Rewriting Milton: Orality and Writing in Blake's "Milton"

Abstract

MILTON IS A POEM HEAVILY COMMITTED TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF acts of writing and to its own writtenness. The only one of Blake's works specifically called a Poem, its subtitle--a Poem 2 Books-makes clear that its poetic status is specifically attributed to its form as a book. Moreover, its ostensible subject matter is rewriting of works and influences of an earlier writer and therefore presupposes a significant value word, its transformations and its transformative power. Within poem itself, Milton is depicted writing iron tablets (17:10) and in thunder smoke and fire (7:13); Shadowy Female wears a garment written all over ... Human Words (18:12), while Ololon descends to Milton at end of poem Clouds ... folded as a Garment dipped blood / Written within & without woven letters (42:12-13).(1) Yet, moment of action for character of Milton poem springs from a specifically event--a Bard's song.(2) The portrait of that appears at beginning of second book of Milton advocates power of breath and spoken word as forces behind Wars of Eternity (30:9), construction of the Universe stupendous (30:20) and creation of all Mental forms (30:20). In addition, Milton's journey is rewriting of more than just his record: object of correction is Milton's body of texts as transformed by discourses both and which influence and are influenced by cultural fields of religion, politics, and aesthetics (to name just a few).(3) The competing modes of representation and communication--writing and speech, graphic and oral, or what Ong has termed literacy and orality(4)--do not result a polarity of practices, however; nor do they resolve a privileging of one over other. Instead, conceptual fields which characterize writing and speech interpenetrate and form an apocalyptic discourse that incorporates important dimensions of both modes of representation. The refrain from Bard's song-- well my words! they are of your eternal salvation(5)--most forcefully manifests this interpenetration and overlap. It communicates orally urgent message that Milton must revise his legacy if he (and culture he influences) is to be prepared for Last Judgment; it also self-consciously represents work of a graphic medium to Mark or represent fleeting moments of orality for reader. The refrain draws both Milton and reader into a field of discourse which spoken is marked or inscribed by and is an agency of inspired moment of speaking prophecy. Robert Essick sees this interpenetration of and spoken, graphic and oral, as a fundamental dimension of Blake's model of verbal production.(6) By linking and spoken, Blake engages what Essick terms a form of oral writing [which] brings a printed text something of ... [an] increased presence of accidental productions of spoken language (191).(7) The recovery of kind of spontaneity which characterizes complements and revitalizes premeditated and fixed dimensions of graphic media, as Essick argues, and reincorporates immediacy of inspiration with studied reflection of execution. While Essick's arguments about Blake's model of verbal production inform background of my essay, I am here more directly engaged exploring way which graphic and oral, and spoken, are used as conceptual fields Milton. As a conceptual field, writing has been traditionally allied with permanence, rational reflection and dissemination of its content widely over material contexts of time and space. In contrast, speech has been characterized by immediacy, spontaneity and a passionate expressiveness. In facing this dichotomy, Blake resists temptation to make his own acts of writing conform to either one of these conventional oppositions. …