[Milton-L] Milton and Marx

[Sara van den Berg]

James Rovira wrote:
> Much appreciation to Carrol Cox for providing context for Marx's comment.
>
> Seems to me that Marx saying Milton produces literature the way a
> silkworm produces silk is that he seeks to remove Milton's production
> from consideration as capital.  Milton, in other words, is -not- a
> laborer, even though he produces a product that can be sold and
> marketed, any more than silkworms are laborers, even though they
> produce a product that can be sold or marketed.  The point with a real
> laborer is that "his production is from the outset subsumed under
> capital, and only takes place so that
> capital may valorise itself."
>
> Milton would write poetry whether his labor could valorise itself as
> capital or not, just as the silkworm would produce silk whether we
> were harvesting it or not.  In that sense Milton's product is
> "natural" or "part of his nature," like the silkworm's silk.
>
> Jim R
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I agree with what everyone has said about how to parse Marx on Milton, 
but perhaps we shouldn't entirely etherealize "silkworm Milton."   After 
all, he reports that he and those around him thought he could write 
something that other people "would not willingly let die." He argued 
passionately for access to publishing in _/Areopagitica/_. That means 
they would read his work; that means they could buy his work.   He 
signed contracts.  He added arguments to PL to help sell more copies. 
Stephen Dobranski, Peter Lindenbaum, and others have shown us how 
involved he was in  the whole institution of the modern book trade and 
the idea economy.  In some ways, he exemplifies the institution of 
"authorship" Foucault critiques in "What Is an Author?"  That being 
said, certainly writing poetry was not, for him, alienated labor.  Nor, 
for us, is reading his poetry.  If we have to do so through the 
mediation of the marketplace, so be it.  -- I wish summer were longer.

Sara van den Berg

Sara van den Berg
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