[Milton-L] Re: authorship and the survival of evidence [was: Milton and Marx]

[James Rovira]

Patrick Scott raises a good point, esp. about our point of view and
what presents itself as evidence.  I think we need to consider a range
of possibilities here, some of which include the fact that authors
like Pope could consider some works written for profit and others as
an expression of his own interest.  In authors like Blake we also have
the possibility of a completely unrealistic view of what would sell
and be popular eventually devolving into understanding writing for
profit as corrupt.

We also have to consider differences in degree.  Marx's comparison was
to a factory worker whose labor was completely alienated from his
ideals and everything else you might associate with artistic labor,
wasn't it?  Even if Milton's intention for PL were exclusively for
profit (of course they weren't, but even if...) his labor still
wouldn't be quite the same as the factory worker's.

At any rate, I'm curious too how accurate Marx was in his assessment
of Milton.

Jim R