Carol Barton wrote:

To me, it's electronic litter;
I'm not a bird, so I don't Twitter.

At this point, a scholar humorously signing in as "Scrooge" objected to receiving tweets on the Milton List. I realized that he had misunderstood, and sure enough, Professor Ainsworth posted a clarification:

Just in case . . . anyone . . . is unclear, the Twitter feed has no connection with the Milton-L list and nothing posted to it will appear here. My message was informational, aimed at those members of this list who might be interested in the feed or willing to pass along its existence to their students.

Scrooge genially replied, "let a thousand flowers (or birds) bloom," and Carol Barton posted another tweet-worthy message, albeit slightly too long for a tweet:

No beaks out of joint, though I won't Tweet--
Your quest for younger blood is meet.
So Twitter away, and flatten your feathers:
We're still conjoined by friendship's fetters.

But one scholar, Gregory Machacek, having posted before Scrooge's genial concession, saw fit to reply to Scrooge with a challenge: "Avaunt Scrooge":

The devil falls, plots, journies, wavers, spies,
Tempts forewarned Eve, she Adam, Mankind dies.

Brilliant! Milton's entire epic poem in two lines! Would that I had written that . . .

"Nude" vs. "Naked" . . . Revisited

Reflection 1 (1985)

Lucien Freud

(Image from Art Observed)

Yesterday, I wondered aloud what William Grimes had meant in his NYT obituary of Lucien Freud by the following remark about Freud's nude portraits:

His female subjects in particular seemed not just nude but obtrusively naked.

I decided to ask Mr. Grimes himself, and I received this reply by email:

I did not really give a lot of thought to the distinction, which seems to me just a matter of art-historical convention in most cases. We usually refer to nudes, and painting from the nude, especially with older artists, but in discussing the particulars of a painting, it seems to me that one can say that a figure is nude, naked or unclothed and it all means the same thing, although I agree that "naked" has a certain force in English, and this word applies particularly to Freud's nudes. If you say that his subjects are not just nude but naked, that's a nuance that's meaningful, and most people would understand what you were driving at. I don't honestly know whether this comes up a lot for art critics or art historians.

I posted this reply on the Milton List, then responded by email to Grimes himself:

Thank you for the response. I understand what you mean about the force of "naked" vs. "nude," but I have difficulty putting the nuance into words. I've conveyed your views to the Milton List, which has been having a vigorous discussion of the difference between the two terms (as well as the difference between pornographic and erotic, etc.), a discussion occasioned by the announcement of an upcoming film version of Paradise Lost. Your earlier words on Lucien Freud's portraits fit the discussion well.

By way of reply, Mr. Grimes added an illustration:

Naked implies, on the part of he artist, an unblinking, even harsh, depiction of the body. On the sitter's side (as in Manet's Olympia or Goya's Maja, a brazenness, a lack of shame that seems to say, I see you looking at me and I don't care, I'm looking right back at you.

I'll need to reflect more on his point about the "sitter," for the Genesis story of the Fall implies that awareness of one's nakedness entails shame, but I've meanwhile also received some thoughtful comments to yesterday's blog entry, particularly one by "Scott A.":

Nude seems to be more of an artistic term -- nudity in an art-related context. Naked seems to be more of the default term for being nude.

That is the answer I would have given before reading the post, and it seems to fit the context in which the people in the post were discussing it.

As in, Grimes might be saying (consciously or not) that the more grotesque (to the audience) the portrait became, the less it came across as artistic and thus the more she became "naked" rather than "nude".

Since the artist's name is Freud, I'll throw out -- perhaps there is some tiny connection to non-physical uses for the work -- as in giving out your personal information making you feel "naked." We don't use nude or nudity to refer to our feelings . . .

We don't have terms like "nude aggression."

Nude, used for the arts for so long, seems not to have the deeply personal, raw aspects that naked can carry in certain contexts . . .

I like the point about "nude aggression." As Scott notes, we don't use that expression. Rather, we say "naked aggression." This fits with the nuance that Grimes suggests, namely, "that 'naked' has a certain force in English." I think that Scott and Grimes are indicating a similar connotation in the word "naked," one that doesn't occur with "nude."

I probably should quote from the Milton List, too, but that conversation has become too complex to do justice to.

"Nude" vs. "Naked"

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995)

"Nude" or "Naked"?

(Image from New York Times)

Scholars on the Milton List recently broached a discussion on the lack of clothing that will have to characterize the prelapsarian Adam and Eve in the upcoming film version of Paradise Lost, a point that I remarked upon:

But the malingering question . . . is: Will this film's nudity strike audiences as 'pornographic'?

I repeated this question on the Milton List, adding a further reason for my inquiry:

My wife and I translate Korean literature into English -- she handles the Korean to English, I handle her English -- and a couple of years ago, we translated Jang Jung-il's book When Adam's Eyes Opened.

One of the stories in that book was very disturbing to translate, and if I had known in advance, I would have declined.

In describing my reaction to that story -- in which an unnamed man and an unnamed woman meet and engage in sexual intercourse for a week at an obscure beach -- I told an acquaintance, "The sex in the story wasn't erotic, but it wasn't pornographic, either. It was, however, explicit."

