[Milton-L] historicism and formalism

[jfleming at sfu.ca]

very interesting, but somewhat tantalizing, comments. JDF

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:49:22 -0800 milton-l at lists.richmond.edu wrote:
> I am intrigued by the discussion between Professors Fleming and 
> Skulsky, and have written a few responses in an attempt to ask whether 
> people on the list have opinions about seventeenth-century philosophies 
> of reception in relation to the debate over formalism and historicism.	
> I suppose I am suggesting that we consider making historical our 
> discussion of historicism.
> 
> First, a quick note regarding the end of Professor Skulsky's most 
> recent posting: an inroad for Gadamer as far as Milton studies are 
> concerned would seem to be Wolfgang Iser's reception theory, as an 
> alternative to Stanley Fish's reader response theory.  Iser would take 
> into account both of Professor Skulsky's articulations of Professor 
> Fleming's attack on historicism - the circularity of using the text as 
> a paradigm for examining the text, as well as using the text as a 
> paradigm for evaluating the next text, etc.  (I will try to find my 
> seminar notes from Professor Iser's fascinating discussions of Truth 
> and Method, but most readers on this list are very likely quite 
> familiar with Professor Iser's linguistic reception theories.)  It is 
> tempting it to point out the Hegel / Heidegger opposition in these 
> conundrums.  However, I am wondering whether we might read Milton as a 
> philosopher who addresses both kinds of interpretive dilemmas.
> 
> Might the contribution cultural studies would make to reception theory 
> be to suggest that we should take into account not merely the social 
> history but the linguistic philosophy of the reception of Milton?	
> Sharon Achinstein's important book Milton and the Revolutionary Reader 
> does this in a political sense.  What would the concomitant 
> seventeenth-century linguistic reception philosophy be?  One might 
> recall the careful work in Harold Skulsky's Language Recreated, and 
> bring that work forward to answer cultural studies' attack on New 
> Historicism as follows: there is a cultural philosophy of 
> interpretation implicit in the structure of metaphor, and that 
> philosophy has a historically specific attitude toward the kind of 
> conundrums Professor Fleming notes.  It seems to me that the difference 
> between Milton and Locke on the topic of metaphor, for example, 
> requires a historical analysis of tropes.  To say that one cannot 
> escape the blind spots of historical analysis would be to reiterate 
> what Milton's tropes already achieve - especially in certain passages 
> in Areopagitica, for example.
> 
> Further, and in a broader sense, in the Ramist Logic as well as in 
> passages of De Doctrina Christiana, Milton provides a framework not 
> merely for the thematic, theological and political but the linguistic 
> and rhetorical reception of his work.  I think there's a possibility 
> that Professors Fleming and Skulsky might find common ground in this 
> respect.  Just a thought.
> Warm regards,
> Alice Berghof
> 
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James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713
cell: 604-290-1637

"Not always, nor of necessity, nor for the most part."