[Milton-L] Fw: "Milton Regained . . ." by Charles McGrath

[Carol Barton]

Please enlighten me, Feisel and Horace Jeffery--when did Milton ever make drudges of his *wives*--or for that matter, of his daughters? By what authority does McGrath claim that "His first wife found him so sullen and gloomy that she left him for three years"? When did he ever turn Katharine Woodcock or Elizabeth Minshull Milton, "his second and third wives . . . into drudges and amanuenses"? I'm sure Gordon Campbell would appreciate knowing about this, too--poor misinformed Parker apparently didn't. And I'm so glad McGrath found such authority and reliability in his esteemed source, Mr. Lindall, who can "channel" Milton's thoughts, has published his works in such respected venues as _Heavy Metal_, and is (by his own acclimation, of course) among the 'top five best-known illustrators of Milton in the world,' and part of the great tradition that includes William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Gustave Doré and even (though his Milton work was inferior) Salvador Dalí." 

If you had spent the last ten years as I have, fighting to have Milton honored in the place of his birth with the City to which he was so devoted, and had only just succeeded--you might feel a little less charitable toward McGrath.

Permit me to remind the two you of your generosity if you're ever on the unemployment line--which will be because people like McGrath have done you the favor of perpetuating the negative mythologies spawned by the Restoration and fed by Johnson, et al. a century later.

I, for one, expect more from the _New York Times_--and I have had several exchanges with McGrath's editor this afternoon, telling him so.

Best to all,

Carol Barton
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20080926/93f13fbc/attachment-0001.html