Tuesday 9 December 2008

John Milton, Four Hundred Today

Our language's greatest poet, embodying in his work the Christian synthesis between the Classical and the Biblical traditions, not least in his fulsome use of the Classics in re-telling Old Testament stories in Paradise Lost, but his much greater reticence when dealing with New Testament sources in Paradise Regained.

Cromwell's Latin Secretary, and thus rabidly anti-Catholic and the defender of the regicide to all Europe, on which latter come back on 30th January.

The voice of cultured, court Puritanism, before its preaching was driven by the Restoration, whatever we might think of that in itself, out onto the streets and into the fields, not exactly the sort of environment that produces Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained, but instead one in which all books but the Bible were sometimes, and certainly all the Classics were as good as always, banned altogether. (Something similar happened in early Methodism, more than symbolised by the burning of John Wesley's heavily annotated Complete Works of Shakespeare).

And the voice of an English Calvinism not yet defined by reaction against the Catholic and the Anglo-Catholic movement on the one hand, and the rise of liberal theology on the other. An English Calvinism closely resembling an only very slightly later American Calvinism not yet defined by reaction against Catholic and Jewish immigration from the east (and Chinese and other immigration from the west) on the one hand, and the rise of liberal theology on the other.

More than comfortable, therefore, with the use of Greek and Roman material in Christianity, and accordingly not without reverence for the Fathers, the Visible Church (to use the Protestant term), the Sacraments (including those not defined as such in classical Protestantism, but they certainly do have weddings and so forth) and the ordained ministry. That last, in particular, was only ever compromised, by those who ever did compromise it within Calvinism, when driven out onto the streets or into the fields by the Restoration, or when (as they saw it) driven west to the Frontier by Catholic immigration.

A voice, in other words, for our more ecumenical times. Entirely in spite of himself, but such is grace.

36 comments:

  1. Is it true that you wrote your Masters dissertation on Milton, and had to resubmit it because the first version was failed?

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  2. No.

    The dissertation was on Milton, but you always get these things back after the due date with lots of corrections to make within about a year or so. So I did. That's how postgrad work, as it were, works.

    And if you fail at that level, then you just fail. You are big boys and girls and simply have to take it. Hand it again? Hardly! Perhaps Durham is stricter than elsewhere, but I doubt it. Not that I've ever heard of anyone actually failing an MA, rather than merely not completing one.

    I stayed involved with the research centre for while, going along to seminars and conferences and things. Then other things got in the way. But I'm still in touch, so who knows?

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  3. So it is true then. Thanks.

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  4. No, it certainly isn't. To the best of my knowledge, it is impossible.

    Getting it back with "change this, change that" is part of the drill - everyone has to go through it, because obviously the thing can't be perfect the first time you hand it in. The corrections are what you are paying for. Otherwise you might as well just award yourself an MA and save the fees.

    Outright failure, on the other hand, is unheard of, at least by me. People fail to complete, but you'd never reach the stage of finishing the thing and then being failed. It just couldn't happen. Where was the supervisor?

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  5. Well, exactly. Low 2:2 if that, Journo. You have no idea how these things operate. Why don't you try engaging with this very interesting post? I bet you can't.

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  6. I last saw you at one of the Centre's conferences. Hardly something that would be frequented by a man whio had initially failed its flagship MA!

    This post is bloody good. You should try and write up these thoughts into an article for a journal.

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  7. Any suggestion as to which journal? Do let me know - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

    If you last saw you at me of the Centre's conferences, then we haven't seen each other for several years, alas. But no, someone with the history alleged by Journo would hardly show his face at such an event, would he?

    (Rhetorical question, Journo.)

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  8. I shudder to think of what you think of Philip Pullman, then.

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  9. David - it is true that it took you two years, and is true that you graduated a year after you were meant to because it was not good enough the first time. A friend of a friend knows your supervisor who told them.

    So - in all honesty - your post on Milton isn't very worthwhile reading.

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  10. I think that I am right in saying that the doctoral theses of both Josef Ratzinger and Carol Wojtiwa were referred before they were accepted. You are in good company, David.

    Anyway, more importantly, this was a nice post on Milton--many thanks. I have an odd taste for Paradise Regained myself, but always liked Areopagitica. Write us a post on these things!

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  11. Alec, I have blogged on Pullman several times, though admittedly not for a while now.

    Robbie, well of course I picked up my MA about two years after I started writing it. Everyone does, at least at Durham. MAs were really designed to take two years, but modern financial pressures are such that people have to finish the full-time part in one and the do the corrections in the other, very often, as in my case, while working full-time.

    If you fail an MA then you just fail it. Not that I can think of anyone who ever did, although there were people who never handed in anything at all. This whole bizarre line of discussion reflects the mentality of people who, from starting school to leaving university, never really attracted the attention of a teacher at any level. They spent the best part of 20 years handing in mediocre but not dreadful material and being given mediocre but not dreadful marks for it, and that was just that.

    Martin, speaking of PhDs, if anyone can think of a way of constructing a PhD out of the three parts of my MA - the reasons why dissident Anglicans (to use a nineteenth-century term, but what can you do?) were a better Jacobite bet than English Catholics, even though the Stuarts were Catholics; the reasons why the three-party split in French Catholicism at the start of the seventeenth century had become by the end of that century a two-party split, with the Jansensits and the Gallicans lined up together against the Ultramontanes; and the reasons why Milton was wide open to using Classical material when re-telling Old Testament stories in Paradise Lost, but much more reticent about doing so with New Testament stories in Paradise Regained - then I would live to hear it.

