Milton, Music and Literary Interpretation

Reading through the Spirit

David Ainsworth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781032239743
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429603624
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Milton, Music and Literary Interpretation: Reading through the Spirit constructs a musical methodology for interpreting literary text drawn out of John Milton's poetry and prose. Analyzing the linkage between music and the Holy Spirit in Milton's work, it focuses on harmony and its relationship to Milton's theology and interpretative practices. Linking both the Spirit and poetic music to Milton's understanding of teleology, it argues that Milton uses musical metaphor to capture the inexpressible characteristics of the divine. The book then applies these musical tools of reading to examine the non-trinitarian union between Father, Son, and Spirit in Paradise Lost, argues that Adam and Eve's argument does not break their concord, and puts forward a reading of Samson Agonistes based upon pity and grace.

1 Spiritual Harmony

In his poetry, John Milton presents music as a force which constitutes a community of faith, a force which functions comparably to the operations of the Spirit if they were rendered external and manifest. He hints that singing or listening to music can blur the lines between a metaphoric and literal rapture, offering transportation to Heaven in much the same way as Paradise Lost does: through the power of artistic expression to move the hearts of those experiencing it.¹ While Milton does not unreservedly present music as good, rapturous and harmonious music are most often presented in conjunction with signs of the Holy Spirit and its operation. These musical moments in Milton represent states of mind and soul which afford special receptiveness to the urgings of the Spirit.

In addition, music in Milton’s works preserves many of the traits of Milton’s spiritual hermeneutics. Proper musical expression requires both effort and attentiveness to others making music, especially including being in harmony with the divine music which suffuses God’s creation. Music can experientially capture and embody that indefinite quality of the Spirit which renders its expression difficult; true heavenly music in Milton’s works resonates with God and reflects the underlying ineffable characteristics of the truth he comprehends.² Musical expression functions collectively—arguably even when a lone voice sings—and holds to the pattern of an individual conscience willingly subordinating itself to a communal creation not unlike the temple construction Milton employs as a metaphor in Areopagitica. Many voices blend themselves willingly together into a cohesive whole: “God shall be All in All” (PL 3.341) in miniature.

This chapter focuses on specific elements of Milton’s music and I do not intend it to be a comprehensive survey of music in Milton’s works.³ A brief introductory section will distinguish between the sorts of musical moments I’ll examine here and other sorts of music in Milton’s poetry. While I focus on the intersections between music and the Spirit, I also give some consideration to the role of music in Milton’s life and the experiences he must have had of it, to adduce the ways in which he came to understand it.

Music with a Purpose

Speaking generally, music in Milton’s poetry can be considered a part of this study when its purpose or end is directed outward, not simply at an audience but toward the divine. Music which registers, praises, or adds to God’s glory thus holds to its proper purpose, in contrast with music aimed at narcissistic pleasure or intended to enchant its listeners and direct their minds or hearts away from divine things. A divinely directed work can be like “Lycidas,” in which a swain mourns the death of a friend but comes to realize that his apparently senseless loss in fact reflects the incomprehensible glory of God and of Christ’s redemptive act, or like Paradise Lost, whose godly content requires no explanation here. Rapturous music is able to lift the human soul above the clouds and offer an aural experience of Heaven, in contrast with ravishing music, which overwhelms the senses and dulls the wit, offering a sensual and earthly pleasure.

I’ll briefly consider three straightforward examples of ravishing music and relate their function to contrasting examples of rapturous music, focusing on the linguistic cues which signal the difference as well as the operational distinctions. After the debate in Hell, the devils distract themselves in various ways; some play music and sing:

… Others more mild,

Retreated in a silent valley, sing

With notes Angelical to many a Harp

Thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall

By doom of Battle; and complain that Fate

Free Virtue should enthrall to Force or Chance.

