[Milton-L] dictating PL

[Carl Bellinger]

I too would like to know that number.  Was it "20" or so? dictated each morning?

     My own sense is that Milton _composed_ PL rather completely before he began dictating it. It has been suggested [A. Fowler (and perhaps others???)], based on internal evidence, that M may in fact have had  both the 10 book AND the 12 book versions clearly in mind from the 'get go.'  

     (I attempted, about 6 years ago in a post to Milton-l, to offer an observation that could support the above view, but it was an impossibly, yea unconscionably long & poorly written post which, I believe --happily-- almost nobody read. )

     If indeed Milton dictated roughly the same number of lines each day, couldn't that be seen as supporting evidence for the view that the poem was already finished and memorized in his mind? Else that daily sum could vary greatly depending on any number of issues such as the nature of the text at hand [a 10 line paragraph? a 55 line invocation?, a 26 line invocation? a 78 line speech?] or, I suppose, depending on Milton's mood on a given morning, his physical health, the intensity of inspiration...  

"Still as I pulled, it came; and so I penned It down..." J. B.

cheers,
Carl

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Margaret Thickstun 
  To: John Milton Discussion List 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:13 PM
  Subject: [Milton-L] dictating PL


  I'm sure I could find this information if I were to look in the biographies, but this path seems easier.  My students asked, "about how many lines of Paradise Lost did Milton compose on a given night?"  Does anyone on the list have a ballpark answer? 

  Thanks.--Margie

  Margaret Thickstun
  Elizabeth J. McCormack Professor of English
  Hamilton College
  198 College Hill Road
  Clinton, NY 13323



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