Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne and Milton

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne and Milton

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne and Milton

DAVID L.

SEDLEY

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

Ann Arbor

For my family: Mark, Jane, & Aaron Sedley

Copyright© by the University of Michigan 2005 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America @ Printed on acid�free paper

2008

2007

2006

2005

4

3

2

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Portions of the introduction and chapter I are reprinted by permission of the copyright owner, The Modern Language Association of America. A CIP

catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging�in� Publication Data Sedley, David Louis, I968Sublimity and skepticism in Montaigne and Milton/ David L. Sedley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN�I3: 978�o�472�II528�o (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN�Io: o�472�I I528�6 (cloth: alk. paper) de, I533-I592-Criticism and interpretation. I674-Criticism and interpretation.

I. Montaigne, Michel 2. Milton, John, I6o8-

3· Sublime, The, in literature.

4· Skepticism in literature. I. Title. PQI643.S39 82I 1 .4-dc22

2005 20050I7929

Acknowledgments

THE FOLLOWING PAGES

were hard to write; they would have been a lot

harder without the help of the following people and institutions. The book began as a dissertation in comparative literature at Princeton University directed by Victoria Kahn and Fran<;ois Rigolot. I could not ask for a more fortunate combination of mentors. Vicky taught me how to make argu-­ ments, while Fran<;ois taught me where to put them. Their lessons, moral as well as intellectual, have permanent value to me. Other scholars whom I met at Princeton told or wrote me things that resonate here: Sandra Bermann, Robert Fagles, Alban Forcione, Lionel Gossman, Anthony Grafton, the late Thomas Greene, Ronald Levao, Alexander Nehamas, Volker Schroder, and Susan Wolfson. I am grateful for both their answers to my questions and questions about my answers. Many of my best memo-­ ries of graduate school involve friends: Michael Cole, Gretchen Dietrich, Naomi Kroll, Peg Laird, Melissa McCormick, Carol Szymanski, Brad Verter, and Madeleine Viljoen. These people made my life of the mind at Princeton livable. Howard Huang gets a sentence of his own for getting me to relax in New Jersey and New York. When I got to Haverford College I found tremendous support for myself and my work. Deborah Roberts chaired the committee that hired me and since then has been a source of intelligence, virtue, and inspira-­ tion. Israel Burshatin has counseled me wisely on more matters than I can remember; to me, he puts the "liberal" in this liberal arts college. William

VI

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Galperin's reckless enthusiasm buoyed this project and helped me navi-­ gate it into press. The provosts of the college, Elaine Hansen and David Dawson, provided the time and money necessary for the extension and revision of the manuscript. The library, under the direction of Robert Kieft, provided the right books at the right times. The professional and personal support of many other members of the Haverford community and of nearby institutions eased the challenge of pursuing research while learn-­ ing to teach: Koffi Anyinefa, Carol Bernstein, Lance Donaldson Evans, Ignacio Gallup--Diaz, Marcel Gutwirth, Laurie Hart, the late Brad High, Sean Keilen, Aryeh Kosman, Catherine Lafarge, Brigitte Mahuzier, Raji Mohan, Bethel Saler, Ullrich Schoenherr, Paul Smith, Gus Stadler, and Tina Zwarg. The final round of revisions to the manuscript, particularly chapter 3, happened under the influence of acute suggestions by Stephen Orgel, Eileen Reeves, and two anonymous readers for the University of Michigan Press. Throughout the review process at Michigan, I relied on the integrity and expertise of Chris Collins. Ullrich Langer and Larry Rhu deserve spe-­ cial mention for their perennial support of my work. As I write, official relations between France and the United States are rather cool. From my standpoint, however, they are as warm as could be. The French government awarded me a Chateaubriand fellowship, and the Ecole Normale Superieure has provided me with housing, food, and per-­ petual access to its libraries. Emmanuel Bury, Jean--Charles Darmon, and Gerard Ferreyrolles have welcomed me into their seminars and thus intro-­ duced me to the

