[COMPLETE] Milton's Minor Poems - availle

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

I'm glad that this was the only point at which you saw a problem; "Philistims" didn't bother you, for instance. Yet this is exactly the kind of problem we face with this manuscript that has apparently never been proof-read. This particular problem can scarcely be explained as a scanning error, but it is nevertheless an error. Editions that are not in the public domain show the line as I have read it. I wish I could add that it will make sense in no other way, but in fact I think it likely that Milton interprets the line differently from the translators who produced the King James version ("yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy") and the Revised Standard version ("if I have . . . plundered my enemy without cause"). In general, even though plundering an enemy is a far cry from freeing one, Milton seems more in line with the RVS than the KJV. His "if I have . . . fre'd my foe for naught" agrees with the RSV in taking the phrase "for naught" ("without cause") to modify the verb rather than "my foe" as the King James version does ("that without cause is mine enemy").

The crux is that "fre'd" corresponds to "delivered" (KJV) but "not fre'd" would be more like "plundered" (RSV) than to "delivered" (KJV); in fact, it is the opposite of "delivered." Holding out for "not fre'd" would provide me with the image of a young John Milton pleased to be able to correct two stupid errors in the King James version, and yet it is possible that our editor, the Rev. H. C. Beeching, M. A., may have deleted Milton's "not" in order to bring the meaning more into line with the KJV. If so, we must clearly read the text as Beeching represented it, alas!

However, this is clearly not something we are competent to rule upon. I would like to let this project languish until David Widger can get around to his final proofing. We will know it is complete when "Philistims" becomes "Philistines" and when "And they that hate thee proud and fill" becomes "And they that hate thee proud and fell" (to rhyme with "swell). I will check the text periodically and report when it has been corrected. I will read it as Widger finally decides.

Availle, you can decide how long to wait. When the project absolutely must be completed, I will prompt Widger again even though he is swamped with work.
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Tom, I'm not bothered by waiting - as long as I don't forget about this project...

Is this the final file in this book or are there more to come? You could work on those in the meanwhile.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

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chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

This is the final installment of this project. I will work on the art for the cover.

Tom
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

Availle, here is the introduction that I would like to appear at the head of this project:

“On Shakespear 1630” typifies much of Milton’s poetry. By some miracle never yet explained, at age 24 he managed to get a 16-line encomium included in the Second Folio of the Bard’s collected works, 1632. Quite a coup! And this brand new M.A., never before published, used this brief poem to contradict Shakespeare’s chief rival, the great Ben Jonson, whose 80-line panegyric had graced the First Folio eleven years earlier. Jonson had said that Shakespeare’s monument was this living book, but Milton says, no, it is rather the readers who, stunned by the poet’s verse, become living statues in his honor.

You will find the same audacity here in the minor poems as in Paradise Lost, which treats of “things unattempted yet in prose of rime.” You can hear it in the college student’s satirical invitation (likely to the classmate next on the program) “Rivers arise . . . ,” a travesty of the epic catalogue of rivers; and in his affectionately irreverent epitaph on Hobson (of “Hobson’s choice”), the stage coach driver for the boys of Cambridge; and again in a second epitaph on the same subject but offering a shameless burlesque of “Metaphysical” conceits. Even in his paraphrase of Psalm VII, where he takes issue with the King James Version on two points of grammar at the end of the second stanza, he is clearly the man who will write “How few somtimes may know, when thousands err.”

Yet for all Milton’s iconoclasm, he knows discipline. Some of the later sonnets undertake topics, express attitudes, and employ metrical devices which, by straining the delicate sonnet form almost—but not quite—to the breaking point, create such power as was never before exerted by any sonnet. Such is the power of poetic discipline wedded to poetic genius.

But it is in “Lycidas” that Milton faces the ultimate test of inspiration vs. authority. He piles into the poem every known convention of the pastoral elegy form and even drags in by the heels St. Peter, who, as father of the Church, was a pastor, and these conventions provide the cage within which he must work. Yet he brings them to life with such convincing shifts of sentiment—blaming, wishful thinking, savage resentment, brave facing of the truth, and finally acceptance—that they cease to be confining; sincerity transmutes his cage into his language, sincerity belying artifice.
Last edited by chymocles on November 15th, 2019, 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

I need to bring both of you up to date with my negotiations with David Widger, the Gutenberg editor of the text I am reading. He has made the changes I recommended, including the missing "not" at 25:47 in "Miscellaneous Poems." The corrected text now reads "And not fre'd my foe for naught." So that file (#22) can be closed. However, my file 19, "A Maske (Comus)," does contain an error, one that I made, supposing it to be a correction. David pointed it out to me. I read "1673" for "1637" at 58:27.00, but my revised reading now accords with that in the Gutenberg text: "168, 9 Thus 1637." I have uploaded it https://librivox.org/uploads/availle/minorpoems_19_milton_128kb.mp3, but I see that the MW has been shut for those sections previously approved, so I don't know whether this correction will reach its goal. Just tell me if I need to re-send it.
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

Availle, I uploaded the cover files to your site first (sorry), but then I zipped them according to directions and uploaded the Zip file using "covers-covers" as the MC. I named it as follows: (https://librivox.org/uploads/availle/Milton_Minor_Poems.zip).

I did not understand the following instructions: "Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader (when your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread):
https://librivox.org/login/uploader." Since I was already at that URL, I didn't know how to "post it in this thread." What thread? I hope it doesn't get lost, and Im sorry to burden you with this problem.
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Morning Tom!

Glad to see that things are getting resolved on your end!

Thanks for the cover, I'll take it from there. :D

As for the MW, you can change the "status" (all the way to the right) of each of the entries at any point in the process. I have now changed it to "spot PL needed", so it's clear that you want something done.

I also removed the last few sections that weren't needed any longer.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

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AvailleAudio.com
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

So, Betty, what you are to check is in the 19th file. I read "1673" for "1637" at 58:27.00, but my revised reading now accords with that in the Gutenberg text: "168, 9 Thus 1637."

I think that is the end of it, since the glitch you found in #22 has been dealt with by changing the text to agree with my reading (at 25:47): "And not fre'd my foe for naught."

Thanks,

Tom
libraryanne
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Post by libraryanne »

Hi Tom
For thoroughness I spot checked sections 19 and 22 just to be sure the new edits sounded nice and clear. Of course they did.
For this old manuscript if it was occasionally difficult for you to be sure what was a misprint and what wasn't, it was doubly hard for me. When in doubt I assumed your readings were correct.
This will be a great help to anybody who reads Milton and appreciates his work. Thank you for recording it. :thumbs:


Regards,
Betty
chymocles
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Post by chymocles »

Nice working with you, Betty. I hope we can work together in the future.

Tom
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Congratulations Tom to another successfully completed solo!

Thanks to Betty too for her wonderfully detailed PLing!

I'm looking forward to your next project, I also hope we can make the team complete again. :wink:

This project is now complete! All files can be downloaded from the catalog page here:
https://librivox.org/miltons-minor-poems-by-john-milton/
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

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AvailleAudio.com
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