[Milton-L] responses and intentionalism

[Watt, James]

Generous Readers:

I’m making this really brief because I suspect most of you are no longer interested in the questions raised by either my response to J D Fleming or his –kindly detailed—response to what I said.  So let me simply reproduce the piece of my text that engendered J D’s response and try to clarify, for him, what I was driving at:

To begin.  Arguing that Milton intends his readers to identify with Satan's 'heroic opposition' and chafe under the wooden and uninspiring character of God --and his utterances-- in the early books doesn't claim to know precisely why he has done it, or even, completely, how.

[I don't understand where "why" or "how" come in. The "what" -- the intension of the text -- is the issue.]

The text, here, is supposed by Fleming to contain [or reveal] a meaning –or intention-- somehow ‘get at able’ by focusing on linguistic and logical sets.  I don’t share this assumption about language in general or texts in particular.  Lakoff & Johnson do a good enough job of dismissing what they call ‘the container’ metaphor in “Metaphors We Live By” revealing in a series of simple examples that meaning, rather than being contained in language is generated by it (and, roughly, its context).  This is shown eloquently and amusingly, I think, in Harold Skulsky’s elegant fable of Estragon and Vladimir (the way the shadow of Beckett hovers over the entire post, not merely expanding but also challenging the audience).  So the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of P.L. ‘come in’ necessarily to any effort to supply an answer to what it is ‘about.’ Fish, in his book, supplies some hypotheses mostly grounded in modern psychology about how presenting God as a wooden dolt operates on a reader. He is less clear about why Milton chooses to do this, something a critic like C.S. Lewis would find objectionable because he [Lewis] believes he and Milton share moral or theological reasons for doing so.  I was emphasizing Fish’s modesty in hesitating to go too far in this direction, not suggesting that he couldn’t do so if he wanted.  My point being that in practice Fish is rather less dogmatic than his detractors claim. I would only add to Harold’s remarks that ‘getting straight what Estragon actually got said’ is, indeed, the workaday work of the profession of literary criticism.  That it is often unbeautiful says more about the difficulties of that process and the limits of its practitioners than its intrinsic value.  Most criticism, that is, like most of anything, lacking in permanance, either practical or aesthetic.  We live, most of us, in constructs that won’t long outlast us.

Second, imagining that a convincing reading somehow bestows on the person some kind of apriori or specially sanctioned knowledge of what the poet meant or intended including things of which he or she was unaware is simply preposterous. ...  noting how the text strikes us on our first, second, and third, readings and asking whether or not the poet may have INTENDED the kinds of responses we have is a long way from authoritatively stating exactly what sort of response is 'correct.'

[I don't understand this comment. I didn't say that a "convincing reading" implied a priori or extra-textual access to authorial intention. I said that sf's kind of strong-intentionalism did. also: I am all for the idea of correct readings.]

Point well taken.  You did, in fact, argue that Fish’s position implies this sort of access, not a ‘convincing reading.’  I hope that you will agree that convincing readings may or may not be correct readings.  Deciding this question returns us to Harold’s ‘workaday work’ including examination of a variety of sorts of contexts for the utterances or texts in question. As to ‘correct readings’ I used to like to remind my students that I had never encountered a temple or church dedicated to a false God or read any sacred texts assigned to one either.  The point being the obvious one that people continue to differ about the nature of God and his, her or their relation to us and our world. Decisions about meanings differ similarly.  That we are carrying on this discussion means, at the very least, that to us it matters.  We may be mistaken.  It’s probably even likely that we are. It seems to me that Fish is rather less dogmatic on these matters than most of his detractors –and that may be why I am rather more fond of him than worried about him.  In deciding issues like this I am rather more likely to follow my nose than my reasoning faculty even as Blake was rather more convinced by indignation than argument.  I understand how this makes us look to Plato and his airy burgomasters.  But I continue to be fond of them even as they are convinced of nothing more than my fondness.

Finally, that readings, intentionalist or relativist, somehow will absolve anyone of the burden of asking what a text is about, is neither to be feared nor even much noticed.

[this amounts to saying, I guess, "it does not" to my third point. I can only reply "it does too."]

I agree that I don’t believe anyone’s readings of Milton or any other poet ever absolve me –or any other readers—from the burden of asking what a text is about.

At this point, I borrowed one of Herbert’s lyrics to attempt, I fear far too clumsily, the way texts, whether of Seventeenth Century Parsons or twentieth century exiles, deliberately engage and provoke readers to wrestle vigorously with them, promising them neither ‘closure’ nor satisfactory encapsulation and, by doing so, revealing the relative spiritual poverty of  both.


[but this is a nice way to make my point about the secret sharing between objectivist-authoritarian and subjective-relativist accounts of reader-response. moreover, it surely vitiates or dissolves your rejection above of the idea that theories of this kind lighten or evacuate the hermeneutic burden. if, in fact, we can't know what anything is about (a very sf-type reductio), how the heck can we know what any particular instance of a text-thing is about?]