Thir Song was partial, but the harmony

(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)

Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience. (PL 2.546–55)

The pun on “partial” singing emphasizes both the choral nature of their performance and their partiality; while they can harmonize angelically, their music ultimately turns inward, focusing on “thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall” and refusing mention of God at all in favor of complaints about fate. Nor is the music of these fallen angels angelic, but rather their notes are “Angelical,” suggesting a differentiation of sorts despite musical notes being in theory identical in nature: how an angelic harp playing a C can sound different from a diabolic one playing the same note is not explained. While the devils’ music possesses power, its ravishing character exerts force upon listeners without actually changing their external or internal states. Hell is merely suspended, not transcended. What’s more, Milton relates this suspension of Hell to the false philosophy of other devils, who “with a pleasing sorcery could charm/Pain for a while or anguish…” (PL 2.566–7); the language of “sorcery” and charms represents diabolic magic, whose powers are purely temporary but which can cause damage to those ensorcelled. The devils’ music is both enchanting and self-centered.

Angelic music, however, emphasizes God’s glory. For example, after the Son sweeps the fallen angels out of Heaven, the loyal angels “sung Triumph, and him sung Victorious King,/Son, Heir and Lord, to him Dominion giv’n,/Worthiest to Reign” (PL 6.886–8). Earlier in the poem, the angels “waken raptures high” (PL 3.369) to sing of divinity: “Thee Father first they sung… Thee next they sang of all Creation first,/Begotten Son, Divine Similitude… on thee/Impresst th’effulgence of his Glory abides” (PL 3.372, 383–4, 388). The contrast between subjects as well as the contrast in language between ravishment and rapture differentiates these two kinds of musical performance. These musical expressions possess a power to represent the divine, where diabolic music lacks that power. I’ll consider the angelic song in Book 3 at greater length below.

Comus, himself enchanting and self-centered, employs ravishing music in the Ludlow Mask. At first, he and his followers make what the stage directions call “a riotous and unruly noise” (Comus 93sd); as readers, we need the Lady to tell us that this sound may have musical content: “methought it was the sound/Of Riot and ill-manag’d Merriment,/Such as the jocund Flute or gamesome Pipe/Stirs up among the loose unletter’d Hinds…” (Comus 171–3). Even in this description, it’s unclear whether the noise includes instrumental music or whether it merely sounds like the response of the “Hinds” to Pan’s pipes. In any event, the Lady glosses this phenomenon by saying that the “Hinds…thank the gods amiss” (Comus 173, 177), which emphasizes that this music does not praise the correct god or recognize God’s works and glory.

Comus himself contrasts the beautiful songs he knows to the Lady’s holy music:

I have oft heard

My mother Circe with the Sirens three…

Who as they sung, would take the prison’d soul

And lap it in Elysium…

Yet they in pleasing slumber lull’d the sense,

And in sweet madness robb’d it of itself,

But such a sacred and home-felt delight,

Such sober certainty of waking bliss,

I never heard till now. (“Comus,” 252–3, 56–7, 60–4)

The pleasure Comus here describes of his mother’s song is echoed in the diabolic music of Paradise Lost as both can only “charm/Pain” and allow the soul to slumber briefly. In contrast, the heavenly music of the Lady offers “sober certainty of waking bliss,” language especially significant when spoken by a son of the god of wine and drunkenness. The Lady’s sober and sacred song, which follows her restatement of faith and belief, offers her a comfort which Comus’ and Circe’s enchanting music cannot match. What’s more, it possesses such power that it threatens even to sober up the son of drunkenness himself.

Paradise Regained offers a third example of diabolic music, as Satan accompanies the feast in Book Two both with good-looking servers and with music:

And all the while Harmonious Airs were heard

Of chiming strings or charming pipes, and winds

Of gentlest gale Arabian odors fann’d

From their soft wings, and Flora’s earliest smells. (PR 2.362–5)

Satan’s ends here are contrary to God and God’s glory, both of which he hopes to usurp. And again, the “Harmonious” music gets called into question almost immediately. First off, strings and pipes have distinct sounds, so it’s odd that the “Airs” consist of strings or pipes indeterminately. If it’s not both strings and pipes, shouldn’t one be able to tell which of the two produces these sounds? It’s as if the airs come from the air itself, even as the sweet smells seem to be produced by the wind without an actual or real source for them. Second, the play from “chiming” to “charming” again brings up the language of sorcery, emphasizing that this music can ravish, can briefly suspend the pains of the damned, but can offer no actual or lasting comfort or communion: good for dinner music, perhaps, but a distraction from Jesus’ real purposes in the wilderness.

