Cultural Engineering of the Poetic Parental Instinct :: Areopagitica John Milton Poetry Essays

Cultural Engineering of the Poetic P arntal Instinct It seems that biological genetic engineering is not a contained threat in the finis decade it seems to have spilled signifi can buoytly into cultural and literary studies. In spiritual rebirth studies, this impetus becomes evident in Richard A. Goldthwaithes Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300-1600 (1993) and especially in Lisa Jardines Worldly Goods A New History of the spiritual rebirth (1996). These new histories of domain of a functionly and wealthy Renaissance attempt to present consumerism and Thatcherism as the moving spirit of Renaissance parliamentary procedure and art. Considering the mere fact that less(prenominal) than 5% of the population could have afforded art, this search for Thatcherite motions in Renaissance society and culture seems to correlate, in its result, to what T. S. Eliot defines as artists search for new emotions in art. Unfortunately, this trend of engineering the cultural history can be observed, albeit in a slightly different form, also in the studies of individual authors and their works, and John Milton and his Areopagitica are no exception. One of the reasons for this trend in Milton studies and this particular pamphlet can be sought in the over-saturation of Areopagitica criticism dealing, to a great extent, with confused aspects of authorial intention and textual berth. This particular strain seems to have been brought to the top of absurdity in Paul M. Dowlings Polite Wisdom Heathen magniloquence in Miltons Areopagitica (1995), a book from which one can conclude, in note to earlier criticism (Barker, Kendrick, Belsey), that Miltons main intention for his pamphlet was to be mum at two levelsas suggested in Dowlings title and to defend only when the freedom of philosophic speech. As D. F. McKenzie has noted, recently there has been a duty period of scholarly interest in Miltons Areopagitica from questions of authorial intention and textual authority to those of textual dissemination and readership (Miller 26). While this distancing from the authorial intention has resulted in well-nigh illuminating works roughly the world of printing, Renaissance economy, censorship and universe sphere (Miller, Sherman, Norbrook), it has also produced some curious side-effects because the critics cannot avoid, in their final analysis, hint upon the authorial intention in the light of their newly made discoveries. Thus, Stephen B. Dobranski suggests that, since Areopagitica is about books, the reading of the text should begin (but not, of course, end) by placing the pamphlet within the world of printing