Milton

“The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by the artifice against the Sublime of the Bible; but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce, all will be set right, & those Grand Works of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men will hold their proper ran, & the Daughters of Memory still become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakespeare & Milton were both curb'd by the general malady & infections from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword.”

I cannot say that I agree with Blake about the writings of Homer, Ovid, Plato, and Cicero. I like all four, the third much less than the others, though. And I definitely do not agree with Blake about the sublimity of the Bible. I mean, it has its moments as a literary work. Parts of it are really beautiful. But, seeing as how the Bible is such a huge, unwieldy, and vague document, one must at least give Homer, Ovid, Plato, and Cicero some points for uniformity. I do agree with Blake, however, about the tyranny of tradition. This is from the preface Blake's “epic poem” Milton, in which Blake is more or less possessed by the soul of Milton so that he can correct the “errors” of Paradise Lost. Blake wrote it from 1804-08, when the Romantic movement in English literature, as we know it, had only been around a couple of years. Blake wrote this coming off the age of the Augustans. I cannot imagine living in the time of the Augustans, who believed that the classical authors had, in essence, ended western literature and that anything modern would only be footnotes. All forms were prescribed: odes, elegies, epics, tragedies, comedies, etc.

I just realized today how unreliable the Canon is. Not that the Canon is made up of bad stuff, but that it is necessarily exclusive. There are so many minor works of literature, good, reliable, influential, but unlucky, that will never be canonized, and they will be forgotten. To rely exclusively on such a thing as the Canon, in my view, doesn't make very much sense.

Ok, this is just a big ramble, I know. I think I'm just feeling now what T. S. Eliot said he felt in 1908: that I have no place to start from. “I have shored these fragments against my ruins”: I pieced together my own canon, because the Canon of Everybody Else is too crowded. Too many people are getting in on that action. Or, better, to use another quote from Blake: “I must create my own System or be enslaved by another man's.” The poetry scene right now is so boring because it is a scene. I've got nowhere to start from, so I'll just have to make it up. Not that I've (ever) written any good poetry, but mine is coming from a much different place than everyone else's, I think. I almost automatically go for verse now, structure of some kind, oh me, the champion of free verse at 15. Now I'm almost 21 and I still haven't found any answers. Actually, I wrote a lot more back then.

At any rate, I'm going to end this arbitrarily and go study for my exam tomorrow. Writing something and knowing that someone else will read it is a good feeling, even if it is only Aurelius, even if it is only for an exam.