22/9/06 - English Literature - John Milton and James Hogg

Milton and Hogg's texts come from unknown, alien world. Must be familiarised with history.

Grand openings in both.

Milton: long, witty, archaic, forbidding, strange literary conventions. Experience of demons, book 1 and 2. Talking, dilemmas, discussions. Must be considered a poem, not a novel. Reason, free will; key concepts in Milton. Grandeur, magnitude. Enterprise of poem set out from first lines. Style: dynamic, subtle. Explains nature of humans in terms of christianity.

"Justify the ways of God to men." 1:26. Sets out to explain the ways of humans; why are we this way? Epic; compare to Virgil/Homer.

Line 15, Milton's inspiration comes from christianity and epic. "Th' Aonian mount." Human race, not just one hero. Satan his hero? Antagonism towards authority and tradition.

Complex syntax. One sentence = 16 lines. Iambic pentameter, blank verse. Stress on important words using rhythm of poetry. "MAN'S FIRST diso-BED-ience, and the FRUIT," line 1. Emphasis, stressing.

Use of pause in line. Metrical irregularity, pause not in middle. Multi-branching. Sentences unpredictable, flow onto next lines. Control of rhythm.

Authoritative poem. Dogmatic. However, style can question this. Unpredictable. Reader has to find own meaning in various double meanings. Milton asks why. Profoundly religious. Critical, reflexive, subtle questioning of religion. Paradise Lost must be imperfect, fractured, because it is written by a 'fallen' man. Paradox.

PL composed 1658-1665. Published 1667. At a tumultuous time. Fall of republic, restoration of monarchy, Charles II. Underpins context of poem. Milton republican under Cromwell. Political, defends policies of republic. 1660 arrested. Blind. Meditation on defeat of republic? "Why did God spit in the face of the republicans?" Erring human decisions.

Free will. History can change things, but things can be intervened, changed back (see first lines). Not predestined.

Reason, e.g. demons, book 1 and 2. How do people exercise free will? Milton's concerns. Narrative technique unpredictable. Voices of characters try to reason. Truth is not self-eminent. Must be worked at. Milton illicits reason, but does not answer. Cultivate decisions, learn. Moral ambiguity.

Hogg interested in city - physically, historically. Geographical meaning. Edinburgh. Issue of authorship.

Narrative technique. Relationship to reader. Experience of writing book - "without star and compass". Abandoned direction. It took its own course. Strange, unresolved. "What can this work be?" Enigmatic. Milton begins with authorial presence. Tells purpose. Hogg - author appears at end, not beginning. First letter purposes excavation with preserved body. True letter, placed into a work of fiction. Hogg appears as character in own novel. Readers read it, wanted to find Hogg. He refused to tell anything about grave or person. Author playful. Refusal to give anything away.

Milton's expectations are clear.

Hogg's appears to be historical novel. Second part spiritual autobiography. Satire of religious fundamentalism? No clear-cut answer. Book changes composition. Unreliable.

Setting out to create a new convention. Dissolution of boundaries; compelling. Narratives collide. Truth v. fiction. Supernatural presence v. human mind. Shapeshifting.

Structure. 1. Triptych. Editor's narrative like Walter Scott. Present, easy flow. 2. Sinner's confession, R. Wringhim. 3. Editor, how he managed to get confession published. Hogg - different understandings side by side.

Irrational and subjective both appear. Superseded. Editor turns out not to be objective - subject to prejudice/bias. Confident, male, anglicised voice. Account of marriage coloured by editor's narrative. In part 2, RW loses credibility - fantacist, deluded. Narratives converge, collide. RW's interpretation of writing.

Question assumptions of both narrators. Relationship between them. Show the limits. Alongside 'visitation' is RW's imagination. Hogg's equivocal position in Scotland. From rural oral culture. City dispassionate, logical.