Milton Metal

Recently watching Anvil!, a documentary about a Canadian metal band who never made it big, confirmed something I've thought for years. The biggest omission in the volume on Milton in Popular Culture--and maybe in all of the tedious brouhaha over whether/why Milton is still culturally relevant--is metal. Check out the lyrics from Anvil's "666":

I'd rather be a king below than a servant above
I'd rather be free and hate than a prisoner of love
You heard my warning but you didn't, didn't, didn't learn.

The thread of cultural influence would be interesting to follow (Milton-->Blake-->[???]--->death metal-->Trapper Keeper designers, etc.).

N.B.: I cut-and-pasted the lyrics from a youtube comment; I make no claims of accuracy.

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

Forthwith up to the clouds

With him I flew, and underneath beheld
The earth outstretched immense, a prospect wide
And various: wond'ring at my flight and change
To this high exaltation.

- PL 5.86-90

I'm posting this entry in the middle of a transcontinental flight, thanks to a free trial run of on-board WiFi. Looking out the window gives me access to a sight that Milton could only have imagined, that Eve could only experience as a sinful dream of prophetic wish-fulfillment.

This--the idea that technology enables what previous generations could only imagine--is banal stuff, but it reminds me of an idea that's been implanted in my head for a while. Implanted in my head since I heard two talks: the first about science fiction and globalization, the second about mapping in the early modern world. For me, what united these two talks was a question of tropes and metaphors in their relation to technology. Science fiction, according to the first talk, does something new with poetic language by providing a new way to literalize tropes. I asked this speaker what, precisely, the difference is between an Elizabethan poet describing his lover's cheek as roses and a science fiction writer describing a beautiful cyborg constructed with actual rose petals in its face. I realized later that the answer has something to do with belief and time: the Elizabethan poet never expects the reader to believe roses can actually be in cheeks; the reader of science fiction can believe that in the future it might be possible to construct a rosy-cheeked cyborg. As I listened to the second talk, weeks later, I realized that this kind of shift helps us to account for the Renaissance trope of mapping--a trope that oscillates rapidly between fiction, present fact, and future possibility.

I wonder if technology is the missing component of, say, de Man's famous discussion of allegory versus symbol.

Know to know no more

In recent weeks, Miltonista has submitted a rather zany abstract for a conference, and has drafted his talk for the 2009 Conference on John Milton in Murfreesboro, TN (hereafter called MuRFBRo2k9). When I first started this blog, I thought it'd be a fun place to share random ideas; I'd especially like to get feedback on the abstract since I haven't actually written the paper yet (and am not sure what I'm going to say). But the pressure to preserve my anonymity compels silence. In the future, I'll have to figure out more ways to say substantive things without blowing my cover.

Such are the courts of God

Upon watching the Lakers trounce the Nuggets in game six of the NBA Western Conference Finals, I recalled Stanley Fish blogging about his love of basketball a while back. This got me thinking: the Miltonists should organize a basketball tournament in Murfreesboro. 

And if there's one thing that basketball needs more of, it's intergenerational, quasi-Oedipal strife. I propose a game of the under-forties taking on the over-forties. Chippy youth and speed v. experienced wiliness and gravitas! Potential matchups:

Point guard

Su Fang Ng v. John Rogers

Rogers probably flows on the court as smoothly as William Harvey's circulatory system (sorry, I tried), but I bet Ng taught Blake Griffin at OU.

Advantage: Ng

Shooting guard

Anthony Welch v. Annabel Patterson

Welch is guaranteed to be a scrappy contender, but Patterson could make anybody miss a basket with the mere force of stern disapproval. And if that doesn't work, an elbow to the ribs.

Advantage: Patterson

Small forward

Tom Fulton v. Stephen Fallon

I'm guessing Fulton has a silky-smooth mid-range jump shot. But on the court, Fallon is free to reveal the bilious spleen that lies under those piercing eyes and heart of gold.

Advantage: Fallon

Power forward

Daniel Shore v. Tom Corns

Shore already has a Hanford award under his belt. Corns could crash the boards, but do they even play basketball in Bangor?

Advantage: Shore

Center

Feisal Mohamed v. Paul Stevens

The paint will be dominated by the Canadian towers. Stevens brings his military training to the court, but I'll put my money on Mohamed's baby hook. He's also the Miltonist most likely to be able to dunk. (If we play with a nine-foot rim.)

Advantage: Mohamed

Coach

Jeffrey Shoulson v. Jason Rosenblatt

Oh no, I didn't! But c'mon--compared to amassing an encyclopedic knowledge of the Talmud and Midrash, drawing up some basketball play's gotta be a breeze. But Rosenblatt gains the edge with his administrative experience as department chair.

Advantage: Rosenblatt

Final prediction: the kids win by 6.

In me is no delay (Sike! [sic])

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. (It's less difficult to believe that what I last posted was stupid.) There's a reason, or at least an excuse, for my silence: I've been in a kind of limbo state between one accomplishment (quasi-finished revision of a chapter that turned into two chapters) and another (need to rewrite the last main chapter of my dissertation-turned manuscript). A generous observer would say that I've been letting ideas percolate; another might describe me as having been a waste of time/space.

Baby steps: I submitted a proposal to an MLA panel based on an idea about Paradise Lost and Oroonoko I've harbored for quite a while. My proposal was rejected, but I remain convinced that the basic premise is sound and original. I hope to churn out an essay sooner rather than later. I'm currently working on another conference abstract. This one I'll post here once I complete a rough draft--it's so weird and idiosyncratic that I don't think anyone could make enough sense of it to steal it.

For now, though, I transcribe what is one of the meatiest, wittiest (yes, meaty and witty!) sentences I've read in a long time. From James Nohrnberg, "Paradise Regained by One Greater Man": "The reflection of bodily well-being and whole-being in the cognate flesh of the mother calls the ego to the periphery of a diffuse romance pleasance; the outlines of the object call into being the coddled or self-boiled entity of the ego as body and subject."

It's the "coddled or self-boiled" part that kills me.

Is there an "Ass" brand of cellular phones?

Miltonista recognizes the deadly capabilities of this product.

Long choosing, and beginning late

Miltonista has recently entered a low-level panic about his book project (which is not necessarily a bad thing, since low-level panics tend to be pretty productive). I just discovered that a rather senior Miltonist is working on (most likely putting the finishing touches on) a book that'll cover a lot of the same ground as my project. And I'm guessing he has a contract already.

I have one more chapter to write/re-write; it's time for some less-than-casual intellectual fruition.