The contrasting angelic song in Paradise Regained features another table of food set before Jesus: “as he fed, Angelic Choirs/Sung Heavenly Anthems of his victory/Over temptation and the Tempter proud” (PR 4.593–5). The angels again sing in praise of Jesus as “True Image of the Father” (PR 4.596) and with praise of God firmly in their minds. Moreover, the language here suggests two distinct sorts of erasures: the choirs set their own identities and egos aside to sing instead in praise of Jesus and God, but their anthems of “victory/Over temptation” can also represent their singing over the Satanic pipes, erasing diabolic music with heavenly harmonies and drowning out one sort of music with another. In any event, Milton carefully contrasts heavenly and diabolic music in ways suggesting the great value he places upon the former.

Heavenly Harmony and the Spirit

While Milton’s beliefs may have changed over the course of his life, music would have constituted a large part of that life from the very beginning. Aubrey indicates that Milton’s father delighted in music and received a medal in recognition of a composition with eighty separate parts. Aubrey writes of Milton himself: “He had a delicate tuneable voice… [h]is father instructed him. He had an organ in his howse : he played on that most.”⁴ Parker discusses musicians and composers who were visitors to the Milton household and suggests linkages between them and Milton’s later interest in poetry.⁵ Lewalski mentions that the young Milton was musically active at home when he was growing up.⁶ Campbell and Corns suggest the centrality of music in the Milton household during Milton’s youth; his father’s compositions were religious and intended for performance in the home, and Milton could part-sing and play the organ and bass viol.⁷ Music would also have been a constant presence in church services, both in London and at Cambridge.

In 1629, then, when Milton composed “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” he would have come to the poem with an established understanding of the relationship between Christian faith and music. During Milton’s childhood, he would have experienced elaborate choral music as a part of worship services; while puritans argued that such music was inappropriate for the church, and while cathedral music effectively ended during the Commonwealth period, Milton never disavows music in his own works.⁸ Music even became caught up in the political strife of the Civil War period, with both sides employing metrical psalms according to distinct styles.⁹ Whatever the young Milton thought of the Laudian liturgy and however much that thinking may have changed over the course of his life, the musical element of that liturgy remains partly exempt from the logic driving his later condemnation of it. When Milton condemns the singing in Charles’ chapel in Eikonoklastes, he writes: “…the vanity, superstition and misdevotion of which place was a scandall farr and neer: Wherein so many things were sung, and pray’d in those Songs, which were not understood…” (YP 2: 552–3). Conformity in singing relates to ignorance about the song being sung, not the act of following one’s musical part; in contrast, singing which involves attentive tuning to the collective sound and harmony reflects true devotion, as well as inspiring it. Milton condemns the Book of Common Prayer for imprisoning “Prayers and that Divine Spirit of utterance that moves them” (YP 2: 505), but he never raises a similar objection to religious song, even allowing Jesus to praise religious music in Paradise Regained.¹⁰ For Milton, musical inspiration need not oppose one’s following of a musical score or part; harmony coupled with understanding removes whatever stench of conformity he might find in choral singing.

“On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” first mentions music in relation to its own “Heav’nly Muse” (“Nativity” 15) and the verse or hymn she offers to the newborn Christ: “Have thou the honor first, thy Lord to greet,/And join thy voice unto the Angel Choir,/From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow’d fire” (“Nativity” 26–8). The language here holds more complexity than is immediately evident. Typically, joining one’s voice to a choir implies that one begins to sing along with...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations and Standard Editions
• Introduction
• 1 Spiritual Harmony
• 2 Spiritual Hermeneutics
• 3 Spiritual and Musical Teleology
• 4 Harmonious Reading
• 5 Music and Literary Interpretation
• Conclusion: Intersections and Interventions
• Bibliography
• Index