We have just passed the 350th anniversary of the passing John Milton (1608-1674). Milton died on my birthday (November 8), a nugget I intend to dine out on going forward, as is the fact that Milton was a friend of my ancestor Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. Both Cambridge men, the two exchanged language lessons: Williams taught Milton Dutch and Milton helped Williams brush up his Hebrew and Greek. How do you like them apples? (As Eve said to Adam).
As for Milton’s birthday (December 9), we have something to say about that as well. Upon his attaining majority in 1629 (his 21st birthday) Milton wrote a special Christmas poem, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” to mark the occasion. It’s one of his earliest major works. Nearly two centuries later, Blake illustrated this poem (Blake was pretty obsessed with Milton. He even wrote and illustrated an epic poem in which he was the main character). At any rate, this is the very season for reading Milton’s Nativity poem, and it’s short. Check it out here.
Milton is also top of mind because I re-read Paradise Lost during the lockdown, as inspiration for a long-form poem I am working on. I walked away thinking I may prefer him to Shakespeare for reasons both person and critical. In most ways, they are apples and oranges, though, and resist comparison, but allowing that thought to enter my head (that someone may actually exceed what I had previously considered the upper limit of greatness) felt liberating somehow, like some box in which I had confined myself was now shattered. Always resist ossification, unless, of course, you are Jonathan R. Bass.
I have only posted about Milton here once previously, and on what you may consider an odd topic, the Aereopagita, his 1644 pamphlet against censorship, which topic I’m certain I selected out of my lingering libertarian convictions. (It may soon be more relevant than ever, however, so let’s not downplay its importance). That earlier post was a dozen years ago, and I imagine I haven’t tackled Milton since because I think of him as a poet and a prose stylist, and those modes seem far afield from the theatrical arts about which I typically write. More than that: Milton was a Puritan, of the Cromwellian faction, and his bunch had actually closed all the theatres down between 1642 and 1660, making him the enemy in some respects one would think.
Still, a man born near the Mermaid Tavern, Ben Jonson’s favorite watering hole, was bound to partake of London’s pungent theatrical gases unavoidably. Milton did not write for the playhouse per se, but he did pen some works of a related nature.
The first was A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: on Michaelmasse night, before the Right Honorable, John Earle of Bridgewater, Viscount Brackly, Lord President of Wales, and one of His Majesties most honorable privie counsell, but is more commonly known by the much shortened title Comus, after the work’s antagonist. Masques were generally court entertainments associated with the Tudors and later the Stuarts, and, by a Puritan’s standards, fairly decadent affairs. In Comus, Milton turns the whole thing on its head. Its plot concerns a Lady who gets lost in the forest and accosted and tempted by Comus, cup bearer to Dionysus (here tweaked by Milton into a son of Bacchus and Circe) as well as a God of festivity, revelry, and nocturnal dalliances. (The word “comedy”, with roots also in Ancient Greece seems to be etymologically related). Comus traps the Lady (and, as a sort of dry run for Milton’s greatest creation, which is of course Satan in Paradise Lost) he seeks to tempt her with all sorts of magic to give in to pleasure and become licensious. The Lady holds out and hangs on to her chastity, while arguing her point of view to this most insistent seducer. She is able to hold out long enough to be rescued by her two brothers and The Attendant Spirit, a sort of angel figure, who is disguised as a shepherd. All in all a pretty subversive work, eh? It’s kind of blasphemy against the Cult of Dionysus. To express it in theatrical form — it’s kind of like the Black Mass. It’s hard to hate something that clever even when you think the thesis is for the birds.
Then towards the end of his life and career, in 1671, Milton published Samson Agonistes. This work is what is called a “closet drama”, a play intended for reading rather than the playhouse. Goethe, Byron, and Shelley also wrote works in this form. T.S. Eliot appeares to be paying it some sort of homage in Sweeney Agonistes. In Samson Agonistes, Milton sought to fuse together Greek Tragedy and The Bible. The tale is drawn from the Book of Judges. He obviously loves the theme of temptation…Comus, Satan, Eve, and then Delilah. I don’t imagine you could call Milton a feminist, precisely. Delilah famously betrays her lover, cutting off the locks that are the source of his power. Samson also loses his eyesight, surely one of the reasons the blind Milton chose this tale as subject matter. In writing his version of the Samson and Delilah story, Milton identified one of the great romances of all time, giving it dramatic form 278 years before Cecil B. DeMille!
Samson Agonistes was originally published as a sort of add-on in the same volume with Paradise Regained. That’s right! Paradise Lost has a sequel! In this one Satan tempts Jesus! The Ultimate Smackdown! Another good one to read for Christmas, though it may take ’til Easter to finish it! On the plus side, it’s got a happy ending!