[Milton-L] Attacks on Milton and Civility on Milton-L

[Judith Herz]

Ditto to Steve Fallon's post. I'm off to Brooklyn this weekend and I certainly hope to see the exhibit.  It's important that we encourage interest beyond our walls. This semester a couple of people are auditing my Milton course because they are planning a Paradise Lost event/performance here in Montreal this spring..  He did the police (the gods, the devils , us poor folk) in many voices, did our Milton, so bravo to those who want to sing along.  As Leonard Cohen sings "ring the bells that still can ring/ forget the perfect offering/ there is a crack, a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in." 
Judith Hsrz
P.S.  And also ditto to the one post a day temperance suggestiom

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stephen Fallon 
  To: John Milton Discussion List 
  Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 5:13 PM
  Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Attacks on Milton and Civility on Milton-L


  I refrained up to now from adding my thoughts on the WAHCenter exhibition and ball, Charles McGrath's NYTimes piece, and the dustup on the Milton-L, mainly because I've not had the time to read most of the posts through.


  I agree that McGrath's piece recirculated some charges against Milton that call for qualification at least, but I was very happy to see the piece in the paper.  I think that academic Miltonists should be delighted that non-academic readers and lovers of Milton are abroad in the land.  McGrath quotes from Samuel Johnson not only the "Turkish contempt" comment, but also these stirring  sentences: “Milton’s delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel.”  If one more echoing of the shopworn "Turkish contempt" comment is the price the revival of this appreciation of Milton, I see the deal as more than fair.  


  I'm delighted as well that the WAH Center held a ball in Milton's honor, with cake and sculpture.  Terrence Lindall clearly loves Milton, and I welcome his extraordinary paintings as a stirring visual interpretation for the epic.  


  In the academy we all share with students the news on Milton's greatness.  But many don't go to college, and most go through college without reading Milton.  I suspect that the WAH Center's exhibit and the McGrath piece will gain Milton many readers who would not have made their way to him otherwise.


  Steve Fallon


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