Tag Archives: John Milton

Music

Sunday Singing: The Lord Will Come and Not Be Slow

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Today’s hymn was written by the great John Milton (1608-1684). He wrote several paraphrases of select Psalms haven’t gained the favor of hymnal editors. The tune sung above by the congregation of Cathedral Church of Christ in Marina, Lagos, Nigeria is “St. Stephen” by William Jones, rec­tor of the church in Hol­ling­bourne, Kent.

“Let me hear what God the LORD will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;
but let them not turn back to folly.
Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
that glory may dwell in our land.” (Ps 85:8-9 ESV)

1 The Lord will come and not be slow,
his footsteps cannot err;
before him righteousness shall go,
his royal harbinger.

2 Truth from the earth, like to a flow’r,
shall bud and blossom then,
and justice, from her heav’nly bow’r,
look down on mortal men.

3 Rise, God, and judge the earth in might,
this wicked earth redress;
for you are he who shall by right
the nations all possess.

4 For great you are, and wonders great
by your strong hand are done:
you, in your everlasting seat,
remain the Lord alone.

Poetry

Cheer for a New Year from Milton

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Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Illustration of running nymph with Jest
Verses from John Milton’s “L’Allegro”
Music, Poetry, The Press, Uncategorized

The Silent Night Coming, Deep and Shallow Fakes, and a Jazz Medley

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But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
         His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
         Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
...
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
         Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
         With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

Two stanzas from John Milton’s “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity“

Obituary: “And I feel so sorry for him, I feel so sorry for this tender man,” Nabokov writes, “that suddenly the line I am writing seems to slip into mist.”

Easy Photo Fakes: With advancing artificially intelligent image generators, creating convincing pics from a handful of social media posts is fairly easy. The better images AI can create, the more dangerous it is to everyone. Maybe we should take our photos offline.

Artificially Created Videos: In a few years, an Israeli company may be able to produce computer generated video avatars that look as real as actual video.

Why Journalists Fall for Hoaxes: “Every hoax in America the past 200 years originated in the news business, or passed through it. When the world moved much slower, hoaxes were publicity stunts carried out by newspapers.”

Not Allegory: “The Twelve Days of Christmas” celebrates the meaning of Christmas and Christianity

Beethoven and Christmas: “If beauty will save the world it must be qualified that love will save the world. Because in beauty we find love. In finding beauty and the love that governs it, we are always directed to the Christ who came into our lives and taught us how to love. St. Augustine said that we often first come to know God (who is Love) through the love of others and the love that others show us.”

And though this is not Beethoven, it’s a good Christmas share.

Three original arrangements by Tony Glausi, “A Christmas Jazz Medley”

Photo by Angela Roma/Pexels

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Poetry, Religion, The Press

Don’t Call It a Culture War. Call It Being Salt.

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Last week, I wrote about an English teacher encouraging her students to read challenged books. Yesterday, World’s Doubletake podcast released a story on diversity libraries in schools and parents and teachers pushing back against school boards who advocate immoral reading. They mention a book “about a 17-year-old alcoholic girl in a sexual relationship with a 38-year-old man. . . . Other books describe teenagers in homosexual activity with adults. Others depict incest.

“Some parents, teachers, three school board members, and a librarian defended the material at that 2020 board meeting. They said young kids should be able to see themselves ‘reflected’ in the books. They said it was important to read about pedophilia because it was, quote, ‘culturally enriching.'”

This may be what school-choice supporters need to fuel their fire.

However, some have reacted negatively to this and any aspect that smells of a culture war. They would much rather Christians keep to themselves: “For all the voices calling our attention and energy to school-board politics right now, discipling our kids in a holistic and faithful way is a more constant, difficult, and worthwhile task.” Influencing your school board or, I guess, being a voice in your community is not within the scope of discipling your children. Maybe if we thought it as being the salt of the earth?

The World and Everything in It, another excellent podcast, has a segment reacting to the above article.

Discipline: “Religious discipline confounds the modern sensibility because it upends our ideas about the value of discipline and sacrifice. To a person steeped in modern heroics, religious discipline looks solely like abstention, with none of the benefits of lifestyle discipline. It is giving up pleasurable things just to make your life less enjoyable; it is overcoming, ignoring, or dismissing your own desires solely from masochism, or because of communal expectations, which is the worst possible sin these days, to do something because someone or some group expects you to.”

