[Milton-L] Milton and Marx

[Andrew Mattison]

I believe Marshall Grossman has commented on that quotation in his
essay on Milton and Marx from a while back.  I don't have the citation
at hand but I'm sure someone else can supply it.

Andrew Mattison
University of Toledo

On 8/14/07, Nancy Charlton <pluscachange at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>  Hello all --
>
>  David Brooks has a provocative column in today's New York Times, "Truck
> Stop Confidential."  Unfortunately it is available online only through their
> subscription service so the URL may lead you only to a sales pitch, and I
> can't legitimately copy it in toto, so I'll urge you to look for it in the
> print edition.
>
>  Brooks reflects upon his conversation with a trucker he met at a truck stop
> in VA, describes his dedication to his work, and uses this as the point of
> departure for a look at the values that determine social class in the USA.
> What is called (in varying tones of derisiveness) the "working class,"
> concludes Brooks, defines itself by "the moral centrality of work" (term
> from sociologist Michele Lamont). They do "hard things," as opposed to those
> who must persuade and hence work with words, whom they regard as lying and
> manipulative. They see social class in moral rather than economic terms
>
>  To exemplify further--and this is why I'm sending this to Milton-L--Brooks
> observes: Karl Marx once observed that "Milton produced Paradise Lost for
> the same reason that a silk worm produces silk. It was an activity of his
> nature." Here was a guy that had found in trucking the activity of his
> essential nature. Why silkworms? Exotic and precious, perhaps; but did PL
> flow from Milton's gut like material to enclose a pupa?  Was he a hard
> worker or a manipulator?  Intriguing questions, but add the social class
> question to the mix, and here is a topic for us during the dog days of
> August!
>
>  Nancy Charlton
>
>  P.S. the URL, FWIW:
> http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/opinion/14brooks.html?th&emc=th
>
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