Do you wonder if "Paradise Lost" was at all divinely inspired?

[astrum]

I find it remarkable--almost unbelievable--that a blind man wrote one of the English language's greatest works of literature.

Hence, I often wonder if a touch of divinity was present.

[The Atheist]

Probably much easier for a blind person to write than a deaf one to compose music.

Why would a blind person struggle to write? Helen Keller wrote a bit.

"The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands—the ownership and control of their livelihoods—are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease."

Helen Keller, 1911

I'd consider that far more inspired than any fiction ever written.

[MorpheusSandman]

People invoke divine inspiration when they are ignorant of the decades' worth of work that it took great poets like Milton to learn and hone their craft. Milton wrote PL at an extremely slow rate, carefully and thoughtfully shaping each sentence, each line, each metaphor, each metaphor, each structure, each motif. If one were going to invoke divine inspiration for literature it would probably better fit the hallucinogenic visions of Blake more so than the much more intellectual Milton.

[Lokasenna]

Religious material has inspired some of history's greatest works of art - does it have to be divine inspiration in this case, or indeed in any?

Personally, I think Milton had been reading the Old English Genesis B, which seems like a much more sensible source of inspiration...

[astrum]

People invoke divine inspiration when they are ignorant of the decades' worth of work that it took great poets like Milton to learn and hone their craft. Milton wrote PL at an extremely slow rate, carefully and thoughtfully shaping each sentence, each line, each metaphor, each metaphor, each structure, each motif. If one were going to invoke divine inspiration for literature it would probably better fit the hallucinogenic visions of Blake more so than the much more intellectual Milton.


Milton himself believed that "Paradise Lost" was divinely inspired

[JBI]

You forget that the archetypal Western poet, Homer, himself was blind. Now, coincidentally, the author of the Zuo Annals in China (the perhaps best prose history of the ancient period, famous for its numerous battle scenes) is held by tradition to be blind, as are the original chanters of the Japanese Epic-like novel The Tale of the Heike.

In terms of musicians, historically, there have been numerous examples of music masters who were blind (especially in China, when most of the famous ancient ones were blind), yet also in the western tradition, with Homer as the key example.

Perhaps the lack of the sense of vision keeps in line the sense of aural memory, or enhances the ability to recall the sound of a story (that is, its mental spoken record) over its visual form (the written record). Generally people who cannot read tend to remember things better orally transferred to them than those of us who read too much.

As for divine inspiration, that's a poetic trope that Homer the blind bard evokes, and therefore Milton the blind bard follows. Call it a sort of alignment of the tradition in Milton with the sort of culmination of the development of Western culture from Greek to the final tombstone of the Renaissance which Milton pretty much represents. Everything after that is text more or less, and notions of oral literature begin to quickly disappear.

That being said, Milton perhaps believed so, or perhaps believed that there was a higher vision beyond the peripheral view of the world found through the senses. In that kind of understanding, his resolve to find the world of Light is very much a personal spiritual journey prompted by the lack of the sense of sight. I don't exactly call that divine inspiration, but rather based on a notion of the possibility of divine inspiration.

[MorpheusSandman]

Milton himself believed that "Paradise Lost" was divinely inspiredI don't give a fig what Milton believed. Artists believe a lot of nonsense about their creative process. To me, Eliot and Auden got closest to the point in suggesting that it was in the poet's massive assimilation of tradition and contemporary culture that produced the best poets, and one can read all of Milton's cultural influences in Paradise Lost, from Spenser to Shakespeare to his politics and ideology. These things weren't inspired by God, they were inspired by Milton's own experiences.

[astrum]

Who are we to say that Milton wasn't divinely touched?

How do we know that?

[The Atheist]

Who are we to say that Milton wasn't divinely touched?

Why not? It's the kind of claim that deserves a response. If he was divinely touched, who else was? What is the criterion for seeing someone as "divinely touched"?

Was Beethoven? Homer? Helen Keller? Shakespeare? Enid Blyton? Winston Churchill?


How do we know that?

We don't. I just think a divine being - especially one who is omnipotent and omnipresent - might have had something more interesting to say. I would have thought that after 1500-odd years he might have wanted to emphasise his boy's words rather than recount Genesis.

If it was divinely inspired, why does it appear to be an allegory of the English Civil War?

[MorpheusSandman]

Who are we to say that Milton wasn't divinely touched?

How do we know that?Who are we to say that all of reality isn't a dream of a great raccoon and all of our memories were just constructed 1 minute ago via a computer program? We are not anyone to say any such things, but those claiming its so might wonder why anyone would/should believe it. In general, people tend to deify their brains, especially their unconsciousness, because it seems so totally "other" to them, so alien to their conscious knowledge and control of their being. But since people don't like thinking they are influenced/control by parts of themselves they don't understand/identify with, they cook up stories about it being "divine," or part of some external deity.