Jang's intention was for the story to serve as some sort of social criticism, as were all of the stories in the book, and for the most part, the book succeeds as a work of art that critiques Korean mores of the 1980s and 1990s.

In the sex-on-the-beach story, the man and woman [turn increasingly brutal and violent in their sexual relations and] kill each other in the end, and I have to say, as I told my wife when I'd finished that particular story, "I'm glad they killed each other!"

She laughed, but I meant it.

I think that sex in writing can play any number of roles -- erotic, pornographic, social-critical, and so on. Roles can even be mixed. Pornography is often used as lampoon (I almost want to pun and say 'lampoontang', but my puns often get me in trouble, so I'll refrain), so even that isn't entirely without socially redeeming value.

Anyway, my query was motivated by a desire for clarification in the definitions of the terms "erotic," "pornographic," and so on. Specifically, I asked whether these terms were different in meaning, or merely different terms for the same thing.

The discussion of "nude" versus "naked" -- along with other distinctions (e.g., erotic versus pornographic) -- continued on the list, and the debate grew rather emotionally heated as scholars took opposite sides. In this context, I was therefore fascinated to read the following remark in the New York Times obituary of Lucian Freud by William Grimes, "Lucian Freud, Figurative Painter Who Redefined Portraiture, Is Dead at 88" (July 21, 2011):

His female subjects in particular seemed not just nude but obtrusively naked. Mr. Freud pushed this effect so far, [John] Russell once noted, "that we sometimes wonder if we have any right to be there."

This use of "nude" and "naked" by Grimes implies a significant difference . . . but of what sort? Another passage seems relevant:

From the late 1950s, when he began using a stiffer brush and moving paint in great swaths around the canvas, Mr. Freud's nudes took on a new fleshiness and mass. His subjects, pushed to the limit in exhausting extended sessions, day after day, dropped their defenses and opened up. The faces showed fatigue, distress, torpor.

The flesh was mottled, lumpy and, in the case of his 1990s portraits of the performance artist Leigh Bowery and the phenomenally obese civil servant Sue Tilley, shockingly abundant

Grimes would appear to suggest that as the "nudes took on a new fleshiness and mass," they turned "naked."

I infer that critics sense a need for a distinction between such terms as "nude" and "naked," but I'm unclear on precisely what this distinction is. Some scholars at the Milton List argued that there is no distinction, but people like Grimes seem to be getting at some sort of difference.

Perhaps I should ask Grimes himself . . .

Paul Stevens: "Milton's Satan"

Paul Stevens

Department of English

University of Toronto

St. George Campus

(Image from University of Toronto)

I rarely watch videos because I find them so time-consuming, but I took Christmas Day off and watched a video of a 45-minute lecture by Paul Stevens on "Milton's Satan," recommended to the Milton List by one of the experts on Paradise Lost, Feisal Mohamed.

When I clicked on the link, I discovered that the video is one in a series of Competition Lectures for Best Lecture sponsored by TVO, which is Ontario's public educational media organization. I take it that "TVO" stands for "Television Ontario."

But to cut to the chase . . .

The lecture is outstanding if you like Milton, and maybe even if you don't, because Stevens demonstrates Milton's contemporary relevance in showing how the poet has bequeathed to the modern age its psychological understanding of a deeply ambivalent, conflicted, quasi-heroic Satan who is somehow an enormously appealing, compelling figure.

Why did Milton portray Satan as such an appealing figure? Stevens notes three main answers proffered over the centuries since the publication of Paradise Lost:

1. The Romantics' Satan -- that Milton was in fact of the Devil's party without realizing this fact (Percy Bysshe Shelley [Correction: William Blake]).

2. The Academics' Satan -- that Milton created a Satan to seduce readers into identifying with the evil one, only to be disillusioned by evil, thereby bringing readers to experience within themselves the fall first experienced by Eve and Adam (Stanley Fish).

3. Milton's Satan -- that Milton modeled Satan after himself and his own failings (Paul Stevens).

That third Satan is the one favored by Stevens, obviously, and though there's something a bit too cocky about calling it Milton's Satan -- wouldn't those who support the first or second Satan also consider their Satan Milton's Satan -- Stevens makes an intriguing, almost entirely persuasive case that I cannot easily reproduce here, so I urge you to click on the link and see for yourself.

I say 'almost' because I'm still partial to Fish's argument in Surprised by Sin . . .

UPDATE: As my friend Carter Kaplan graciously points out, the first Satan interpretation is not Percy Bysshe Shelley's but William Blake's, so I stand corrected of my 'senior moment'.

Terrance Lindall: "A blast from the past!"

Mr. Terrance Lindall recently noted at the Milton List that a number of items from his Paradise Lost project that were housed in the Warren Publishing Company archives are being auctioned by Hake's Americana and Collectibles. In Mr. Lindall's own words:

For those who collect Paradise Lost, some seminal material. The Yuko Nii Foundation will not be bidding since it owns the extensive collection of all my original art and related writings, letters etc.

Obviously this is from the Collection of James Warren, publisher of the most famous horror comics of the 20th century.

