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

[Campbell, W. Gardner]

At the risk of adding yet another critical construction to the pile, I’ll interject that Milton seems to be imagining Heaven, or trying to, throughout his career, from the Nativity Ode onwards. Facets of this imagining—his “empyreal conceit” (a phrase he seems to have invented)—appear quite vividly in places as widely varied as the companion poems, “The Reason of Church Government,” and (of course) “Paradise Lost.” From what I can tell, the Heaven at the center of Milton’s imagination is quite a vigorous, ecstatic, sometimes overwhelming experience. Playful and strange, too, in certain instances. Nothing static there.  At the very least, as per “Lycidas,” singing, glory, and (daringly) motion.

Gardner

From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [mailto:milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Bryson
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 12:54 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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