It seems to me that Herbert’s poem is the best answer to this paradox we must live with [that we don’t really know what anything is ‘about’ and yet must constantly decide what particular instances of action as well as text-things are about].  He is in his particularly plain style arguing that our principal obstacle to a satisfactory resolution of our separation from God (or meaning) is our insistence on our own definition of satisfaction and resolution.

The reason, in a word, we're on this list serve at all, is that we know, left to our own devices we'll soon be as lost as that great Cherub.

[that reason, as far as I can tell, is not mine. have I misunderstood "how milton-l works"?]

Again, fair enough.  I have no notion of why you or any of us is, in fact, on this list serve.  I rather think most of us misunderstand from time to time how Milton works, so chances are we misunderstand how the milton-l works are even greater.

I take you at your word that you are comfortable being left to your own devices and I wish you well in that practice.  But I hope you’ll accept my desire that whatever protection is extended to me against my own devices be extended, by its source’s mysterious generosity, to you as well.

I have truly enjoyed the opportunity to engage, point by point, with the distinguished readers of this list yet again and look forward to being inspired to write on anohter occasion.  It is being held to such high standards that makes writing on this list really worthwhile.

Jim Watt

________________________________________
From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of JD Fleming [jfleming at sfu.ca]
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 7:11 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] responses and intentionalism

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Watt" <jwatt at butler.edu>
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 9, 2009 1:28:02 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: RE: [Milton-L] responses and intentionalism

Thanks, again, Carol for your clarity and gentle touch.  I'm wanting to think about J D Fleming's three things: first, that Fish's reader response is continuous with a strong version of author-intentionalism because it, by its detailed reading, it makes strong demands on all readers by claiming a specific experience of the text --or set of specific experiences-- that were INTENDED by the poet. Second, that these readings, enshrined in the critical text, must, then, somehow usurp the reading or readings that those not privy to them have already had, making, that is, the critic (or much worse, the teacher) someone with apriori and especially sanctioned access to the intentions or purposes of which even the poet him or herself may have been unaware! And then, finally, that such readings --whether disguised as 'authoritarian-objectivist'  or 'subjective/relativist'- 'absolve' (love the theological slant) the reader of the burden of asking what the text is 'about'?

To begin.  Arguing that Milton intends his readers to identify with Satan's 'heroic opposition' and chafe under the wooden and uninspiring character of God --and his utterances-- in the early books doesn't claim to know precisely why he has done it, or even, completely, how.

[I don't understand where "why" or "how" come in. The "what" -- the intension of the text -- is the issue.]

It simply rejects the other positions --he DIDNT INTEND it because he (or his age's readers) was/were UNAWARE of it, or that HE TRIED TO MAKE GOD MORE ATTRACTIVE AND SIMPLY WASNT UP TO IT --as untenable.  This can still be argued but only by those who, presented with clear evidence of Picasso's draughtsmanship, maintain he must then have lost it or thrown it away when he came to the Demoiselle's D'Avignon.  Beginning by noting how the text strikes us on our first, second, and third, readings and asking whether or not the poet may have INTENDED the kinds of responses we have is a long way from authoritatively stating exactly what sort of response is 'correct.'  Second, imagining that a convincing reading!

  somehow bestows on the person some kind of apriori or specially sanctioned knowledge of what the poet meant or intended including things of which he or she was unaware is simply preposterous.

[I don't understand this comment. I didn't say that a "convincing reading" implied a priori or extra-textual access to authorial intention. I said that sf's kind of strong-intentionalism did.

also: I am all for the idea of correct readings.]


Here's  a sample of how rapidly such an approach disappears in its own silliness:
"There is a painting by Picasso which depicts a pitcher, candle, blue enamel pot. They are sitting, unadorned, upon the barest table. Would we wonder what is cooking in that pot? Is it beans, perhaps, or carrots, a marmite? The orange of the carrot is a perfect complement to the blue of the pot, and the genius of Picasso, neglecting nothing, has surely placed, behind that blue, invisible discs of dusky orange, which, in addition, subtly enrich the table's velvet brown.  Doesn't that seem reasonable? Now I see that it must be beans, for above the pot --you can barely see them-- are quaking lines of steam, just the lines we associate with with boiling beans ... or is it blanching pods? Scholarly research, supported by a great foundation, will discover that exactly such a pot was used to cook cassoulet in the kitchens of Charles the Fat ... or was it Charles the Bald.  There's a dissertation in that." [William Gass, "The Concept of Character in Fiction" in FICTIONS AND THE FIGU!

 RES OF LIFE, pp. 38-9]
Alas, it is only in the scholarly world that anything like the second of Fleming's fears is like to be realized and, as we know, there is no end of these wandering mazes.  Finally, that readings, intentionalist or relativist, somehow will absolve anyone of the burden of asking what a text is about, is neither to be feared nor even much noticed.

[this amounts to saying, I guess, "it does not" to my third point. I can only reply "it does too."]

