[Milton-L] Is Paradise Lost
Michael Bryson
michael.bryson at csun.edu
Tue Apr 14 11:39:47 EDT 2009
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really
mirrors--Oscar Wilde
Of course, Wilde wasn't a poet either...another
stringer together of "emotionless words [...] for
their own sake" no doubt.
Michael Bryson
---- Original message ----
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:30:12 -0400
From: jonnyangel <junkopardner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Is Paradise Lost
To: John Milton Discussion List
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
The only thing I’ll give Bill’s Sonnets (which
have never left the top of my toilet, where I’ve
read them for years on the crapper) is that he
eventually got little playful with the form,
whereas Milton never did. But I’m not talking
about Sonnets. Shakespeare’s sonnets mean
nothing – they’re transparent, emotionless
words strung together for their own sake. Look at
Milton’s, especially the one’s where he muses
about how his time was spent. Shakespeare’s
“poetry” isn’t transcendent because it
didn’t “mean” anything. I hate to mention
that anti-Semite/Milton-hater Ezra Pound, but at
the very least he knew that emotion in poetry was
its only transcendent quality.
And yes, Shakespeare “could” be both a
Playwright AND a poet (and even a plumber), but he
wasn’t. He was a playwright, and his sonnets
pale in comparison to Milton’s, and comparing
the two as “poets” is like comparing an orange
to motor oil.
And I don’t need to “limit” Shakespeare by
stating that he wasn’t a poet...hell, he did
that all by himself.
I love Shakespeare, but the guards changed with
Milton.
And thank God for the changing of the guards.
J
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
-Bill
When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and
wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more
bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his
State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
-M
On 4/14/09 9:34 AM, "Josh Fischer"
<josh at louisvillegolf.com> wrote:
As my favorite Wendell Berry likes to espouse -
a human is irreducible, and to reduce
Shakespeare to only a playwright is to reduce
him to the parts of him that are popular and
ignore the beauty of his sonnets, which gather
less press but are impressive nonetheless.
He can be both - playwright and poet, and to
reduce him is to limit his greatness.
Limitations are needless, especially when there
are so many actual limitations placed on us by
being human.
We are all such "complicated monsters."
- Joshua Fischer
----- Original Message -----
From: jonnyangel
<mailto:junkopardner at comcast.net>
To: John Milton Discussion List
<mailto:milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 8:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Is Paradise Lost
Thank you Marlene.
But Shakespeare *wasn’t* a poet. Not that
it’s a “bad” thing, but he was a
playwright.
Milton...now that’s a poet. And I will deny
Shakespeare as a poet till the day I die,
unless a real poet shows me something I
missed.
“I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a
poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out and I
know one thing
Each time I find myself layin' flat on my
face
I just pick myself up and get back in the
race.”
(Thank you Frank.)
And yes, I say Shalom and mean it, but
Shakespeare isn’t going to dig himself out
of his grave and write poetry either way.
And BTW, Keats, Chaucer and Pope couldn’t
catch Milton if you dug them all up now and
gave them a 200 year head start. You see,
time doesn’t exist.
And it sure as hell ain’t ever gonna change
the facts.
Peace, Love, and Billy Jack,
J
On 4/14/09 6:40 AM, "Marlene Edelstein"
<malkaruth2000 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Shalom? Shalom? If it's peace and harmony
you're after don't go about calling
Shakespeare a one-trick pony and denying
that he's a poet. Why the need to establish
a hierarchy of the greatest? My love of
poetry and language was nurtured by by both
Shakespeare and Milton (and Keats, Chaucer
and Pope, by the way); returning to either
is a rebirth.
Marlene R. Edelstein
believe everything, believe nothing
--- On Tue, 14/4/09, jonnyangel
<junkopardner at comcast.net> wrote:
From: jonnyangel
<junkopardner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Is Paradise Lost
To: "John Milton Discussion List"
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 14 April, 2009, 10:55 AM
Re: [Milton-L] Is Paradise Lost Yes, Yes,
and Yes. PL is the greatest work of
literature in the “English” Language;
how could it not be? And you really
can’t compare Shakespeare to Milton (or
vice versa), because Bill was a playwright
and John was (first and foremost) a poet.
But you you can compare them with regard
to the fact that both were writer’s,
and both wrote in the English language.
Shakespeare was a phenomenal verbal
linguist, and you can’t deny that. But
Milton was a poet (which is something
Shakespeare simply wasn’t), AND Milton
could also handle an epic narrative,
multiple characters, temporal space, and
the single largest topic that exists:
Man/Woman, Heaven/Hell, God/Satan, and
all of the binaries of life’s
Black/White morality forming grey areas
that are still being sought, fought, and
argued over in the 21st century.
Look, when it comes to the heavyweights,
whether it’s Milton/Shakespeare or
Frazier/Ali, it’s all subjective. Is
Godzilla “greater” than King Kong? Is
an electrolyte imbalance “greater”
than cancer? They can (and often will)
take you to the same place at the end of
the day.
But if I could be fortunate enough to have
an escort to that place, I hope Milton is
my escort.
Shakespeare, for all of his brilliance,
was a one trick pony. Milton was a jack of
many trades, and the master of most of
them.
Even though you can argue someone till
you’re blue in the face that PL is the
greatest work of English Literature ever
written, you will still get arguments to
the contrary – but there are other
factors/variables in the equation to be
considered.
Shakespeare carved out his slice of the
pie, and Milton served up the rest.
Shalom,
Jonathan B. Colburn
On 4/14/09 12:22 AM, "Alan Rudrum"
<alanrudrum at gmail.com> wrote:
the greatest single work of literature
in the English language, as was stated
on this list recently?
Certainly it might be argued that it is;
but when I raised the question with the
scholar nearest to hand, we said
simultaneously "What about King Lear?"
And then there is Wordsworth's Prelude,
which begins with a meaningful echo of
Samson Agonistes, - not every Milton
scholar of my acquaintance managed to
see this for himself,- and speaks at
least as well as Paradise Lost to the
concerns of many people one would
hesitate to condemn as stupid.
Alan Rudrum
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