The Poetics of Milton

Part 10 - Self-study

After 7 years of study at Cambridge University, Milton would devote the next 5 years of his life to self-study, to continue his education that he felt he still needed.

To find out what it was that he studied during these 5 years, we can read it in his own words, as he described it in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1642, ‘An Apology against a Pamphlet’.

Milton begins this short auto-biographical section in the pamphlet, writing of his education at Cambridge, and how he began to satisfy his thirst for knowledge by reading the ‘grave orators and historians’ and the ‘smooth elegiack poets’.

“… I had my time Readers, as others have, who have good learning bestow’d on them, to be sent to those places, where the opinion was, it might be soonest attain’d; and as the manner is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most commended; whereof some were grave Orators & Historians; whose matter me thought I lov’d indeed, but as my age then was, so I understood them; others were the smooth Elegiack Poets, whereof the Schooles are not scarce. Whom both for the pleasing sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easie; and most agreeable to natures part in me, and for their matter which what it is, there be few who know not, I was so allur’d to read, that no recreation came to me better welcome. For that it was then those years with me which are excus’d though they be least severe, I may be sav’d the labour to remember ye.”

And then he states his reason for reading these classic Latin and Greek authors – to learn their motivation ‘to judge, to praise’ and ‘to esteem’ their love for virtue.

“Whence having observ’d them to account it the chiefe glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteeme themselves worthiest to love those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with my selfe by every instinct and presage of nature which is not wont to be false, that what imboldn’d them to this task might, with such diligence as they us’d, imbolden me, and that what judgement, wit, or elegance was my share, would herein best appeare, and best value it selfe, by how much more wisely, and with more love of vertue I should choose (let rude eares be absent) the object of not unlike praises. For albeit these thoughts to some will seeme vertuous and commendable, to others only pardonable, to a third sort perhaps idle, yet the mentioning of them now will end in serious. Nor blame Readers, in those yeares to propose to themselves such a reward, as the noblest dispositions above other things in this life have sometimes preferr’d. Whereof not to be sensible, when good and faire in one person meet, argues both a grosse and shallow judgement, and withall, an ungentle and swainish brest.”

And Milton writes of two of those authors - the ‘two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura’, meaning Dante and Petrarch, that he preferred ‘above them all’.

“For by the firme setling of these perswasions I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, that I found those authors any where speaking unworthy things of themselves; or unchaste of those names which before they had extoll’d, this effect it wrought with me, from that time forward their art I still applauded, but the men deplor’d; and above them all preferr’d the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but honour of them to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts, without transgression.”

Milton continues that reading was not enough, but that he had to learn to practice what he preached.

“And long it was not after, when I was confirm’d in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought him selfe to bee a true Poem, that is, a composition, and patterne of the best and honourable things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, of famous Cities, unlesse he have in himselfe the experience and the practice of all that which is praise-worthy. These reasonings, together with a certaine nicenesse of nature, an honest haughtinesse, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I might be, (which let envie call pride) and lastly that modesty, whereof though not in the Title page, yet here I may be excus’d to make some beseeming profession, all these uniting the supply of their naturall aide together, kept me still above those low descents of minde, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself, that can agree to salable and unlawfull prostitutions.”

Next, he writes of his youthful reading of knightly romances, like Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and their knightly oath to defend chastity (that Milton wrote about in ‘Comus’).

“Next, (for heare me out now Readers) that I may tell ye whether my younger feet wandere’d; I betook me among lofty Fables and Romances, which recount in solemne canto’s the deeds of Knighthood founded by our victorious Kings; & from hence had in renowne over all Christendome. There I read it in the oath of every Knight, that he should defend to the expence of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the honour and chastity of Virgin or Matron. From whence even then I learnt what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the defence of which so many worthies by such a deare adventure of themselves had sworne. And if I found in the story afterward any of them by word or deed breaking that oath, I judg’d it the same fault of the Poet, as that attribute to Homer; to have written undecent things of the gods.”

By the ‘same fault of the poet … Homer’ who wrote ‘undecent things of the gods’ Milton is referring to Plato’s criticism of Homer in the Republic.

“Only this my minde gave me, that every free and gentle spirit without oath ought to be borne a Knight, nor needed to expect the guilt spurre, or the laying of a sword upon his shoulder, to stirre him up both by his counsell, and his arme to secure and protect the weaknesse of any attempted chastity.”

Milton writes that he was then led to study philosophy – of Plato and Xenophon, and to look at the essence of chastity and love, more so than the knightly view of it, and not the ‘abuser of love’s name’ – Circe (that Milton also talks of in ‘Comus’).

“So that even those books which to many others have bin the fuell of wantonnesse and loose living, I cannot thinke how unlesse by divine indulgence prov’d to me so many incitements as you have heard, to the love and stedfast observation of that vertue which abhors the society of Bordello’s. Thus from the Laureat fraternity of Poets, riper years, and the ceaselesse round of study and reading led me to the shady spaces of philosophy, but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato, and his equall Xenophon. Where if I should tell ye what I learnt, of chastity and love, I meane that which is truly so, whose charming cup is only virtue which she bears in her hand to those who are worthy.

The rest are cheated with a thick intoxicating potion which a certain Sorceresse [Circe] the abuser of love’s name carries about; and how the first and chiefest office of love, begins and ends in the soule, producing those happy twins of her divine generation knowledge and virtue, with such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listning, Readers, as I may one day hope to have ye in a still time, when there shall be no chiding …”

[from ‘Apology against a Pamphlet’ (1642) pgs. 14 – 16]

And Milton hints that maybe some day, he hopes that he can return to these ideas of ‘knowledge and virtue’ that are generated ‘in the soul’, ‘in a still time’ when there is no more chiding or no more war.

[next week - part 11 - Lycidas]