Consider the following lyric of Herbert's: like Milton, the poet knows very well what most of us think of Nature and God and of the relationship between them.  And by making himself the speaker, he relieves us, at first, of any need to alter what we complacently believe will be effected by the poem.  By the end of the first stanza, we are sure we know how God will soon straighten out this poor sinner --though the last two lines are a LITTLE unsettling.  By the second stanza things are much more threatening, one feels oneself edging, like someone in the presence of a lunatic or saint, towards the exit.  And whereas the third stanza begins straightforwardly enough, it quickly makes the reader listen sharply to his own heart --and wonder.  The poem, that is, does not merely not absolve the reader of the burden of asking what it's about; it unsettles the very notion that we know what ANYTHING is about.

[but this is a nice way to make my point about the secret sharing between objectivist-authoritarian and subjective-relativist accounts of reader-response. moreover, it surely vitiates or dissolves your rejection above of the idea that theories of this kind lighten or evacuate the hermeneutic burden. if, in fact, we can't know what anything is about (a very sf-type reductio), how the heck can we know what any particular instance of a text-thing is about?]


Indeed, it reminds us that in our confidence lies our undoing. As dear old C!

 arl Dahlstrom, Ph.D. used to remind us sweet young readers of Shakespeare: "It's never your enemies, you know, that betray you. Indeed, they can't betray you.  Who, then, will?"

Nature

Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou hast ought to do with me.
                                 O tame my heart;
                            It is thy highest art
To captivate strongholds to thee.

If thou shalt let this venom lurk
And in suggestions fume and work,
My soul will turn to bubbles straight.
                        And thence by kind
                              Vanish into a wind,
Making thy workmanship deceit.

O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy revrend law and fear;
Or make a new one, since the old
                        Is sapless grown,
                               And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, than thee to hold.

The reason, in a word, we're on this list serve at all, is that we know, left to our own devices we'll soon be as lost as that great Cherub.

[that reason, as far as I can tell, is not mine. have I misunderstood "how milton-l works"?]

There's a reason Abdiel leaves the gathering in the North to rejoin the others; it's not so much, I think, to show God how brave and outspoken he is as it is to rejoin the always baffling and unending conversation that is poetry.

Jim Watt

________________________________________
From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of Carol Barton [cbartonphd1 at verizon.net]
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 3:03 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] responses and intentionalism

Yes, Jim (Rovira). Fish asks (and attempts to answer) how what Milton
has written *works*: what is the effect of the words on the page on
the person who reads them, how does he use those words to manipulate
the reader into responding in a certain manner, and how does he use
that experience to teach something valuable about human perception and
human experience that tells us something not only about ourselves, but
about the nature of our interaction (one might even say complicity, in
the case of PL) with evil?

Neither he nor any other reception theorist worth his or her
credentials would presume to tell the broad spectrum of
persons-throughout-history-who-have-read-Milton what their individual
experiences *should be*--but if you share the same responses that Fish
does to the various poetry and prose about which he has written, you
will understand *why* you reacted the way you did. Fish attempts to
demonstrate in SBS and other works that evil ensnares us only with our
own consent and participation: as John Potter was fond of reminding
his students, the serpent has no hands, and can't *force* you to do
anything or go anywhere unless you choose to follow him. Like the
beautiful demon in Gibson's "Passion" (or the Green Knight in Gawain
or Despair in Bunyan) Milton's Satan finds the chinks in our moral
armor, and we invite him to enter through them. The Serpent talks Eve
into transgressing because he says what she wants to hear--Adam talks
himself into sinning because he allows his passion to rule his
reason--but Jesus stands on the pinnacle because he understands that
any act done at the devil's bidding, no matter how innocent it may
seem (such as feeding the hungry) has an underlying ulterior evil
inherent in it. Fish demonstrates the truth and the mechanics of such
assertions because to the best of his understanding and belief, that
is how Milton's works *work*--using enjambment, circumstancial
evidence, misleading syntax, and ambiguous language, and a host of
other devices. For him, and for many other Miltonists, understanding
the "how" enriches the "what"--but if your experience of the poem or
prose piece is significantly different, Fish's arguments will almost
of necessity fall flat.

I can't help but be amused that those who argue against any assertion
of Miltonic intentionality as made by Fish seem to have no problem
making pronouncements about what Fish thinks or intends other people
to think by means of reading one or two of his works.

For me, it's rather like staring at the negative/positive perception
vase/lovers or young/old woman and not being able to see the negation
of whatever your original perception was. If you see only the young
woman or only the vase, I can tell you over and over again about the
ear of one being the wart on the nose of the other, or the bevel at
the vase base being the chins and lips of the people about to kiss,
and my comments will be meaningless to you--lunatic, even, since it's
clear (from your perspective) that that's an ear, and that's a beveled
base.

Some readers react to Fish the same way.

Best to all,

Carol Barton


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--
James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University

"das Fragwuerdige zu sehen"
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