I don't have the funds to bid for such things, but for the benefit of any readers who might have both interest and money, I'm posting the enticing images below in what I take to be their proper order (assisted by the numbering and my knowledge of Milton's poem) since Hake's Americana and Collectibles presents them out of order. Readers familiar with John Milton's poem will recognize the sequence.

Bidding will continue until September 30, 2010 at 12:00 PM EDT, so if you want to place a bid, go to the website to learn more.

Anyway, here's the sequence, a letter plus image, a transparency (I think), and twenty-five slides:

First is a letter (of October 31, 1981) from Mr. Lindall the artist to Mr. James Warren, president of Warren Publishing, along with a depiction of Satan conceiving Sin from his forehead and then enjoying her charms.


Next comes what I take to be the transparency (mentioned in the letter), an apparent depiction of Satan . . . but possibly a self-portrait by Mr. Lindall?


Now begins the slide sequence itself with what I take to be an image for the opening of Milton's epic poem, which introduces Satan and the serpent.


Second is a slide showing Satan's rebellion in heaven, a theme also depicted later.


The rebellion fails, as shown in slide number three, and Satan is expelled from heaven.


Slide four shows Satan awakened some nine days later in Hell.


Then comes slide five to reveal sights of misery seen through eyes empowered by angel's ken, and Satan mustering his troops.


The sixth slide has Satan enthroned with infernal glory.


I think that number seven depicts a scene from the great concourse of demons as they consult with one another over how next to act so as to maintain or better their circumstances.


A wise-appearing devil offers his opinion in slide number eight.


In slide nine, Satan volunteers to undertake a mission of espionage to spy out the new creation of earth and mankind, despite the dangers inherent in crossing the gulf of chaos.


Slide ten presents Satan flying toward the gates of Hell.


In the next slide, number eleven, Satan encounters Death, the offspring of Sin and himself.


He also, in slide twelve, meets his forgotten daughter, Sin herself.


Sin has to remind Satan, in slide thirteen, of how he first conceived of her, then lusted for her . . . which led to their offspring, Death, as already noted.


Slide fourteen has Satan making a deal with Sin and Death to free them from Hell if they allow him to pass through the gates, for Sin has a key, and Death guards the gate to prevent escape.


Slide fifteen reveals that Satan's suggestion was accepted, for he has escaped and now views the pendant world, i.e., the universe.


In slide sixteen, Satan gazes in wonder upon Paradise, where Adam and Eve live out their natural splendor in the grass.


Slide seventeen takes us forward to an important visit by the angel Raphael, an envoy from heaven sent to warn Adam and Eve of Satan's presence.


Raphael describes Heaven prior to Satan's rebellion, in slide eighteen, which seems to depict the 'begetting' and enthronement of God's Son.


Feeling himself 'impaired' by the apparent elevation of an 'unknown' upstart called the 'Son', Satan musters his troops for rebellion, as shown in slide number nineteen in its depiction of Raphael's tale.


Slide twenty presents Raphael's narrative on the consequences of Satan's rebellion as the Son, manning his Father's chariot and wearing a mask of wrath, devastates the rebellious forces and expells them from Heaven.


But Satan is now in Paradise, as we are reminded by slide number twenty-one, which shows him 'inspiring' the serpent to attempt the temptation of Eve.


Slide twenty-two offers the temptation itself as Eve contemplates the apple.


Having now taken the first bite, Eve offers a bite to Adam in slide twenty-three.


But that only leads to the Fall, and judgment by the Son, as depicted in slide twenty-four.


The final slide, which I suppose is number twenty-five, has Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden, presumably by the archangel Michael.


We are thus left with this pictorial allusion to the closing words of Paradise Lost:

The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way. (PL 12.646-649)

Eden being the territory within which the Garden of Eden was found . . . and lost.

But the artist Mr. Lindall has taken us there again, and if these slides interest you, then click over to the website of Hake's Americana and Collectibles and place your bid before September 30, 2010.

UPDATE: Mr. Terrance Lindall has linked to this blogpost in an e-circular, and has this to say:

I completed the handmade frames for Paradise Lost and developed a traveling show and lecture series for cities in Minnesota with a promoter and fundraiser named Gary Kelsey. At that time I contacted James Warren about publishing the book. This is the material that is up for auction. Professor Horace Jeffery Hodges in Korea has nicely reorganized the auction material that Hake's Americana is putting up for auction.

I'm pleased that Mr. Lindall appreciated my reorganization of the auction material, especially since I thought that his art deserved better than the presentation provided by Hake's Americana and Collectibles.

My jocular character's gonna get me in trouble . . .

Creation of Eve (ca. 1310-1330)

Marble Relief by Lorenzo Maitani

Orvieto Cathedral, Italy

(Image from Wikipedia)

On the Milton List yesterday, one of the scholars asked for advice because a student was upset with John Milton's depiction of Eve's creation in Paradise Lost 8.465-466:

I have a student very distressed about Eve's being created from Adam's left rib.

A number of scholars weighed in, some wondering if the student was female, so I attempted a lighthearted suggestion:

I assume a woman in distress (maybe a bad-hair day?).

Could she be comforted to realize that the heart is on the left and that in a prelapsarian state, there would surely be nothing sinister about a left rib.

