[Milton-L] Thinking or Rehearsing?
Michael Bryson
michael.bryson at csun.edu
Wed Feb 20 17:49:59 EST 2008
Interesting...I am familiar with the prose (and make
it a major component of my courses on Milton--I am
lucky enough to get to teach a Milton course each
semester, in fact...SoCal students seem to respond
to him!). I also agree with this:
"none of the old truths about the physical universe
or kingly divinity or the flatness of the world or
even the contents of the Bible (as "translated" by
the clerisy) can be relied upon, and all one can
know is what his own right reason tells him, as
informed by the Holy Spirit"
And that agreement is reflected in my own use of the
Milton-as-pedagogue sort of argument. I wonder,
though, about why that questioning of "the old
truths" seems so often to run into a "none shall
pass" roadblock over the ways in which Milton is/may
be/may not be using ideas of "God." Why is it simply
naive to read the Father as (at least in part)
manipulative and tyrannical? I ask the same question
about readings of Satan as heroic, Adam as
chivalrous, Eve as seductive, etc.
I do not, however, mean to imply that I am
necessarily advocating such readings (so much as I
am advocating making a space available for them...a
space that is not simply labled "Error--Do Not
Approach"). I do not, for example, think Satan
simply and unproblematically heroic. In my view, he
is presented as a master of the appearance of
heroism, and as having a moment or two in which he
approaches living up to that appearance, but no
more. Adam may, indeed, have a chivalrous moment or
two, but he has plenty of rather more sniveling and
petulant moments. Eve certainly can be seen as
seductive, but her character is ever so much more
than that. And the Father...ah, yes, the Father.
Nothing either simple or unproblematic about that
character, so far as I can tell.
Fish's argument was also something I encountered
only after--years after, actually--I had first read
Paradise Lost. What it enapsulated for me was not
the experience of reading the poem. Far from it.
What is captured for me was the experience of being
"taught" the poem in a university setting. I
realized, on reading, that my undergraduate
instructor had been more or less cribbing from Fish,
and teaching me to do the same. I was being taught
to rehearse an argument, not think through one of my
own, and I wonder whether--or to what extent--I may
be doing the same thing with my own students today.
I also agree that Milton is concerned with the issue
described below:
how to distinguish between propaganda,
self-delusion, and the truth.
But I would ask the Pontius Pilate question: "What
is Truth?" (According to whom, as expressed in what
words, images, concepts, etc.?)
Michael Bryson
---- Original message ----
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:33:44 -0500
From: "Carol Barton" <cbartonphd1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Thinking or Rehearsing?
To: "John Milton Discussion List"
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Again, Michael, I would
send you to the prose, and in particular to
Eikonoklastes, in which
Milton "deconstructs" (to use the term very
anachronistically!) "Charles I's"
Eikon Basilike (which he knows is not even "the
king's book," as
popularly attributed and received). As David
Ainsworth has observed from a
religious perspective, Milton is perceptibly
*teaching his readers how to
read*--which is to say, how to get past the
propaganda, and see through
the ad misericordia manipulation. Fish
contends--and I am certain,
too--that Milton is doing no less in _Paradise
Lost_ (and _Paradise
Regained_ and _Samson_ and almost everything else
written in his
maturity)--and in fact wrote a rather lengthy
dissertation on the subject of why
that is the case. The world has "turned upside
down" at this point in
history--none of the old truths about the physical
universe or kingly divinity
or the flatness of the world or even the contents
of the Bible (as "translated"
by the clerisy) can be relied upon, and all one
can know is what his own right
reason tells him, as informed by the Holy Spirit.
It's imperative that the
faithful be taught how to spot wolves in sheeps'
clothing--and wolves in mitres,
and wolves in coronets--and how to distinguish
between propaganda,
self-delusion, and the truth. That's the purpose
of Milton's pedagogy--and less
overtly, Shakespeare's too, to some degree,
especially in _Hamlet_ and
_Lear_ and the "problem plays," I think. Not to
denigrate his
accomplishment in the least, Fish only put into
words what I (and others)
experienced, but couldn't express: I didn't
encounter him until long after I'd
read _Paradise Lost_ for the first time, so he
couldn't have influenced "how" I
read it then.
Best to all,
Carol Barton
----- Original Message -----
From:
Michael
Bryson
To: John Milton Discussion List
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:52
PM
Subject: [Milton-L] Thinking or
Rehearsing?
The paragraph quoted below encapsulates
something that has long
fascinated me about Milton studies, and about
the way many of us were taught,
starting as undergraduates, to read Paradise
Lost.
We talk about this
text in an unusual way. I do this as well, of
course, so I am not trying to
point fingers here. I wonder, however, what it
might look like to talk about
Hamlet in a similar way.
"To take Hamlet as one example, one does
not (indeed, is not even *supposed to*)
recognize how he or she is being
entrapped by the text into drawing the same
wrong conclusions that its
characters do--that Hamlet is heroic, Laertes
chivalrous, Ophelia so seductive
that
her poor mate is incapable of rational thought
in her presence, and
Claudius a manipulative tyrant. It is only
through the process of rethinking
and rediscovery that we [...] realize that we've
been 'had.'"
One
might argue that the two texts have different
purposes (and to be fair, one
might also argue the difference in genre), that
Paradise Lost is pedagogical
in a way that Hamlet is not, but that argument
seems circular (though again, I
have used a variation of that pedagogical
argument). Why do we do this? I am
reminded of Peter Herman's point (in
Destabilizing Milton) about dominant
interpretive paradigms, and Carol Barton's
observation sums up the "Fish"
paradigm very well. But teaching our students to
"see" the text in that way
(which is also a way of not seeing...) seems
less like encouraging them to
*think* than like teaching them to become
well-rehearsed--even virtuosic--in
the use of an elaborate tradition of
interpretation that has become quite
nearly co-equal with the text itself.
(Though perhaps such an exercise
is one way of encouraging the exercise and
development of our students'
thinking abilities, at least for those inclined
to do more than simply say
"yes...and will I need to know this for the
test?")
Ruminations while
trying to fight off a massive head cold...
Michael Bryson
----
Original message ----
Date:
Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:25:32 -0500
From: "Carol Barton"
<cbartonphd1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Why oh
Why
>Milton does something unforgivable, in the
context of
today's classroom: he
>expands the mind, and makes the reader
*think.* To take PL as one example,
>one does not (indeed, is not
even *supposed to*) recognize how he or she is
>being entrapped by
the text into drawing the same wrong
conclusions that its
>characters
do--that Satan is heroic, Adam chivalrous, Eve
so seductive that
>her
poor mate is incapable of rational thought in
her presence, and God a
>manipulative tyrant. It is only through the
process of rethinking
and
>rediscovery that we engage in the reversion
that Stanley Fish so
>perceptively described in _Surprised by Sin_,
and realize that we've
been
>"had." That's more work than many of today's
readers want to
do--but the
>benefits of the effort are inestimable, and
if you take
nothing else away
>from careful study of _Paradise Lost_, you
leave
it never able to read
>anything else in the old naive way
again.
>
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