Faith: “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Tim. 6:20 ESV)

Poetry: A cottage in which John Milton resided for a short spell survives and is open to the public for half a year. A couple weeks ago, a group met there to read Paradise Lost.

Used Bookstores: Carl Lavigne writes about his time at The Dawn Treader Book Shop in Ann Arbor, MI. “Is there a German word for being surrounded by stacks of once-feted, now forgotten novels piled in a deeply haunted basement wondering, ‘What if this is where my book ends up?’

“A customer demands a book recommendation. ‘Something good.’
‘Sorry,’ I joke. ‘Fresh out.'”

Poetry: Speaking of Ogden Nash (see post earlier this week), his last surviving daughter, Linell Chenault Smith, “an extremely classy woman,” died last month at age 90.

Photo: YMCA, Geneva, New York. 1995. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

Dumping a series: ‘The Driver,’ by Mark Dawson

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I’ve been working my way through Mark Dawson’s John Milton series of thrillers. As you may recall, I was a little disappointed with the first one, and liked the second better.

I began the third, The Driver, and have now officially dumped the series.

In The Driver, John Milton is now living in San Francisco, drawn into a search for a young prostitute who has disappeared.

I quit reading where I got to the part (I should have seen it coming, but I was optimistic) where he gets into American politics, which for him are pretty simple. On the Left, the good guys, on the Right, the bigots.

Author Dawson appears to have learned his American politics from CNN, where he apparently also learned about guns. Defectively in both cases.

I do not need John Milton in my reading life. He is barely distinguishable from a half dozen other thriller heroes available. And most of the other heroes’ creators have the sense not to insult half their prospective readership.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Saint Death,’ by Mark Dawson

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Yesterday I left you in breathless suspense, waiting to learn whether the second John Milton book by Mark Dawson was more satisfying that the first one.

I’m pleased to say that I liked this one, Saint Death, better, though I still have quibbles.

As you may recall, John Milton is one of those thriller heroes (the field’s getting a little crowded) who used to be an elite operative for a super-secret government agency. But his conscience overcame him, and he dropped out of sight. His old bosses do not accept this – the only way out of Group Fifteen is feet first. John, for his part, is on a personal quest to atone for his sins.

As Saint Death begins, John has successfully fled England, and is now in Juarez, Mexico, working as a cook. One day, some cartel gangsters walk into the restaurant and open fire at a group of three young people. John intervenes, saving the life of one young woman, and also of a couple cops who happen to be present.

With the (somewhat skeptical) help of one of the policemen he saved, John takes on the job of protecting the woman survivor, a journalist who has been operating a blog devoted to exposing the cartels. She is being hunted by a legendary assassin known as Santa Muerta – Saint Death. He’s the best, and his drug dealing bosses are sparing no expense to eliminate this woman. John has his work cut out for him.

But that’s not all. John’s old bosses have picked up his trail again, and they’re on their way to Mexico to bring him in.

The thing I liked about Saint Death, in contrast to the last book, The Cleaner, is that John is allowed a little more success. Most of the good and innocent people around him aren’t injured or killed this time. And courage and generosity are rewarded a little more. The writing, as before, is professional and good.

My main complaint is that the author bought the Accepted Wisdom that it’s possible to walk into an American gun show and just buy a firearm without a background check. People who believe that should try it sometime.

Cautions for language and violence.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Cleaner,’ by Mark Dawson

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If you believe violence never solves anything, writing a thriller is probably not the best use of your time. You need to write a quiet, tragic story about the necessity of always submitting to bullies.

I’m not sure that’s author Mark Dawson’s actual problem. But it’s my only real objection to his The Cleaner, the first novel in his John Milton series.

John Milton is, like so many thriller heroes these days, a professional assassin, part of a super-secret British Government operation, this one called Group Fifteen. John is their Number One, their top operative. But he’s burned out. In his last assignment, he allowed mercy to outweigh professionalism, and so was suspended.

Instead of facing discipline, he simply disappears, something he’s very good at. One day in London, he saves a young woman, Sharon, from suicide on the Underground. She confides her story at last. She’s a single mother. She’s already lost her oldest son to drug addiction; now her younger boy, Elijah, is flirting with involvement in a street gang. She doesn’t know how she can face it all.