You could also always quip that since God chose the left rib, then it was actually the right one, whereas the right one was in fact left. But I know from experience that my 'humor' doesn't always have the desired effect . . .

That last remark was prescient of me, for another scholar found my comment offensive:

Perhaps we could refrain from blatant misogyny on this list. Nuanced, implied and "humourous" comments notwithstanding, a certain level of civility would enhance our professional discourse.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, but not wishing to cause anyone further distress, I posted to the list:

I'm sorry that my pun on tresses gave the impression that I hate women.

I had briefly considered responding with an explicit reference to what Milton calls Eve's "wanton" tresses and a query about pre- and postlapsarian connotations of words in Paradise Lost, but I suspected that such a 'wanton' point might get me into further hot water. At any rate, I did receive a posted reply from the scholar:

Please do not mistake my post as personal nor implying "hatred." The discussion and comment in context, conveyed, to me, some degree of condescension and trivialization sufficient to devalue the inquiry. That's all.

I had to wonder what the scholar meant by "misogyny" if not "hatred of women," but I decided to merely respond -- lest my point be inadvertently obfuscated by linguistic equivocacy -- with the following clarification:

Humor aside, my more serious point was to question the assumption that "left" necessarily means sinister. In prelapsarian Eden, would a left rib -- near the left-positioned heart -- be anything but good?

Unfortunately, we live in a postlapsarian world, so my words resound like ambiguous scoffing and my humor is fallen flat.

Feeling Willful on the Milton List . . .

Homunculus at Work

"Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it

Get yourself an egg and beat it"

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a discussion a few days ago on free will in the thought of John Milton, one of the scholars, an elderly gentleman who works and thinks within the Marxist tradition, made this remark:

"My experience, then, and I would say human experience, is that whenever and wherever we find ourselves, we are always already enmeshed in an ensemble of social relations."

That sounded too familiar, especially the "always already" terminology, so I asked him a somewhat impertinant question and followed it with an account of my own introspective experience:

Is this your experience . . . or your social theory?

My own experience -- and I cannot speak for others -- is that I find myself repeatedly in circumstances presenting alternatives, some trivial, some significant, that require me to make choices and thus demand of me varying degrees of reflection in making those choices, and as constrained as all this may seem, I experience a sense of responsibility, to varying degrees, for the choices that I make, and thus find myself regreting some choices and thinking that I should have chosen differently and that I could have chosen differently, a subjunctive experience that I was free to have done so.

That's my experience. What it implies for the truth or falsity of free will, I don't know, but I don't find any homunculus making my decisions for me.

My reference to the homunculus was to meet his statement that "the concept of 'the will' . . . seems to operate as a sort of homunculus sitting apart from that continuum, making its 'choices'," for I don't see that the concept of "will" implies a homunculus crouched in our heads making cramped decisions for us to act out.

I didn't get a response from that scholar, but I do wonder about other people's experiences . . . whether similar or different than mine.

Adam and Eve: "the liveliest pair"?

Satan Watching

the

Endearments of Adam and Eve

1808

William Blake

(Image from Wikipedia)

One of our fine Milton scholars, Michael O'Connell, has caught a 'happy' typographical error in Gordon Campbell's edition of John Milton: The Complete English Poems and posted the delicious detail on the Milton List:

Ah, the pleasure of typos! I've been using the Everyman Complete English Poems of Milton this term, edited by our extraordinarily learned colleague Gordon Campbell. One word that escaped Gordon's eye was in PL 4, 321, where we learn that Adam and Eve were "the liveliest pair / That ever since in love's embraces met". A mischievous typographer? My students were understandably a bit disappointed when, duty bound, I gave them the true reading of the line.

That 'true' reading, of course, is "the loveliest pair" -- though O'Connell acknowledges that the error might itself be true:

But who's to say that A & E were not also the liveliest pair in their love's embraces?

"Were they?" I wondered, and did a Google search for "liveliest pair," whereupon I discovered another couple, finding them listed as the final item among the search results: Eva and Nick. I didn't look further into the details on these two, who are described in the search results as "enjoying the fruits of one another's loins," but I'm taking a wild guess that it's a filmed reinterpretation of Milton's account in which Eve has an affair with "Old Nick" -- as perhaps implied by Blake's ménage à trois above -- and that the forbidden fruit was none other than the aforementioned fruit of their loins.

I reject such a heretical re-envisioning of the lapsarian story, however, and suggest instead that not only is O'Connell right in suggesting that Adam and Eve might actually have been "the liveliest pair in their love's embraces" but even that Campbell might indeed have gotten the line right. I've proposed this point on the Milton List:

Or was Professor Campbell simply restoring the long-lost original line and thereby providing a more precise understanding of Milton's views on prelapsarian sexuality?

So far, no other scholar has disagreed with me, so I'm taking the universal silence on this point as unanimous acknowledgement.

Perhaps I should publish an article . . .

'Surprised by Sin' Again

Sam Raimi

Director

Universal Pictures

(Image from New York Times)

I sometimes recycle for Gypsy Scholar material that I've posted on the Milton List, especially when it gets ignored there because the other scholars fail to recognize my genius, a failure that, writ large, perhaps explains my largely failed career.