fleur

of French scholarship. Most important, French

friends have given me a French life: Frank and Marie Accart, Quentin, Emma, and Lucien Bajac, Amelie Blanckaert, Jean De Guardia, Camille Esmein, Fran<;oise Mark, Lise Michel, Isabelle Olivero, Marie Parmentier, Allan Patofsky, Yehiel Rabinowitz, Jean--Luc Remaud, Gonzalo Sanchez, Michel Tissier, and Christine Van Geen. These people have done me such favors of language, cuisine, and culture that it is hard to imagine myself without them. I can only hope for the chance to return their generosity. Last and most, Lisa Jane Graham has improved this book through her uncanny knack for making my head spin while keeping it attached to my body. For that I cannot thank her enough.

Contents

Introduction

I

CHAPTER ONE

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage CHAPTER TWO

The Grandeur of Ruin in the Essais

43

CHAPTER THREE

Comus and the Invention of Milton's Grand Style CHAPTER FOUR

Paradise Lost and How (Not) to Be Sublime Conclusion Notes

155

Bibliography Index

134

201

185

108

82

18

Introduction

MUCH CONTEMPORARY DEBATE

about the sublime revolves around two

positions: the sublime provides either a way out of skepticism or a way into it. Some theorists interpret human appreciation of the transcendence of understanding implicit in sublimity as indicating something beyond mere cognition and thus as anchoring epistemology and ethics. Others find in the sublime not the removal but the institution of skepticism; they take the defeat of understanding by the sublime as a sign of human incapacity for knowledge or morality. For partisans on both sides of the debate, sub-­ limity serves as an aesthetic laboratory for deciding the human capacity to know what is and what ought to be. This controversy frequently appears as a rivalry between opposed ver-­ sions of the story of sublimity. Samuel Monk's seminal book, The Sublime: A

Study of Critical Theories in Eighteenth---Century England, which helped

spawn the twentieth--century industry of criticism about the sublime, pre-­ sents a teleological history of sublimity in eighteenth--century England.

1

Monk's history is teleological in that he portrays the Kantian sublime as the "unconscious goal toward which Edmund Burke and other Enlighten-­ ment theorists groped" (6). Monk ascribes the shift occasioned by Kant's account, whereby the experience of sublimity depends less on the object perceived than on the mind of the perceiver, to Kant's overall project of "rescuing thought from the slough of scepticism into which he saw that the empiricism of Hume was bound to lead" (4). Positioning Kant as the

2

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

champion of eighteenth--century theory of the sublime, Monk's story ends with the triumph of sublimity over skepticism, the evolution from the con-­ tingent truths of empiricism to the absolute truths of transcendental phi-­ losophy. More recent treatments of the sublime, however, especially those by psychoanalytic, deconstructive, feminist, and postmodern critics, tend to identify the sublime as a further manifestation of skepticism.2 Such critics contend that any transcendence of impotence and indeterminacy the sub-­ lime may seem to offer results from trickery or bad faith. Rather than her-­ ald sublimity as the transcendence of skepticism, they regard it as only the disguised repetition of skepticism. In these accounts Kant loses the privileged status Monk accords to him. In "Phenomenality and Materiality in Kant," Paul de Man charac-­ terizes the argument in Kant's Critique of Judgment concerning the sublime as a series of inconsistencies in which each attempt to resolve a problem instead produces another: "The exchange from part to whole generates wholes that turn out to be only parts" (95). De Man ruins Kantian sub-­ limity, rendering it one more case of skeptical fragmentation. According to de Man, the robustness of this incoherence, the failure of the sublime to secure an exit from skepticism through philosophical argument, indi-­ cates that Kant's analysis relies on rhetorical sleight of hand. De Man uses this assertion to make a favorite deconstructive point, that what seems to be philosophical argument "is in fact determined by linguistic structures that are not within the author's control" (Ios). For de Man, the sublime demonstrates that no argument can transcend its own indeterminate foundations.3 Jean--Fran<;ois Lyotard, in "The Sublime and the Avant--Garde," goes so far as to upend Monk's plot: instead of narrating a progression from Burke to Kant, Lyotard moves achronologically from Kant to Burke. Lyotard's story shares the teleological quality of Monk's, only it culminates not in skepticism extinguished but in skepticism expressed. According to Lyo-­ tard, the evolution of the sublime, from Peri hypsous (On the Sublime), the first--century treatise traditionally attributed to Longinus, to the twentieth-­ century avant--garde, involves a gradual dissociation from techne, the rules an artist uses in determining the formation of the aesthetic object. With these superficial aspects of the sublime discarded, only its essential func-­ tion remains, the attestation of indeterminacy: "With the advent of the aesthetics of the sublime, the stake of art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was to be the witness to the fact that there is indeterminacy"