John is immediately fascinated. This, he thinks, is a situation he can do something about. He has (and he actually uses these words) “a particular set of skills.” If he can help to save this boy, he imagines, get the villains off his back, it might help to ease his own karmic debt, get him some peace from his nightmares.

But even for John, who has faced some of the most remorseless terrorists in the world, it will be a challenge to face off against the inhuman brutality of London gang leaders and drug dealers.

If that wasn’t challenge enough, Group Fifteen is close on his heels now. Once they pinpoint his location, they will apply their own ruthless coercive tactics to the task of silencing John Milton forever.

The Cleaner is a very competent entry in the expanding field of thrillers about benevolent ex-operatives. The writing is good, the characters engaging. My problem with it was that the story’s resolution involves so much collateral damage that it left this reader wondering whether the whole effort was worth the price.

Well, I’ll see how the next book works. I actually bought The Cleaner some time back, and didn’t finish it. But then I bought the next book in the series (on a bargain deal) and figured I’d better read The Cleaner first. I’ll read Saint Death now and let you know how it goes with that one.

Cautions for violence and crude language.

Authors

Milton Wrote in Margins of Shakespeare Folio

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After Shakespeare’s death his works were collected into a folio and printed. Two hundred thirty-three editions out of the seven hundred fifty originally printed still exist, and some of them have notes and marking from early readers. Now a Cambridge fellow believes he has compiled enough evidence to identify one annotator’s handwriting as belonging to the great John Milton.

Cambridge University fellow Jason Scott-Warren made the discovery in response to research conducted by Pennsylvania State University English professor Claire Bourne. Naturally he hesitated to suggest this, because it’s too easy to see what you want to see.

But he soon found that other scholars were agreeing with him. “Not only does this hand look like Milton’s, but it behaves like Milton’s writing elsewhere does, doing exactly the things Milton does when he annotates books, and using exactly the same marks,” said Dr Will Poole at New College Oxford. “Shakespeare is our most famous writer, and the poet John Milton was his most famous younger contemporary. It was, until a few days ago, simply too much to hope that Milton’s own copy of Shakespeare might have survived — and yet the evidence here so far is persuasive. This may be one of the most important literary discoveries of modern times.”

Authors, Publishing

Milton, Our Contemporary

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Milton, as much as Shakespeare, remains our contemporary. As Wordsworth put it in a sonnet from 1802, ‘Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:/ England hath need of thee.’ One half of a nation almost as bitterly — if not as bloodily — divided as in his day needs to understand how the blind, scorned radical, ‘though fallen on evil days… In darkness, and with dangers compassed round’, channelled his dismay at the failure of England’s revolution and the restoration of monarchy into a masterpiece that finds salvation through despair. In 1660, Milton was arrested, imprisoned and might have gone to his death as an impenitent regicide without a few well-placed admirers. His epic, with its aim to ‘assert eternal providence/ And justify the ways of God to men’, climbs from his pit of disillusion to find meaning and hope in calamity. A hero for Remainers, then.

Boyd Tonkin urges us to read Milton today, because he will speak to us if we will listen. April is the 350th anniversary of Paradise Lost‘s publication. (via Prufrock News)

Fiction, Publishing

Are Literary Mash-ups a New Horizon for Publishing?

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Still from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Still from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Is the literary mash-up a passing fad or a fertile new genre? The art of mashing up involves putting together two completely incongruous genres, only to discover that something in the high-cultural original matches the low material with which it is mixed. In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies the Bennet girls prepare themselves for encounters with the undead just as enthusiastically as they prepare themselves for husband-hunting in the original.

The Guardian’s John Mullan suggests several ideas, like this mashup of Paradise Lost and X-Men.

John Milton was surely a super-hero bard avant la lettre. All those angels tumbling from heaven’s crystal battlements, flying across the universe to visit Earth. Think of the war in heaven, where the fallen angels pit “their engines and their balls / Of missive ruin” against the less well-armed Cherubim. It could surely have profited from the involvement of Wolverine and Gambit, while Satan’s concordat with Magneto would challenge the Archangel Michael, even with his sword that “felled / Squadrons at once, with huge two-handed sway”.