Continuing my occasional sharing of private correspondence on the Ink Desk, I’m publishing an e-mail I’ve just received in response to yesterday’s post about Milton’s apparent conversion.
The e-mail is reproduced below. My response follows.
As it happens (and almost off the record) – although I think Milton was a nasty piece of work (Dryden and Herbert, and then Crashaw, are my personal favourite 17th c, post-Shakespeare and Jonson poets), Lycidas, l’Allegro, and Il Penseroso are genuinely great things. You’ll know, of course, that Belloc was a Miltonian (poetically speaking).
Incidentally, my old tutor (a Catholic Ruskin specialist) gave me to understand that Ruskin may have been a Catholic convert, (at least informally) under the influence of Manning – for the last decade or so of his life. As Ruskin suffered something like a nervous breakdown in 1890 (I think), his public life and influence were virtually obliterated. I could look into it if you like – ? Ruskin remains neglected; he is one of the true visionaries and masters of English following the Reformation.
My reply:
I agree with you that Milton was a nasty piece of work – at least at the time he was writing. One has to hope that the apparent conversion to Catholicism indicates a growth in wisdom and serenity in old age. Paradise Lost is a magnificent ediface erected on heretical foundations. Nowhere in the field of human literature has so much talent been squandered on so much nonsense.
I agree with your judgment on the merits of Dryden and Crashaw, though I find Herbert a little too schmaltzy and breezy.
Regarding Belloc the Miltonian, my response is to insist that Belloc was not a great literary critic. His strengths lay elsewhere.
I’ve heard rumours of Ruskin’s conversion but I’ve never seen any documentary evidence. If you can unearth the evidence, I’d be greatly interested in learning more.
Joe
Ruskin a Catholic? How lovely if it’s true. I was enchanted with “The Nature of Gothic” and so disappointed when I later learned about his horrible affliction. If he converted, that’s very consoling….
Re: “Belloc was not a great literary critic.” A fair judgment, to be sure. However, he did have one necessary (and too often underrated) attribute of every great critic: he makes the audience want to read the work under examination. I can think of short pieces of his on Swift, Moliere and Livy that make the reader want to revisit all of those classics.
I know so little of Paradise Lost, what’s so wrong with it? Heretical foundations and nonsense are powerful charges layed against it…care to explain a bit more in-depth please? Again, I’m not very familiar with Milton’s work.
The huge glaring irony of PL is that it is the birthplace of the modern romantic revolutionary (“Byronic”) hero. Milton, in the ultimate arrogance of purposing “to justify the ways of God to man,”designs the prototype of the irresistibly charismatic figure on whom the likes of Napoleon, Hitler, Che Guevara, et al, fashioned themselves. Even if these “heroes” never heard of Milton, it was he who introduced the archetype they embodied into the psyche of modern man. The irony is that the character was Lucifer.
The full impact of that realization should make a Catholic out of anybody!
Ed, There is much that is wrong with Paradise Lost from a theological perspective. The most egregious is Milton’s disbelief in the Trinity. In Paradise Lost, the Son is merely a creature, created by the Father.
Milton’s God is also cold and puritanical. He is made in Milton’s image.