(IoI). The sublime of the avant--garde insists on a skeptical absence of

Introduction

3

determination, an absence remarked peripherally in Longinus and increas-­ ingly central in the progression from Boileau, whose influential translation and analysis of Peri hypsous first appeared in r674, to Kant and then to Burke, the forefather of the avant--garde. In Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime, Lyotard appears to supersede this demotion of Kant for insufficient skepticism by interpreting the Cri--­

tique of Judgment as a deeply skeptical document. Like a "meteor" ( 159), Kant's discussion of sublimity pulverizes the bridge between mind and nature he intended it to buttress: "The relation of thinking to the object breaks down. In sublime feeling, nature no longer 'speaks' to thought through the 'coded writing' of its forms" (52). Lyotard's skeptical reading of the Kantian sublime, like de Man's, complements a larger critical project. By arguing that sublimity spins beyond Kant's control, Lyotard undermines a stronghold of Enlightenment thought and its tendency to construct "grand narratives" as opposed to the "little narratives" necessitated by the postmodern condition:4 "The beautiful contributed to the Enlightenment, which was a departure from childhood, as Kant says. But the sublime is a sudden blazing, and without future. Thus it is that it acquired a future and addresses us still, we who hardly hope in the Kantian sense" (ss).s Opposition to the skeptical school of sublimity has arisen. Frances Fer-­ guson, sensing that preferring Burke to Kant determines the deconstruc-­ tive diagnosis of the sublime, argues that the deconstructionists have mis-­ understood Kant.6 She considers moot de Man's accusation that the Kantian sublime founders on inconsistencies, because inconsistency was precisely Kant's point. Kant sought not to use the sublime to solve the empiricist dilemma of mind and object but, rather, to use that dilemma, the inconsistency of objective qualities and subjective affects, as a way to recognize an a priori structure in ourselves. Christopher Norris, noting the importance of a critique of Kant for postmodern critics, charges Lyotard's treatment of Kant with disregarding Kant's intentions.? According to Nor-­ ris, Lyotard takes literally what Kant meant as metaphor, ignoring Kant's caveats that one must discuss indirectly ineffable matters such as sublim-­ ity. Furthermore, Kant's aesthetic argument is not the keystone that Lyotard takes it to be, so Lyotard's attacks, even if effective, would not imperil the rest of Kant's critical edifice. 8 While far from exhaustive, this survey of interpretations indicates that the sublime maintains a close but unstable cohabitation with skepticism.9 Although sublimity and skepticism occupy the same theoretical space, their coordinates within that space change constantly. Theorists consis-­ tently propose a relation between the two but cannot agree on how they

4

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

relate. This disagreement results in an oscillation between two sets of pos-­ sibilities. Does sublimity resolve or perpetuate skepticism? Is the associa-­ tion between sublimity and skepticism antagonistic or symbiotic? This oscillation is not limited to theories of the sublime, nor to those of skepticism.