Recently, I read a review of Sam Raimi's new film Drag Me To Hell and noticed a remark by Raimi that reminded me of the central theme in Stanley Fish's great work, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost. As some readers will know -- or will recall from earlier posts on this blog -- Fish argues that Milton depicts Satan as a heroic character with seemingly admirable qualities so that we will identify with him and sin along with Adam and Eve through taking Satan's side until we learn, too late, that we have been misled.

As I noted on the Milton List:

Sam Raimi must have been boning up on Stanley Fish's magnum opus. His recent film, Drag Me To Hell, tells the morality tale of what happens when a young and ambitious loan officer turns down an old woman's application for a mortgage extension. The old lady puts a curse on the ambitious young woman . . . and we're also implicated. Look at this review -- "After Spidey, a Return to Hell" -- by the much maligned Charles McGrath in the New York Times:

The torments the poor young woman suffers sometimes seem a little excessive compared with the relative smallness of her crime -- she's hardly a Bernie Madoff -- and that's part of Mr. Raimi's intention. "This is a young woman who thinks she’s a good person, but she acts out of greed," he explained. "That's what seems relevant -- the greed. I tried to make her someone you identify with, because at the moment she has to make her choice, I want the audience to make that choice with her. They sin with her. They know they’re culpable, and now" -- he lowered his voice so it sounded like the voice-over of a horror movie trailer -- "now they know they’re going to be punished."

That really sounds like Piscean twist to my learned ears. Stanley, have you been tutoring Raimi -- or did he bite into that fruitful lemon twist on his own?

I address Stanley Fish directly because I know that he subscribes to the Milton List and sometimes even posts there . . . but neither he nor any other scholar responded. Perhaps some didn't like my allusion to Charles McGrath, who was heavily criticized on the list by a few scholars last autumn for 'erroneous' remarks about John Milton in a review of Terrance Lindall's WAH Center's exhibit on Milton in the lead-up to the center's Grand Paradise Lost Costume Ball. Actually, I'm joking in suggesting that my Milton List post was ignored because of the reference to McGrath . . . just in case anyone was taking that as a seriously snarky remark.

Incidentally, while I have enjoyed Raimi's Spiderman films, I've not seen any of his horror films and don't intend to, for I have a wild imagination and would suffer nightmares if I watched (as readers will understand).

Why, I won't even watch the trailer to Raimi's hellish film.

Poetry: Further Reflections from the Milton List

Yesterday, I speculated that if one takes prose and puts it into recognizably poetic form, then it takes on the quality of poetry. James Rovira on the Milton List took my suggestion to parodic lengths:

One last bit about the poetic nature of the Tractatus. I said earlier that Wittgenstein's "drawing of a cube [in proposition] 5.5423 deserves special attention." I realize now that if you were to take this drawing of a cube and give it line breaks consistent with modern poetry:

____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________

you'd have a poem roughly akin to most of Billy Collins's or Charles Bukowski's work, though lacking some of their charm.

Thanks very much for you indulgence. I think I'll stop now as I don't believe it's possible to get any more ridiculous than this.

More ridiculous? Probably not, since Rovira's example lacks words, but it nevertheless led me to some further reflections, which I posted to the list, and which I now post here (accompanied by an image borrowed from the CRS Archives):

Yes, Jim, that would take your counterexamples to their 'logical' absurdity. But poetic form is hardly recognizeable here since words are absent. All that I see are "fill-in-the-blanks" awaiting words, possibly a grocery list. No reason even to assume that a poem is lurking there in its Platonic form, ready to shape words toward an ideal.

But your parody nevertheless raises a question for me: Can a real image be an essential part of a poem? Consider John Updike's "Shipbored," which includes an eight-line drawing to which it refers:

Shipbored

That line is the horizon line. (1)
The blue above it is divine. (2)

The blue below it is marine. (3)
Sometimes the blue below is green. (4)

Sometimes the blue above is gray,
Betokening a cloudy day. (5)

Sometimes the blue below is white,
Foreshadowing a windy night. (6)

Sometimes a drifting coconut
Or albatross adds color, but (7)

The blue above is mostly blue.
The blue below and I are, too. (8)

Is the image part of the poem? It's not a poem by itself, but it seems to be part of the poem, drawn by the author to illustrate and clarify in such a way that it becomes the first reference of the poetic lines, thereby drawing our attention on to the scene at sea.

By analogy, Wittgenstein's "cube" would need to retain its cubic form and accompany words in poetic form, which the cube would serve to illustrate and clarify. The cube could then be an essential part of the poem but not if abstracted from the words -- as little a poem as Updike's drawing abstracted from the words.

And there the discussion now stands.