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  12. "Robbie, well of course I picked up my MA about two years after I started writing it. Everyone does, at least at Durham."

    As someone who knows about this, through having known plenty of people who did MAs at Durham, let me point out to your readers that this is absolute nonsense.

    There's no shame in taking two years over an MA, unless for some reason you want to feel ashamed of it. But don't pretend that it's the norm. It's unduly defensive. Not everyone is capable of finishing in a year. You weren't. Don't worry about it.

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  13. "They spent the best part of 20 years handing in mediocre but not dreadful material and being given mediocre but not dreadful marks for it, and that was just that."

    Remind me, David - did you get a 2:1 or a 2:2?

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  14. No one does.

    Anyone who should be there at all can get the main body in within that time, but no one can complete the lot, including everything that the supervisor and examiners rightly earn their fees by demanding.

    Why SHOULD anyone be able to do that? The thing was designed, way back when, to take two years full-time. Ah, those must have been the days...

    Now, has anyone anything to say about Milton?

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  15. A 2:1, in the best Durham arts tradition. I'd never have got onto a more than respectable MA programme without one, obviously.

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  16. "no one can complete the lot, including everything that the supervisor and examiners rightly earn their fees by demanding."

    Yes, they can. Plenty of people I know did. And it would be helpful if you didn't respond to this claim by either denying it or pretending that people who complete in a year are somehow inadequate.

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  17. You'd never have got onto that MA programme without a good 2:1, that's right. Very well-regarded Centre, publishes a top of the range journal, etc.

    On a bad day, someone who got a 2:2 from Durham and then stopped could be made a College Tutor there. On a good day, someone who got a 2:1 from Durham and then stopped could be made a College Tutor there. But on no day could anyone who had had an MA failed by Durham, even if they had got it at some fictional and impossible second attempt, be made a College Tutor there. Beyond reunions and begging letters, they would be persona non grata for ever.

    You have exactly the measure of your enemies on this one, David. They cannot begin to know what they are talking about. Also, they are very intimidated by posts like this. They think that they are so much cleverer and better-educated than they really are. This post is not the work of a man whose dissertation on Milton would ever have been failed. But they cannot know that.

    More on Milton, the Classical and Biblical traditions, Jacobitism, Jansenism, Gallicanism and Ultramontanism, please.

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  18. "This post is not the work of a man whose dissertation on Milton would ever have been failed."

    Like the first draft of your dissertation, your post lacks footnotes.

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  19. "Yes, they can. Plenty of people I know did."

    Name three. I bet you can't. I've been involved in that University for what some people would say was now an unhealthy length of time, and I can't even think of one. As much as anything else, they'd be losing the University the continuation fee. And that would never be allowed.

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  20. They made me take out some of the footnotes the first time round, because there were too many of them!

    What a very third-rate undergraduate you are, Anonymous 16:31. I can practically picture your face, based on that one. And very slappable it is, too. Bring back grammar schools, say I.

    Jobbing Academic, well, I'll do my best. I have done them all at some point, and doubtless will again.

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  21. Is he seriously suggesting that someone might have handed in a dissertation at that level, as much as anything else after two term papers, with no footnotes?

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  22. Apparently so.

    But remember, these people have no clue what they are on about, and they sincerely assume that nor has anyone else.

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  23. What was wrong with the first draft of your dissertation?

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  24. Stuart is presumably making some Oxbridge quip. But Firsts are an Oxbridge thing, Stuart. No one else dare give them, for fear of being accused of dumbing down.

    Which is ironic, because nowhere is more dumbed down than Oxbridge. They only admit from 50-100 schools where either the fees or the house prices are astronomical, and they will let any old dullard from those schools.

    They hand out Firsts like confetti because they honestly believe that being there proves you are brilliant. Stuart probably got one.

    I moved to Durham as soon as I saw a job here advertised, and I have never looked back for a moment.

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  25. Anonymous 16:50, nothing exactly (these things are supervised, you know), it could just be made better in certain specific ways. Well, of course it could. That's what you're paying for.

    Anonymous 16:54, point made; now back on topic, please.

    Same all round.

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  26. "Stuart is presumably making some Oxbridge quip. But Firsts are an Oxbridge thing, Stuart. No one else dare give them, for fear of being accused of dumbing down."

    Not at all. I was at Durham. I got a 2:1. Mediocre, as I'd be the first to admit. Several of my Durham friends got Firsts. Well done them.

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  27. Either a long time ago or you are a scientist, possibly both.

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  28. No more off-topic comments will be put up.

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  29. David, I've tried various search tricks, but not found your posts on Pullman? Not doubting you, but could you link?

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  30. Is it true that you had to resubmit your Masters dissertation on Milton because your first draft did not quote anything by Milton? I do hope so.

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  31. No, of course not. Nothing like that could ever have reached submission stage. Come on! These things are supervised, you know. That's what you pay for.

    I make no pretence to being the world's most academically glittering of people. But those trying to smear me are going to have to do better than this, in which case they are just going to have leave academia alone.

    My academic record is what it is - nothing flash, but more than presentable. Chadsman, with a name like that, you wouldn't want one of those people with great long lists of apparently dazzling qualifications, now, would you...?

    Anyway, on-topic comments only, please.

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  32. "Chadsman, with a name like that, you wouldn't want one of those people with great long lists of apparently dazzling qualifications, now, would you...?"

    That's it, David, make a virtue out of necessity.

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  33. I reached my natural academic limit and stayed there. You know perfectly well to whom I refer when I say that other people would have done very much better if they had done the same as I.

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  34. That was before my time, I'm afraid.

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  35. Alec -

    http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2007/12/fools-golden-compass.html

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