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DOI Artikel:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: Milton's Tower: from the symbol of divine guidance to that of secret wisdom
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18898#0050
Katarzyna Murawska
MILTON'S TOWER:
FROM THE SYMBOL OF DIVINE GUIDANCE TO TRAT
OF SECRET WISDOM*
In 1936, T. S. Eliot blamed Milton, whose greatness had not hitherto bccn questioned for
his conventional and stercotyped language, and condemned his bad influence on the eighteenth
century English poetry, saying: „Thcre is more of MiIton's influence in the badness of the
bad verse of the eighteenth century than of anybody's else". He also aceused him of a complete
lack of visual imagination (,,at no period is the visual imagination conspicuous in Milton's
poetry"), and related this deficiency to the poet's blindness which set in when he was writing
Paradise Lost. According to Eliot, Milton Was much more sensitive to musie than to images1.
However, the number of illustrations to Milton's Works created in the course of nearly three
centuries2 prompts one to acknowledge the power of the images he evoked and to ąuestion
the authority of Eliot's judgements.
The current discussion among the literary historians about the sources of Milton's imagery
has been accompanied by disputes about the pictorial quality of his language. The long-stan-
ding conviction that Milton's work was not influenced by art has been questioned by R. Frye,
who traces the interdependence of the images of Satan's Fali, the Original Sin, and the First
Parents' expulsion from Heaven, as sketched in Paradise Lost and the iconographic tradition,
primarily of Italian art, with which Milton could have become familiar during his Continental
journey3. Comments on Milton's attitude to cmblems have likewise been sceptical. The scepi-
ticism is caused by the fact that there is no obvious relation in Milton's poetry between the
„icon" and „lemma" on the one hand and the content of a work of poetry on the other. Such
relations can be easily found in the output of the metaphysical poets of that period, John Donnę
or George Herbert4. Yet this has also given rise to controversy, and recent studies show a link
between certain plots and images and the emblematic tradition of MiIton's time. Tłms, L. Kone-
cny argues that Milton was familiar with Hermann Hugo's Pia Desideria^.
Hermann Hugo's work also contains an image of a tower with a torch lit at the top, which
seems visually related to an exccrpt from Milton's other work II Penseroso". Hugo's image
* The article is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Ars Emblcmalica session held at the National Museum in
Warsawin 1981. That paper, in turn. developcd one oł" the mutifs of my other work „The Tower as a Symbol of Thoughtful
Isolation in English Art from Milton to Yeats , Artibus et Historiae, III, 1982, 5, pp. 141-162. In Polish it is to appear in
the proceedings of the conference in Rocznik Historii Sztuki, 1983.
1. T. S. Eliot, „Milton I", in: T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets, New York, 1957, pp. 156, 158.
2. On the same subject, see, c.g.: C. H. Collins-Baker,,,Sonie Illustrators of Milton's ,,Paradise Lost" (1688—1850), The Li-
brary, III, 1948, pp. 1—21 and 101—119; M. Pointon, Milion and English Art, Manchester, 1970; J. Dixon Hunt,, ,Milton's
Illustrators", in: John Milton: Introduciions, cd. by J. Broadbent, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 208—225; a number of Works
on the subject are given by R. M. Fryc, Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts. Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems,
Princeton, New Jersey, 1978.
3. R. M. Frye, Milton's Imagery..., op. cit., which also discusses the State of research into the influence of the visual arts on
Milton s imagination. On the links between Milton's poetry and paintings by Poussin, see M. Praz Milton e Poussin" in
M. Praz, Gusto Neoclassico, Napoli, 1959, pp. 1—38.
4. Cf.: R. Freeman „George Herbert and the Emblem Books", Revieut of English Studies, 17, 1941, 150—165; J. Lederer,
„John Donnę and the Emblematic Practice", Review of English Studies, 21, 1946.
5. L. Konecny,, ,Young Milton and the Telescope", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII, 1974, pp. 368—.
373, especially note 19. Konecny quotes the first edition of Hermann Hugo Pia Desideria Emblematis, Elegiis affectibus
SS. Patrum illustrata ... Ad Urbanum XVIII. Pont. Max., Antvcrpiae, 1624, subsequent edition: Antverpiae, 1632.
