Rocznik Historii Sztuki (15.1985)

KATARZYNA MURAWSKA: WIEŻA MILTONA

271

// Penseroso J. Miltona. Z podobnym brakiem zaufania odniesie się do niego W. B. Yeats., który
każe poecie przesiadującemu na wieży do późna w nocy zgasić światło, nie odnalazłszy sekretów
wiedzy tajemnej:

.......... a bat rose from the hazels

And circled round him with its squeaky ery,
The light in the tower window was put out36.

MILTON'S TOWER. FROM THE SYMBOL OF DEVINE GUIDANCE TO THE

SECRET KNOWLEDGE

Summary

The présent article is concentrated on the problem of interprétation and visual sources, as well as on literary context of
the extremely appealing motive of a tower with light on top showing that a lonely thinker is up and alert; such
a motive appears in John Milton's poem // Penseroso (1631). Since the early times of christianity the motive in question
was combined with that of divine guidance; in the 17th century, in turn, due to the split of science and religion which
till then had been unified. it became secularized. It was Milton who applied it for the first time to express philosophical
aliénation, or even to cultivate the secret knowledge, or less frequently, sience.

Landscapes presenting lighthouses with light on top became popular too late to have served as inspiration for Milton's
image. However. he might have been acquainted with the présentations of towers with a burning torch, which appeared
in the books of emblems: such, as for example, the emblem : "Utinam divigantur viâe mea ad custodiendas iustificationes tuas", from
Herman Hugo's Pia Desideria... (Antwerp 1624), repeated afterwards in Francis Quarles's "Emblèmes" published in London
in 1635. It présents a pilgrim lost in the maze and guided by an angel standing on the terrace of the sea-shore tower
and holding a burning torch thus showing him the way. Despite the visual similarity with the lighthouse the tower of
// Penseroso cannot be referred to the symbol of divine guidance. It is the light on top of the tower that undergoes the
process of secularization : the light no longer is — as in the works of H. Hugo, F. Quarles, and P. Brill - the émanation of
divine luminosity on the soul awaiting salvation, but a symbol of lonely méditations and search. In Milton's image of
the tower, to the motive of lighhouse is added that of a scholar sitting in his study in a dim light of a candie, like on
many a canvas of Rembrandt's. The possibility of putting équation sign between Rembrandt's sage and Milton's astrologist,
and thus the suggestion that the poet has attempted to place the scholar's study on top of the tower is negated by the
mere nature of // Penseroso. Being a neo-Platonist and astrologist, Milton makes him look rather like a mystic and not
a sage, whereas the light on his tower and its dimness acquire the ambiguous character of secret knowledge. It is precisely
this interprétation that is continued by later followers of Milton.

■,6 W. В. Yeats, The Phases of the Moon. [w:] W. B. Yeats, Selected Poetry, ed. by A. Normann JefTares. London
1974. s. 85.