[Milton-L] L'Allegro and Il Penseroso

[Schwartz, Louis]

Harold,



I had a feeling that something like what you say here was hiding in what you said earlier.  Thanks for laying it out more clearly.  How would you respond to the following set of responses?



(1) that  the definite description "l'Allegro" and "il Penseroso" name

different stages in the development of a single ideal person,



I think that this is a reasonable possibility.  I assume you've got details in mind that can back it up, but I'm not sure that I see what it is in the poem that suggests that passage from one to the other must be seen as a "development" (and therefore, I assume, a one-way street, even if the earlier stage is absorbed into the later, rather than simply abandoned or rejected).



(2) that the stage on view in the first poem is a necessary preparation

for (and merges into) the stage on view in the second,



Because I don't see how the transition from one poem to the other must be seen as a developmental narrative, I don't see why only the first of the two is necessary for attaining the second.  In fact, my own sense is that they may be mutually necessary to the full attainment of each other.



(3) that, in particular, a disposition to be *allegro* is entirely

compatible with a disposition to be *penseroso* even though one can't

fully realize both dispositions at once (the Italian terms aren't

antonyms),



This I agree with completely, and it's a much clearer formulation of what I was trying to say in my other post.



(4) that the appearance of a clash of programs or ideals is an artifact

of the (mistaken) assumption that what is getting banished in the first

poem is getting summoned in the second - and vice versa,



I also agree with this, except that I would give the assertion a different emphasis:  I think that the "mistake" is a mistake made by both speakers.  What they banish is a mistaken vision of the other disposition, and that's not the same thing, I believe, as really banishing the other as it actually is.  To fully realize one disposition at a given time is, however, to necessarily mistake the nature of the other disposition (even if only for a time-only for the period of full realization, which perhaps cannot be sustained indefinitely).  On the other hand, it's a mistake for the reader to assume that the two states are incompatible in any other sense.  In other ways, they interpenetrate each other and, as you imply I think, even complete each other (or perhaps that's what I'm saying, and you only mean that the second disposition completes or fulfills the first, only depending on the first as a necessary early stage).  What interests me right now is that, if I'm right-especially if I'm right that the structure is circular and not linear, or as you put it "developmental"-the complete fulfillment of both states would seem to depend on a necessary mistaking.  The poems seem to me to have something to say about how a true fulfillment can require a necessary mistaking.  The neutral state is not, perhaps, the "moderate" disposition that Handel inserted, in what I assume is a version of "the golden mean," but a state in which it's possible to see the virtues of both dispositions and evaluate what they make possible.  That state, however, because it is disengaged and neutrally objective can evaluate and value those possibilities without ever being able to actualize them itself.  It's one of three places the reader can be, and it stands between the two states that the poems themselves offer (it's the state, perhaps, from which an informed choice gets made at a given time).  It's a breathing space and a space for thought between two breathless states of single-minded imaginative engagement.  Time spent in all three is necessary to a full life, but on an ongoing, not a developmental basis.  And only someone with such a full life could possibly have written the poems.



(5) that both poems are practical applications of a single (classical)

theory of what gets chosen when one makes a choice of life.



I'm interested in hearing more about this (I sense that it's close to what I'm saying in ahistorical terms above), and about what suggests to you the necessity of the developmental narrative, which I'm not sure I see as necessary, either to the theory (my version of it at least) or to the sense of the text.



Best,



Louis





===========================

Louis Schwartz

Associate Professor of English

University of Richmond

Richmond, VA  23173

(804) 289-8315

lschwart at richmond.edu









-----Original Message-----
From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [mailto:milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of Harold Skulsky
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:32 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] L'Allegro and Il Penseroso



I'm afraid my recent comment on L'Allegro and Il Penseroso was

unhelpfully cryptic. Unfortunately, I'm pushed for time and will have to

settle for converting my original owlish queries into flatout claims to

be defended if ever I have a chance:



I believe it can be shown



(1) that  the definite description "l'Allegro" and "il Penseroso" name

different stages in the development of a single ideal person,



(2) that the stage on view in the first poem is a necessary preparation

for (and merges into) the stage on view in the second,



(3) that, in particular, a disposition to be *allegro* is entirely

compatible with a disposition to be *penseroso* even though one can't

fully realize both dispositions at once (the Italian terms aren't

antonyms),



(4) that the appearance of a clash of programs or ideals is an artifact

of the (mistaken) assumption that what is getting banished in the first

poem is getting summoned in the second - and vice versa,



(5) that both poems are practical applications of a single (classical)

theory of what gets chosen when one makes a choice of life.





_______________________________________________

Milton-L mailing list

Milton-L at lists.richmond.edu

Manage your list membership and access list archives at http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l



Milton-L web site: http://johnmilton.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20090326/2569317d/attachment-0001.html