ro

One could argue, in fact, that it culminates a trend in twen-­

tieth--century theories of literature. Surveying chronologically the histori-­ cal criticism in the earlier years of the century, the New Criticism of the 1940s and 1950S, the deconstruction of the 1970s and 198os, and the New Historicism of more recent years, one observes an increasingly profound skepticism, first about the availability of meaning outside of the literary text, then about the availability of meaning within the text, and finally about any approach that is preponderantly either contextual or textual. This advancing skepticism accompanies a progression into sublimity: skepticism sustains an ever--widening vision of aesthetic objects and sub-­ jects and thus the mode of attention required to do them justice. The case of New Historicism clarifies how the interaction of skepticism and sublimity has swayed critical currents. New Historicism is a pertinent example here for several reasons. It has had a powerful impact on early modern studies. It remains among the most recently recognized critical approaches to literature. Most important, its chief practitioner distin-­ guishes it from previous approaches in terms of the relationship between sublimity and skepticism. Stephen Greenblatt takes the occasion of introducing a collection of his essays (Learning to Curse) to state new historical principles of reading. He describes his criticism as a "trajectory" that began with his early doubts about the persona and ideas of one of his teachers in graduate school, William K. Wimsatt: Wimsatt seemed to be eight feet tall and to be the possessor of a set of absolute convictions, but I was anything but certain. The best I could manage was a seminar paper that celebrated Sir Philip Sid-­ ney's narrative staging of his own confusions: "there is nothing so certain," Sidney wrote, "as our continual uncertainty." I briefly entertained a notion of going on to write a dissertation on uncer-­ tainty-to make a virtue of my own inner necessity-but the proj-­ ect seemed to me a capitulation, in thin disguise, to the hierophan-­ tic service to the mystery cult that I precisely wished to resist. For the radical uncertainty (what would now be called aporia) with which I was concerned was not, in the end, very different from the

Introduction

5

"mysterious and special" status of the concrete universal. Besides, I had another idea. ( I ) I I Greenblatt gives the impression that he abandoned his primitive skepti-­ cism for the kind of work that came to be known as New Historicism. In fact, skepticism never loses its fundamental place in Greenblatt's criticism but continues to shape it. I2 This skeptical form reveals itself at defining moments, when Greenblatt approaches the limit of his "trajec-­ tory" and the pressure to pinpoint the new historicist perspective mounts. Such moments challenge Greenblatt to take a stand without backsliding into the dogmatism embodied by Wimsatt. Greenblatt's efforts to remain true to his skepticism produce the promi-­ nent features of his method. The various expositions of New Historicism throughout Learning

to

Curse consist of a series of maneuvers to outflank

settled positions. One such maneuver is to define New Historicism indefinitely. "I am reluctant," says Greenblatt in the introduction, "to con-­ fer upon any of these rubrics the air of doctrine or to claim that each marks out a quite distinct and well--bounded territory" (3). In "Towards a Poetics of Culture," he distinguishes other schools of criticism from his own by the "openness" of its practitioners to controversy while refusing to "enrol themselves in one or the other of the dominant theoretical camps" (146-47). In "Resonance and Wonder," the final essay in the collection, Greenblatt once again expounds New Historicism, this time by offering three dictionary definitions of "historicism" and then claiming that New Historicism does not adhere to any but rather violates all of them (164-68). The famous use of anecdote is another strategy to avoid the "air of doc-­ trine." Whenever the introduction verges on a straightforward assertion, Greenblatt tells a story. At one point, he says explicitly that anecdotes provide an "insistence on contingency, the sense if not of a break then at least of a swerve in the ordinary and well--understood succession of events"

(s). Anecdotes infuse arguments with a salutary uncertainty, purging from them the causal explanations that infect sure opinions. Greenblatt reverts to a story whenever his ideology threatens to stagnate into a firm convic-­ tion. Indeed, as if this statement about the effect of anecdotes itself risked dogmatism, Greenblatt supplements it anecdotally by telling the story of his father's storytelling (6-9). I3 Most important to my argument here, Greenblatt's efforts to define his enterprise while honoring his skepticism result in the formation of an aes--

