[Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less

[FLANNAGAN, ROY]

Michael: Wonderful to try the sonnet, but the image of dancing to the beat might be too close to Mel Brooks ("Springtime for Hitler" in The Producers, or "Puttin' on the Ritz" in Young Frankenstein) or Woody Allen (Mighty Aphrodite, choral scenes).  I wonder what kind of dance Milton might have liked to dance in Heaven.  The musical arrangement rings true: God must be a good composer, with musical children.
 
I assume that it is the almost-bad angels who are doing the cringing?
 
This could set off a wave of sonnets.  Should we emend to "fourteen lines, unless you have a tail"?
 
Roy Flannagan

________________________________

From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu on behalf of Michael Bryson
Sent: Mon 5/18/2009 1:53 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less


"Milton's Heaven"? Where? In Paradise Lost? In DDC? In a constructed (by the critic) version of the one that presumably resided in Milton's imagination?

Here's a version of the one this critic sees (and therefore, in some sense constructs) in Paradise Lost, though in sonnet form (thus, of necessity, more than 25 words). The borrowings from Milton should be all too obvious, but otherwise the quality (or lack thereof) should be entirely blamed on me:

Milton's Heaven
We dance and sing, in ecstasy before
The throne, with distances to cringe, not fight,
Or fawn and cringe and servilely adore
Our Heaven's awful king. What but His might

Arranges every harmony and note,
With choreography controlling motion
Of angels' dances, learning steps by rote,
Turn, turn, kick, turn, in chorus lines' devotion

To mastery of the dance the Master calls?
What though free will may yet illusion prove,
Or no, but solid show as Heaven's walls?
What matters is the dance in which we move.

A tyranny or liberty in show,
The image is ourselves, and all we'll know.


Michael Bryson

---- Original message ----


	Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 13:17:54 -0400
	From: Gregory Machacek <Gregory.Machacek at marist.edu>
	Subject: [Milton-L] Milton's Heaven in 25 words or less
	To: John Milton Discussion List <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
	>The bliss of gratefully resigning one's will to that of a Creator who
	>lovingly wills better things than you could imagine to will for yourself.
	>
	>Greg Machacek
	>Professor of English
	>Marist College
	>
	>It's the 25 word limit that makes the exercise fun (and challenging for
	>academics!)
	>
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