Inspiration in Milton and Keats PDF
Preview Inspiration in Milton and Keats
INSPIRATION IN MILTON AND KEATS INSPIRATION IN MILTON AND KEATS Meg Harris Williams M MACMILLAN © Meg Harris Williams 1982 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1982 All rights reseIVed. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication ,may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS andLondon Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-05639-2 ISBN 978-1-349-05637-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05637-8 Reprinted 1993 To Gawain disguised as fiction, the truth occasionally slips through.· Wilfred Bion We may make a beginning by acknowledging the obvious, that every psycho-analytical discovery IS a self-revelation and every paper an autobiography.' Donald Meltzer In the conclusion Is the dedication Of what is worthy To the creator. I send back these songs For signature; To be corrected by The making eye. Roland Harris Contents Preface ix 1 On the Meaning of Inspiration 1 2 Milton's New-enlightened World 22 3 Milton and the Genius of the Shore 40 4 Milton's Search for the Idea of the Beautiful 76 5 Keats's Commitment to the Vale of Soul-making 103 6 The Principle of Beauty in All Things 143 Epilogue 197 Selectz"ve Bibliography 202 Index 207 Preface This book is concerned with a more specific definition of inspiration than that commonly implied by the term, and poems which may be called 'inspired' are therefore correspondingly limited in number. The term is not used simply to revalue or rearrange a hierarchy of poems, but to describe the experience of the poet hirnself, and the nature of the knowledge he has gained by writing a particular poem. Inspired writing is an experience for the poet which fundamentally changes his view of the world, and which is therefore more often associated with disturbance than with enjoyment. And although all inspired poetry is artisti cally excellent, not all good poetry is inspired; the categories are divided by the point at which the poet's primary feeling is no longer that of total command of his powers, but that of an obli gation to tell 'the truth', as it is told to hirn, by apower greater than his own. Inspiration is the means by which poets become, in Shelley's terms, 'the legislators of the world'. And the inspired poet is like Plato's philosopher-in-the-making, painfully dragged from his Cave-dwelling into the sunlight, and then forced to apply his new vision back in the old darkness, his eyes being 'unsighted in two ways': new knowledge brings no release from old discomfort, and the knowledge-seeker is thrown back into his habitual medium of work - which, for the poet, is the craft of verse. It is now a critical commonplace that 'poetry should not mean, but be': a fact about poetry which is as true for the poet writing as for the reader reading. In my investigation of the meaning of inspiration, I found that the collection of isolated, out-of-context remarks by poets and others about 'inspiration' was relatively unilluminating. Anthologies of this nature exist and are of some interest, but it seems to me that the most effective way to examine inspiration systematically is through the analysis of poetic language itself; and that it is a characteristic of inspired poetry for an image, or extended metaphor, of the process of inspiration IX x lnspira#on in Milton and Keats to exist within the poem, representing the poet's concern with his own experience as an aspect of the wider subject of the poem. For, however dramatically the poet's identity may be subsumed in different chara"cters and situations, his own inner poetic history has some part in the unfolding of apoern, wh ich is an exploration and shows hirn in the process of learning. Inspiration is not merely a figure of speech, but a complex state of mi nd for which poets themselves have the greatest respect, love and hatred. If we are to pay more than lip-service to the value of poetry as ex perience and as a model for experience in life itself, then some attention must be paid to that central experience of the poet's on which the action of the poem depends. In the following chapters, therefore, after an introduction based primarily on the major images of inspiration of Plato, Dante and Spenser, I attempt to explore the his tory of inspiration in two poets: John Milton and John Keats. These two were chosen for several reasons; they include: the wealth of material docu menting their early development; their standpoint in different eras ('Renaissance' and 'Romantic') which are often considered to present antithetical ideas of the poet's role; and the fact (much neglected in criticism) of Milton's pervasive influence on Keats. The book consists of a personal reading of their poetry, pursued more or less chronologically, which for reasons of space and to balance the short life-span of Keats, treats the later poetry of Milton much less fully than his early poetry. The validity of the subjective, imaginative factor in criticism is, of course, dependent upon the accuracy of the interpretation. One way to read a poem is to write a story about it, just as one way to observe a Grecian Urn is to write a poem about it, and one way to defend the Harmony of the Spheres is to deliver an 'open-handed' oration in the face of logic's 'closed fist'. In the context of controlled technique, a subjective analysis can unearth evidence which studiously evades close-fisted scholarship. The highest possible aspiration of any literary critic is to enrich the appreciation of the reader when he turns again to the literature; and my main hope is that this account of two poets' related development embodies a story reflecting something of the truth of the poetry itself. I would like, here, to express my affectionate thanks to Kathleen Lea, who with courage, care and insight supervised my five years' research at Oxford; to Joie Macaulay, who taught me at school to read poetry, introduced me to Milton and has often Preface Xl discussed the drafts with pleasure and interest; to other friends and teachers: in particular Gillian Beer; Catherine Belsey; Raffaella Ferrari; Hannah Hammond; BrianJackson; NaliniJain Soni; Mary Ann Radzinowicz; Susanne Wofford; to my family, who read the manuscript at every stage and whose influence pervades the book: in particular to my husband Adrian who, with the additional delights of a small child to bring up, seems to have enjoyed the experience. The edition from which Milton's poetry is quoted is that of Carey and Fowler (Longman, 1968); Wright's transcription and facsimile of the Trinity Manuscript (reprinted by the Scolar Press) is also used for the poetry and for the Letter to a Friend. Other wise the text for Milton's prose is the Yale Complete Prose, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al. (1953); though Of Education is available in paperback selections (edited by Lea or Patrides). Milton's Latin prolusions are quoted only in translation, as are incidental references to other Latin writings. I have used Miriam Allott's edition of Keats's poems (Longman, 1970); in some cases (e.g. for spontaneous verse, or early drafts) his poems are quoted from the Letters, for which the text is Rollins's complete edition (1958). Gittings's selection (1977) contains all the important letters. Once or twice I have without comment corrected Keats's slips of the pen when they might distract the reader (e.g. 'itsef' for 'itself'), and expanded abbreviations; and I have not (unless for specific comment) reproduced erasions when quoting from manuscript transcriptions. EIsewhere, cu_v' and 'i-j' spellings have been normalised. I have not cumbered the text with footnotes, because all the major references are easily found, and the others may be researched by any interested person. Unless otherwise stated, comments on Keats by his friends will be found in the Rollins's, The Keats Circle (1965). Keats's marginal notes on Milton are printed in Buxton Forman's Hampstead edition (1938-9), volume 5, and reprinted in the Penguin Complete Poems (1976), edited by John Barnard. I am, in addition, parti cularly indebted to Parker's biography of Milton; to Bate's bio graphy of Keats; to Irene Samuel's work on Milton; and to Sperry's Keats the Poet. M.H.W. February 1980
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