[Poetaster]

Milton's poetry is surely divine, but divinely inspired? Nah!

[astrum]

Milton's poetry is surely divine, but divinely inspired? Nah!



So, do you not think that literature, art, or even scientific discoveries can be divinely touched at all?

[MorpheusSandman]

So, do you not think that literature, art, or even scientific discoveries can be divinely touched at all?There would have to be a "divine" for them to be "divinely touched," and there's not a stitch of evidence that there is.

[Poetaster]

So, do you not think that literature, art, or even scientific discoveries can be divinely touched at all?

No, I don't believe in God.

[desiresjab]

I don't give a fig what Milton believed. Artists believe a lot of nonsense about their creative process.

I wonder if you would mind talking about Merrill's creative process for Sandover, since you are bound to know a bit about it. Will you post twenty or thirty of your favorite lines from it? The book is almost as rare as money is to my pocket.

I know you are an atheist, but have not seen you say it. Well, I assume rather strongly that you are. Now that matters not a fig to me, but does make me curious about your enjoyment of Merrill.

So if one does not believe at all in God, spirits, angels, the afterlife or ouija boards, Dante can still be read with pleasure. We have a way of placing him in a quaint context to allow this enjoyment, soaking all that Medieval naivete like good gravy up into our biscuit. There is a sense in which we do not have to take him seriously, however seriously he might have taken himself.

I'll keep my question direct: What's in your biscuit with Merrill?

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't know what you mean about the book being rare; it's readily available and not very expensive: http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Light-at-Sandover/dp/0375711740/

The creative process for Sandover is probably more infamous than the book itself; Merrill and his partner, David Jackson, spent several decades at a Quija board, recording word-for-word the "conversations" they had with the "spirits" they contacted, and then Merrill spent many more years editing and turning it into poetry.

That said, Merrill was as incredulous as anyone about whether they were REALLY contacting spirits. When asked directly in an interview about her seriously he took it he said (paraphrased): "Not very, except in those twilight moments where it's just too beautiful not to be true." There are several sections of Sandover where Merill discusses the legitimacy of the endeavor itself. One has him at a psychiatrist's who tells him that it's just a kind of game (I forget the exact, French term used) between him and Jackson; another has him quoting Jung about "God and the unconsciousness being one," so the Quija board becomes just a device to tap into that eternal well of creative potential.

The mythology of Sandover is self-consciously ludicrous in a very postmodern way; You have bats that turn into peacocks that are also particles, you have Plato who also happens to be Merrill's best female friend, you have stories about how a race of Centaurs was wiped out by an early version of the atom bomb, you have notions about gods/angels tinkering with the biological mixtures of humans in an attempt to get it right, you have different beings acting as schoolteachers to DJ and JM's "students". The entire book is nothing if not a big game of continually hinting that it's trying to present a new, coherent mythology and then immediately demolishing the systems it's just established by some radical change or new invention. The experience is as vertiginous and spiraling as Yeats's gyres.

If Sandover is ridiculous, even silly, on the cosmic level, it's poignant and profound on the personal level, as one realizes that all of these "cosmic" discussions inevitably lead to very personal experiences from JM and DM, including the way in which they "communicate" with with their lost loved ones. In that light, the work becomes more elegy than epic, a means of coming to grips with the past, of saying goodbye and letting go. It's best understood by comparisons with its own tradition: Like Dante, Merrill is laying out a cosmic system; unlike Dante, it's not a coherent or consistent one (purposefully). Like Blake, Merrill's mythology is largely allegorizing human psychology; unlike Blake, Merrill is less sociological, more personal, and has more wit and humor. Like Pope and Byron, Sandover is as much as a mock-epic as a legitimate epic; unlike either, Merrill can (and does) achieve moments of genuine emotion and poignancy because he doesn't maintain their "distance" from the subject.

Anyway, we've been through the difficulty of quoting when you can't copy/paste. There are several passages that have stuck in my mind, but I wouldn't be able to find them if I tried and I don't want to quote haphazardly either. Luckily, I was able to find his Samos canzone, that comes near the end of the book: http://themadscene.tumblr.com/post/61098745778/samos-by-james-merrill

Anyway, my "biscuit with Merrill" is many things. As an aspiring poet myself I admire his technical mastery, which, as I've said, is only challenged by Auden from that century. As a reader, though, he hits all my major check-boxes, from his "visionary" qualities, to his wit/humor, to his beautiful sensuality, to his focus on creativity, memory, and relationships, to his intimacy... like I suggested regarding Sandover, there aren't many poets that can engage in "visionary" poetics but maintain a down-to-earth humor, or engage in "mock-epic" while still being emotional as if it was an elegy. I also think he strikes the perfect balance between rich complexity, where poems/passages can be difficult but not overbearingly so, and elegant simplicity, where he has many lyrics as accessible as anything by Yeats or Auden's lyrical pieces. So, is that enough of a biscuit?

