I Kill Your Idyll: Preceding Milton with Cervantes

I haven’t made much progress in Milton since my last post. I’ve found myself re-reading several of his poems, in particular “L’Allegro,” “Il Penseroso,” and “Arcades.” These are mid-length short poems running less than 200 lines each. They’re also thoroughly pastoral, and it has occurred to me that I may be experiencing some dissonance in appreciating these poems because of my recent reading of Don Quixote.

Minor Milton

Continuing with Milton as my 8 year old daughter, cuddled up with me, reads most of Where The Sidewalk Ends.

• On The Morning of Christ’s Nativity
• The Passion
• Song: On May Morning
• English Sonnets (1,7—23)
• On Shakespeare
• On The University Carrier
• Another of the Same
• An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester
• L’Allegro

I’m decidedly apathetic about most of early Milton. So much of his earlier work is decidedly local, both in time and place. He lauds personages which have little relevance to me tonight, and the verse itself doesn’t particularly grab me. There are exceptions, however.

And malt does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to man.

Right around the time I was finishing Don Quixote, Paul posted his notes on reading Milton’s Areopagitica and Of Education, and it seems he’s currently working through Milton’s English poetry, including Paradise Lost. My own reading project has been idling due to “life circumstances” and personal wishy-washy-ness, so… why not?

A Lifetime Reading Habit: A Strategy For Reading

Reading plans are very popular among devoted readers. For that special breed of nutcase wanting to delve deeply into the classics they are practically a necessity.

There are many ready-made reading plans available on the internet with most of them requiring several years to complete and taking the reader, working chronologically, from antiquity to present day. Unfortunately, I think these plans share several limitations.

The Western Canon: Why have it? Why read it?

We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime’s rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively. One ancient test for the canonical remains fiercely valid: unless it demands rereading, the work does not qualify. The inevitable analogue is the erotic one. If you are Don Giovanni and Leporello keeps the list, one brief encounter will suffice.1

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1. Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995. 29. Print. ↩

Circling the Western Canon

Objective

Build a foundation in Western classics through reading focused in order of importance on literature, philosophy, and history.

Method

Read the Western Canon in a series of widening passes over the material, beginning with Shakespeare. Each pass will delve deeper into the canon, building on the readings from previous passes, and including re-readings where desireable.

The reading plan will remain secondary to inspiration and enthusiasm. When interests wane, the structure is there to maintain focused movement.

The Gravestone of Rafael Ávila

Found in Werner Herzog’s book, Conquest of the Useless:

Las vanidades del mundo

Las grandezas del imperio

Se encierran en el profundo

Silencio del cementerio

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The vanities of the world

The greatness of the empire

Withdraw into the deep

Silence of the cemetery