[Milton-L] Milton and Gardens: queries on JM's aesthetics

[Carl Bellinger]

I don't see that this passage represents Eve's work experience either as 
pointedly pleasant or creative.

The "cloud of fragrance" is no doubt pleasant, and the glowing of the flower 
colors, but  Eve is "mindless the while/Herself." Of course this phrase 
refers, in the first case, not to her attentiveness to her work, but to her 
unawareness of danger and her own frailty. That withstanding, I find nothing 
in the narrative itself here that seems at odds with "mindless the while..." 
And as "delicious" as this garden may be we are not presented with an Eve 
standing there drinking it all in. Eve has not got, in this scene, what 
Flannery O'Connor phrases "a pleasure-taking eye." That keenness belongs, 
here, to Satan.

[[  Mindless the while Herself.   Wonderful how the two strong 
sense-stresses of this idiomatic construction, on "mindless" & "Herself," 
are floating/suspended across the faintly-stressed "the while," across the 
line-end, in a kind of cadential atmospheric mindlessness. So it seems to 
me. No English poet comes anywhere near Milton in the myriad perfections of 
expression he is able to pencil across that glimmering, mysterious 
trajectory "from one verse into another!"  Please pardon the digression. 
Though come to think of it, it's not entirely off point. ]]

And how creative and fulfilling can it be, really, to be supporting drooping 
flowers with Myrtle bands? Sorry to be so crabby, but if Eve here were 
taking real pleasure inventing new horticultural procedures, Milton would be 
saying so I think.

In another passage --where A&E first breathe the morning air, then pray, 
then turn to their appointed tasks-- I recall getting the sense that, 
compared to breathing and singing, the work thing is a lesser thing, a 
merely and frankly workmanlike pastime. It's sooo nice when lunch comes 
around!

-Carl


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Gillum" <mgillum at unca.edu>
To: "milton-l" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Milton and Gardens: queries on JM's aesthetics


> If the Genesis account does in fact derive from earlier myths where humans
> are put to labor for the benefit of the gods, that tells us nothing about
> the nature of labor in Milton's  Paradise. A&E tend the garden for their 
> own
> benefit, to keep the paths open (9.244-46) so they may gather food, enjoy
> beauty, and be amused by the animals, and to enhance the production of
> fruits and flowers. The labor is not onerous, but contributes pleasant
> variety to their days. Perhaps the most detailed description of labor
> actually in progress is here:
>
> . . .Eve separate he spies,
> Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,           9. 425
> Half-spied, so thick the roses bushing round
> About her glowed, oft stooping to support
> Each flower of tender stalk, whose head, though gay
> Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,
> Hung drooping unsustained. Them she upstays            430
> Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
> Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
>>From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
> Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
> Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;            435
> Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen
> Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers
> Imbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve:
> Spot more delicious than those gardens feigned
> Or of revived Adonis, or renowned                    440
> Alcinoüs, host of old Laertes¹ son,
> Or that, not mystic, where the sapient king
> Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.
>
> Obviously, as Jeff Theis says, the text presents this work as easy,
> pleasant, and creative-- Eve can already enjoy the results of her work in
> the "flowers / Imbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve."
>
> Michael G.
>
>
>
> On 6/23/09 10:26 AM, "Jeffrey Theis" <jtheis at salemstate.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> As for horticultural labor being an onerous task and your sarcastic
>> dismissal of my argument that such labor can focus one's mind in a way
>> that leads to knowledge (and pleasure), I think that you are
>> fundamentally overlooking Milton's goal of stating that labor was not a
>> punishment for sin. Labor was present before human sin, and it was good.
>> Members of the list who are interested in a larger discussion of the
>> merits of gardening labor might wish to read the first several chapters
>> of Robert Pogue Harrison's *Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition*
>> (Chicago UP, 2008).
>>
>> Michael, you may believe that Milton fails in this attempt to render
>> labor as a positive act, or you may not like his argument but those are
>> different things. My sense is that you have a better argument against
>> labor if you just focus on Raphael's account of his being sent to guard
>> Hell in Book 8 (229-40). That is a good place to apply a Marxist
>> critique of labor.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>
>
>
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