[desiresjab]

I have read the poems available free on the internet, and some critical and biographical stuff on him in the last few days. Pretty great, I must admit. He is easy to stay with.

[MorpheusSandman]

Pretty great, I must admit.Yay! Maybe I'll finally have another convert besides myself!

I don't know how much you're into critical studies, but if you do finish Merrill the one book I'd HIGHLY recommend (I've read about 5 of them) is Stephen Yenser's The Consuming Myth. (http://www.amazon.com/Consuming-Myth-Work-James-Merrill/dp/0674166159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397486594&sr=8-1&keywords=consuming+myth) It's right up there with Vendler's books on Shakespeare, Frye's on Blake, and Empson's on Milton as being the best critical studies I've ever read.

[desiresjab]

I don't know what you mean about the book being rare;

The shelves in the used book stores are not exactly packed with it. No one bought it in the first place to later trade it in.


I don't know how much you're into critical studies, but if you do finish Merrill the one book I'd HIGHLY recommend (I've read about 5 of them) is Stephen Yenser's The Consuming Myth. It's right up there with Vendler's books on Shakespeare, Frye's on Blake, and Empson's on Milton as being the best critical studies I've ever read.

I do read building inspectors, but mostly study the architects themselves. I have read Ellman on Yeats and Joyce. What do you think of those? I guess they are a little old now. I read most of Eliot's criticism and put on a lot of Pound's; also a fair bit from Jarrell, Snodgrass, Bloom and a few others scattered here and there. Many critical essays. Can't remember them all now.

Right now it is Merrill that I am interested in, so I will read anything about or by him. Every time I "discover" someone good that I missed, I start obsessing. In my heart I truly wish he had never been born, and you can probably guess why, which is what you will have to do. It is the same damned reason I wish Thomas Levenson and Phillip Kerr were never born. That's right, you are getting close. Piss!

Anyway, I will probably be coming back with lots of questions, comments and observations. But maybe not for a while. I tend to get secretive and reticent when I am sequestered with a poet.

[MorpheusSandman]

The shelves in the used book stores are not exactly packed with it.I gave up on brick & mortar stores ages ago. So much easier to find/buy stuff online.


I have read Ellman on Yeats and Joyce. What do you think of those?Haven't read Ellman, though I have read several studies on Yeats. Favorite so far has been Vendler's and Snukal's, the latter of which clarified Yeats's philosophies and the former explained his formal choices (which were never random).


also a fair bit from Jarrell, Snodgrass, Bloom and a few others scattered here and there.I love Jarrell; used to like Bloom, but now I think he's traded his insights for crotchety bloviating. Vendler, Empson, Brooks, Ricks, Frye, and Eliot himself are amongst my favorite critics from the 20th century.


Right now it is Merrill that I am interested in, so I will read anything about or by him. Every time I "discover" someone good that I missed, I start obsessing.As far as what Merrill himself wrote, it's all nicely collected in 4 Volumes:

Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-James-Merrill/dp/0375411399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397524598&sr=8-1&keywords=james+merrill+collected)
Prose (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Prose-James-Merrill/dp/0375411364/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397524598&sr=8-2&keywords=james+merrill+collected)
Novels & Plays (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Novels-Plays-James-Merrill-ebook/dp/B003FCVFD6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1397524598&sr=8-4&keywords=james+merrill+collected)
Sandover (http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Light-at-Sandover/dp/0375711740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397524614&sr=8-1&keywords=james+merrill+sandover)


Anyway, I will probably be coming back with lots of questions, comments and observations. But maybe not for a while. I tend to get secretive and reticent when I am sequestered with a poet.I know what it's like to get obsessed with artists. I, too, tend to disappear for months while I absorb them in my own private, newly discovered universe; not terribly unlike what Keats wrote about discovering Homer. I look forward to the discussion, but do keep in mind it's been a few years since I read him, so he's not terribly fresh in my memory. I've been wanting to reread him, but there's always so much out there I haven't read even once yet. Whenever you're ready, there's an old thread about Merrill on here that, unfortunately, only had one reply (you can probably guess by whom): http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?73033-Any-love-for-James-Merrill

[JanVanHogspeuw]

Milton's one of the most learned poets in the language, and an ability to mentally versify was no doubt deeply ingrained in his blood.

Then there's the fact that as a work of theodicy (justifying the ways of God to men) it is generally deemed a failure, where his God is a bit dull yet his Satan is one of the most vivid characters in all of literature, whose defiance in the face of total defeat is akin to what Milton himself must have felt after the Restoration, which leads me to conclude that this was just the grand vision of a complete genius, rather than anything divine.