Poetry: Reflections from the Milton List

Choose Your Muse

"Muses Sarcophagus"

The Nine Muses and their Attributes

Marble, 2nd Century AD

Found by Via Ostiense

(Image from Wikipedia)

A discussion about the distinction between prose and poetry has emerged on the Milton List. The discussion began when someone noted that "poem" in the seventeenth century could include works that we would now call prose. Carrol Cox, one of the list's older scholars, wrote:

I would use "poem" that way. (I think in ordinary usage "poetry" and "poem" differ somewhat.) A poem or a fiction is a "made thing," a verbal artifact. (I wouldn't use it for movies.) I would also use it for many texts that the Renaissance would have called "history." Tillyard in his book on the "English Epic" included Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is a beautiful artifact as well as a science text, and I don't see why "poem" could not, in some contexts, include that. "Work of literature" is awkward, and the best single word for it is "poem." There's a tragic rhythm in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and an epic sweep to Rusell's Human Knowledge.

James Rovira responded:

The question of what is or is not poetry has a long and distinguished history, of course, but doesn't it tend to follow two currents?

-Plato's distinction between poetry and philosophy, which emphasizes content rather than form.

-An emphasis upon form rather than content.

The question seems to me to get particularly confused when we try to blend these two types of responses. Those who emphasize that poetic form makes poetry can recognize occasional poetic qualities in Wittgenstein's Tractatus but would never call it a poem -- which would be a rather strange poem indeed because it includes calculus. If math is poetry then everything is poetry and the word itself ceases to function at all. Those in the first camp would exclude the Tractatus from poetry simply because it is philosophy. Both camps would also exclude history from poetry unless it were written in verse form.

I joined the discussion at this point:

Jim, while I generally agree with your critique of Carrol's use of the term "poem," I found much to admire in what Carrol said.

Anyway, concerning your remarks on Wittgenstein's Tractatus:

"Those who emphasize that poetic form makes poetry can recognize occasional poetic qualities in Wittgenstein's Tractatus but would never call it a poem -- which would be a rather strange poem indeed because it includes calculus. If math is poetry then everything is poetry and the word itself ceases to function at all. Those in the first camp would exclude the Tractatus from poetry simply because it is philosophy."

Did he use calculus in that work? I haven't read it in a while. At any rate, when I read it in German back in 1986, I had to read it slowly, and I was struck by Wittgenstein's choice of a numbering system that began with one and ended with seven. As I read the opening line, "1. Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist" ("1. The world is all that the case is"), I realized that Wittgenstein was 'creating' a world in seven days, and on the seventh day, he rests: "7. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" ("7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one be silent"). There's a sort of poiesis to that.

I once wrote up a brief summary of my views on Wittgenstein's biblical allusion (and possible numerology), for I was interested in the way that he was subverting the logical-positivist endeavor even in a work where he seemed to be applying its principles, but that has gone missing in my many moves over the years as a gypsy scholar.

The discussion then segued into a series of posts in which James Rovira cast prose into 'ironic' poetic form to show that it does not work as poetry:

Maybe the poetic qualities of Wittgenstein's Tractatus would be more evident if I broke his lines up as poetry?

"Thus I do not

write

'f(a,b).a=b',
but 'f(a,a)'
(or
'f(b,b)');
and not
'f(a,b).

~a=b',

but

'f(a,b)')"

James later added:

Yes. The fact that a philosopher can talk about poetry intelligently (or say intelligent things that we can apply to the study of poetry) does not mean he is writing poetry when doing so.

Forgive me, let me correct myself:

Yes
The fact that
a philosopher can
talk about poetry
intelligently
(or say
intelligent things that
we can apply
to the study of
poetry)
does not
mean
he is writing
poetry
when doing
so.

About this 'poetry', I noted:

Jim, what I find interesting in the . . . is that you have taken prose and changed it into poetry by imposing a recognizably poetic form onto it. We are forced to read it as poetry -- perhaps bad poetry, but poetry nonetheless.

This doesn't quite disprove your point, since the form is a distinction between prose and poetry, but it does put offer a different perspective on things.

And there the discussion stands, for now.

But further opinions are welcome, so amuse yourselves to death.

Discussory Channel Presents: Canonical Face-Off

Shakespeare

Versus

Milton

Shakespeare was a playwright who wrote some of England's greatest dramas. Milton was a poet who wrote what is disputably the greatest poem in English. But whose words had greater power? On Discussory Channel's Canonical Face-Off today, we'll see Shakespeare and Milton pitted against one another in a wild poetry slam to answer once and for all this overwhelming question.

(Bets to be Placed in Comments)

Inspired by a Milton List Discussion

Abraham van Linge: "Jonah and the Whale"

Jonah and the 'Whale'

(Image from Lawrence OP's Flickr)

A query surfaced on the Milton List concerning the comparison of Satan prone on the fiery flood to the sea-beast "haply slumbering on the Norway foam" (PL 1. 203). The question was whether the reference to Norway alluded to the Midgard Serpent (or World Serpent) of Norse mythology. I don't know about that, but Roy Flannagan provided us with a link to an image from Milton's time of the 'whale' that reportedly swallowed Jonah as another possible source. It's not the Midgard Serpent, of course, but it is rather reptilian.

I have 'borrowed' the image at that link, one of a series of photographs taken in Lincoln College Chapel, Oxford, by a certain "Lawrence OP" . . . or 'uncertain' since I'm not sure of that last name (so I'll refer to him as "Lawrence").

Concerning this image and the others with it, Lawrence tells us:

The windows are the masterpiece of Abraham van Linge, 1629-31. He was the finest glass painter of his generation.