6. I am grateful to Donald Pirie for indicating this similarity to me.
44
MILTON'S TOWER:
FROM THE SYMBOL OF DIVINE GUIDANCE TO TRAT
OF SECRET WISDOM*
In 1936, T. S. Eliot blamed Milton, whose greatness had not hitherto bccn questioned for
his conventional and stercotyped language, and condemned his bad influence on the eighteenth
century English poetry, saying: „Thcre is more of MiIton's influence in the badness of the
bad verse of the eighteenth century than of anybody's else". He also aceused him of a complete
lack of visual imagination (,,at no period is the visual imagination conspicuous in Milton's
poetry"), and related this deficiency to the poet's blindness which set in when he was writing
Paradise Lost. According to Eliot, Milton Was much more sensitive to musie than to images1.
However, the number of illustrations to Milton's Works created in the course of nearly three
centuries2 prompts one to acknowledge the power of the images he evoked and to ąuestion
the authority of Eliot's judgements.
The current discussion among the literary historians about the sources of Milton's imagery
has been accompanied by disputes about the pictorial quality of his language. The long-stan-
ding conviction that Milton's work was not influenced by art has been questioned by R. Frye,
who traces the interdependence of the images of Satan's Fali, the Original Sin, and the First
Parents' expulsion from Heaven, as sketched in Paradise Lost and the iconographic tradition,
primarily of Italian art, with which Milton could have become familiar during his Continental
journey3. Comments on Milton's attitude to cmblems have likewise been sceptical. The scepi-
ticism is caused by the fact that there is no obvious relation in Milton's poetry between the
„icon" and „lemma" on the one hand and the content of a work of poetry on the other. Such
relations can be easily found in the output of the metaphysical poets of that period, John Donnę
or George Herbert4. Yet this has also given rise to controversy, and recent studies show a link
between certain plots and images and the emblematic tradition of MiIton's time. Tłms, L. Kone-
cny argues that Milton was familiar with Hermann Hugo's Pia Desideria^.
Hermann Hugo's work also contains an image of a tower with a torch lit at the top, which
seems visually related to an exccrpt from Milton's other work II Penseroso". Hugo's image
* The article is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Ars Emblcmalica session held at the National Museum in
Warsawin 1981. That paper, in turn. developcd one oł" the mutifs of my other work „The Tower as a Symbol of Thoughtful
Isolation in English Art from Milton to Yeats , Artibus et Historiae, III, 1982, 5, pp. 141-162. In Polish it is to appear in
the proceedings of the conference in Rocznik Historii Sztuki, 1983.
1. T. S. Eliot, „Milton I", in: T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets, New York, 1957, pp. 156, 158.
2. On the same subject, see, c.g.: C. H. Collins-Baker,,,Sonie Illustrators of Milton's ,,Paradise Lost" (1688—1850), The Li-
brary, III, 1948, pp. 1—21 and 101—119; M. Pointon, Milion and English Art, Manchester, 1970; J. Dixon Hunt,, ,Milton's
Illustrators", in: John Milton: Introduciions, cd. by J. Broadbent, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 208—225; a number of Works
on the subject are given by R. M. Fryc, Milton's Imagery and the Visual Arts. Iconographic Tradition in the Epic Poems,
Princeton, New Jersey, 1978.
3. R. M. Frye, Milton's Imagery..., op. cit., which also discusses the State of research into the influence of the visual arts on
Milton s imagination. On the links between Milton's poetry and paintings by Poussin, see M. Praz Milton e Poussin" in
M. Praz, Gusto Neoclassico, Napoli, 1959, pp. 1—38.
4. Cf.: R. Freeman „George Herbert and the Emblem Books", Revieut of English Studies, 17, 1941, 150—165; J. Lederer,
„John Donnę and the Emblematic Practice", Review of English Studies, 21, 1946.
5. L. Konecny,, ,Young Milton and the Telescope", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII, 1974, pp. 368—.
373, especially note 19. Konecny quotes the first edition of Hermann Hugo Pia Desideria Emblematis, Elegiis affectibus
SS. Patrum illustrata ... Ad Urbanum XVIII. Pont. Max., Antvcrpiae, 1624, subsequent edition: Antverpiae, 1632.
6. I am grateful to Donald Pirie for indicating this similarity to me.
44