They are not stained glass, but enamelled: the enamel was painted on then fired; the heat and length of firing determined the final colour. It is a tricky, sophisticated technique of which van Linge was the supreme master.

Not stained glass but enameled glass. I learn something new every day. Now, I've just realized that I don't specifically know what the "stained" in stained glass means. Why 'stained'?

But that's not my inquiry for today. Rather, I was wondering why this 'whale' has scales (the 'reptilian' quality alluded to above). I realize that the Medieval depiction of whales in those books known as bestiaries shows them scaled, but Abraham van Linge was painting in the 17th century, well into the scientific revolution. Did people not know any better by then?

Lawrence, by the way, has chosen the New International Version of the Bible for a caption to the photo above:

"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:40)

This NIV text says "huge fish." Let's check the Greek:

ὥσπερ γὰρ ἦν Ἰωνᾶς ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας

The relevant word is "kētous" (κήτους), which the Blue Letter Bible helps us to understand by directing us to its Lexicon: "a sea monster, whale, huge fish." The definition is borrowed from Thayer's Lexicon, which informs us further that the original Jonah story had "kētei megalō" (κήτει μεγάλῳ) in the Septuagint (Greek) version, which would thus suggest "great sea monster, great whale, great huge fish." The Hebrew behind this is "dag gadōl" (דָּג גָּדֹול) in Jonah 2:1, which literally means "big fish."

This raises a host of questions (e.g., where the "whale" translation comes from) that I cannot deal with at present, for my day is soon to start.

But knowledgeable readers are welcome to comment.

Philip Pullman: "shallow and sinister"?

Philip Pullman, April 2005

Photograph by Adrian Hon, MSSV

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Milton List has been having a discussion of Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" series because of its many allusions to Milton's writings, which some Milton experts are currently exploring. Other Milton scholars remain unimpressed by Pullman. For instance, Professor James Fleming wrote:

Am I alone in finding Pullman both shallow and sinister?

As far as I can tell, The Golden Compass ends with Lord Asriel, the good-scary guy, murdering a child (Roger). This is presented as a noble sacrifice, allowing the great man to open up the heavens in defiance of an authoritarian God.

A little Brothers Karamazov rids us of this deed.

I concurred:

You're not "alone in finding Pullman both shallow and sinister." Even worse, he can't tell a good story.

In the mid-90s, I was sitting in a cafe in London reading book reviews in some newspaper and came across two reviews, one of Rowling and the other of Pullman. An excerpt from the latter's book aroused my curiosity, but I didn't actually read the series until around 2005, long after I'd read most of the Harry Potter series.

I was greatly disappointed by the story's development in the Pullman's series. I started reading with high expectations, and the quality of his writing is certainly very good, but the story went nowhere. Even the writing seemed to falter in the latter books . . . but perhaps I was just getting bored.

Like Professor Fleming, I was troubled by the "noble sacrifice" -- though there may have been an allusion to Christianity in that -- but whatever Pullman might have intended by that, and by the entire series, I finished reading him with a sense of letdown.

In my opinion, he let his animus toward Christianity distort his story.

Despite Pullman's literary gifts, which are considerable and far better than Rowlings', the latter tells a much better story that kept me interested to the very end.

The 'noble sacrifice' in the Harry Potter series worked rather better, too.

For anyone interested, I blogged on my reaction to Pullman back in 2005, soon after having finished him in disappointment.

Other readers will certainly have had a different reaction, and I'd be interested in Written Wyrdd's opinion since she's a reader of fantasy and sci-fi and is also, I take it, a writer herself.

Was the Pullman series a letdown for anyone else?

"like Elizabethan miniatures"

Young Man Among Roses (1585-95)

Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619)

Possibly Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex (1566-1601)

Miniature Painting

Museum No. P.163-1910

(Image from Victoria and Albert Museum)

I don't get much scholarly attention, perhaps deservedly, but occasionally somebody says something nice. Recently, a fellow Milton scholar privately informed me that my published articles (or, at least, some of them):

"are like Elizabethan miniatures: short, very finely crafted, exhibiting superb taste."

Of course, that was in the context of explaining that such a style is about 400 years out of date. But he added some words of comforting advice:

"And I would also think hard about the present academic environment, in which state systems are being cut at a rate that exceeds the speed with which our retirement funds have shrunk. While at the same time, you have the rise of "assessment" and other noxious, related discourses. It occurs to me that the present situation is enough to make one yearn for the days of the culture wars. At least then, what we taught seemed to matter."

Actually, now that I think about it . . . that's not especially comforting (other than as a misplaced shadenfreude on my part). But it does help by describing the context to my stalled career.

Did I say 'stalled'? I meant retrograde. I'm actually moving backward, like one of those 'erring' planets on a Ptolemaic epicycle. For that matter, I'm also a bit eccentric.

One should ever strive for accuracy of expression.

John Milton's New Fans: The Jehovah's Witnesses

Watchtower Buildings in Brooklyn, New York

"All along the watchtower..."

(Image from Wikipedia)

On the Milton List that I belong to, one of the participants, Rodney C. Wilson, has generously put online an anonymous article from the Jehovah's Witnesses's magazine The Watchtower about John Milton's Christian Doctrine.

The article is titled "John Milton's Lost Treatise" and was printed on pages 11 through 13 in the September 15th, 2007 issue of The Watchtower: Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. Wilson informed the Milton List readers:

For those interested, I have scanned the cover of that issue of the WT and the three-page article and uploaded them here (a red, flashing arrow will indicate the file download link).

Wilson also reminded those on the listserve of a previous announcement and provided some additional details:

A few weeks back, there was a brief discussion regarding a three-page article in the September 15, 2007, issue of The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom (WT), published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses). The WT's average printing run is 28,578,000 copies in 161 languages, so Milton definitely got some face-time with this article. Tomorrow and next Sunday, FYI, following the morning's Public Talk, this issue will be used for the Watchtower Study in Kingdom Halls of Jehovah's Witnesses all over the world.

It seems that the Witnesses approve of Milton's doctrinal positions on the Trinity, the subordination of the Son to the Father, and future resurrection as the hope of humankind (as opposed to an immortal soul that does not die). They do not approve of his position on divorce!

I've read the article, and it's not bad as a brief on Milton. It isn't scholarly, of course, but it's accurate enough for popular purposes, and it's quite clear and even asks some of the right questions about the delay in the publication of Milton's Christian Doctrine:

Although Milton had not previously hesitated to express his views, he held off publishing this treatise. Why? For one thing, he knew that its scriptural explanations widely differed from accepted church teaching. Furthermore, with the restoration of the monarchy, he had fallen out of favor with the government. He may therefore have been waiting for quieter times. In any case, after Milton's death, his secretary took the Latin manuscript to a publisher, who refused to print it. The English secretary of state then confiscated the manuscript and filed it away. A century and a half would pass before Milton's treatise came to light. ("John Milton's Lost Treatise," The Watchtower: Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom, September 15, 2007, page 12.)

I don't know the full details on this point, but the article sounds factual enough. The point about the "restoration of the monarchy" might be obscure for people lacking familiarity with British history. Milton was a political revolutionary who supported the removal and execution of the king and the construction of a republic instead. He not only supported this but even worked as Latin Secretary for Oliver Cromwell, the revolutionary leader. So, of course, Milton wouldn't have been very popular when the monarchy was restored. His religious views also would not have been acceptable, as the article notes.

I'm no expert on the Jehovah's Witnesses -- though I did use to talk with a French believer who visited me about once a week for a while when I was living in Tuebingen, Germany. I didn't learn much about their organization or practices but focused upon particular items of interest. I recall that the fellow emphasized that the "cross" upon which Jesus was crucified should be called a "torture stake." This seemed to be a very important point for the Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't know why, for I found the point to be a minor one and told the fellow that I wasn't interested in that.

Anyway, not being an expert, or even superficially knowledgeable, I had to do a bit of digging around online to find out what a "Public Talk" and a "Watchtower Study" refer to. On these two points, I'm actually willing to trust Wikipedia: on the "Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses":

A qualified elder or ministerial servant delivers a discourse on a Bible-based subject. The speaker may be from the local congregation or from another congregation, usually nearby. This Public Meeting is generally held on Sundays, but can be on another day if that is more convenient for the congregation (this is most usual when more than 4 congregations share a Kingdom Hall). This talk is particularly directed toward interested members of the public who are not Jehovah's Witnesses, but is of interest to Jehovah's Witnesses as well. This meeting is 45 minutes in length, and is usually followed immediately after (with a transitional song) by the Watchtower Study. ("Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses (The Public Talk)," Wikipedia, accessed October 29, 2007)

Following the Public Talk, after the intermission of a Kingdom Song, is the Watchtower Study. The Bible is studied with the aid of an article in the Watchtower magazine. An experienced elder (the Watchtower Study Conductor) leads the discussion from the platform. Each paragraph is read by a 'brother in good standing' and is assigned by the conductor for that week. Questions included in the article for that paragraph are then posed to the audience. After calling on one or more in attendance to answer on that question, the conductor will often ask follow-up questions of his own or offer comments himself before moving to the next paragraph. Many of the numerous scriptures cited in the study article will be read aloud by called-on members of the audience. Four or five review questions are typically asked at the end of an article. The Public Talk and Watchtower Study together usually last 2 hours from opening prayer to closing prayer. ("Beliefs and practices of Jehovah's Witnesses (The Watchtower Study)," Wikipedia, accessed October 29, 2007)

Wilson informs us that "Tomorrow and next Sunday, . . . following the morning's Public Talk, this issue will be used for the Watchtower Study in Kingdom Halls of Jehovah's Witnesses all over the world." Since he sent his email on Saturday, October 27, then I presume that he meant that the Public Talk and Watchtower Study on Milton's views would take place on Sunday the 28th of October and on Sunday the 4th of November. That doesn't leave much advance warning for the 28th, but Gypsy Scholar readers all over the world can attend next Sunday's Public Talk at a local Kingdom Hall and listen to what the Jehovah's Witnesses have to say about Milton.

I wonder if the speakers are first required to read anything by Milton...