6

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

thetic category. The "trajectory" described in the introduction to Learning to

Curse proceeds from the naked uncertainty of Greenblatt's doctoral days

to an aesthetics of uncertainty. New Historicism "describes less a set of beliefs than the trajectory I have begun to sketch, a trajectory that led from American literary formalism through the political and theoretical ferment of the

I 970s

to a fascination with what one of the best new his-­

toricist critics calls 'the historicity of texts and the textuality of history' "

(3). New Historicism tends toward a "fascination," toward an act of ener-­ gized attention to the porousness of the boundary that divides texts and history. Greenblatt characteristically adds to this description an anecdote that elaborates both the ambiguity that concerns New Historicism and a class of aesthetic experience to which such ambiguity belongs. He portrays the political ferment that enveloped the Berkeley campus in the late six-­ ties, a fertnent that interrupted the various distinctions conventional to the operation of a university. Having sketched the ferment, Greenblatt then classifies it as "sublime" (4). The elevated degree of attention implied by "fascination" and "sub-­ lime" develops throughout Learning

to

Curse. In the introduction, Green-­

blatt focuses increasingly on the aesthetic experience that literature involves, such as the sensation of delight. He traces the source of literary sensation to an indeterminate zone that is both textual and contextual and therefore identifiable as neither. Greenblatt names this hybrid response "wonder" ( I 3). Although in the introduction Greenblatt only mentions wonder, the final essay in the collection is devoted entirely to it. The tra-­ jectories of both the introduction and Learning

to

Curse as a whole lead to

wonder.14 The structure of wonder, as a category of attention, bears the impres-­ sion of Greenblatt's basic skepticism. In "Resonance and Wonder," Green-­ blatt introduces wonder as the new historicist alternative to the old his-­ toricist veneration of the past. Furthermore, unlike the formalist attention paid to texts by New Criticism, wonder leads to its own disintegration, as wonderful attention to a text transforms itself into attention to context, which Greenblatt calls "resonance." Resonance, in turn, reactivates won-­ der, so that the new historicist mode of attention oscillates between text and context. The critic achieves wonder, then, together with resonance, by skeptically refusing to adhere to either historicism or formalism in favor of balancing both. Greenblatt suspends his belief in other perspectives in order to arrive at his own. His New Historicism thus advocates an aesthetic category whose structure conforms to the skeptical procedure of discover-­ ing one's own view in the process of doubting those of others. rs

Introduction

7

Greenblatt fashions out of skepticism the form of attention employed by New Historicism. This wonder owes its porous structure to a deep uncertainty about what merits the critic's attention. Carefully reading Greenblatt's work, moreover, one senses that the converse is also true: not only does his skepticism inform his aesthetics, but his aesthetics demands his skepticism. Consider again how Greenblatt expresses his uncertainty about the New Criticism of Wimsatt: "His theory . . . seemed almost irre-­ sistibly true, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to enlist myself for life as a cel-­ ebrant of the mystery" (I). Greenblatt sounds dissatisfied with formalism as with a false form of worship; a few sentences later, he refers to his rejec-­ tion of Wimsatt's "mystery cult." Greenblatt's reservations about New Criticism do not take the form of simple doubt. After all, Wimsatt's theo-­ ries appear to Greenblatt "almost irresistibly true." Rather, he sees formal-­ ism as a "cult" of "hierophants" practicing an inadequate form of rever-­ ence. Greenblatt resists Wimsatt's theories not just because he doubts them, but because he believes in a better way than Wimsatt's of attending to the "mystery" of literature. This richer form of attention would do more than pin aesthetic experience down to the formal features of a text. 16 Wonder, derived from both text and context, testifies to a grandeur of aesthetic experience that Greenblatt will not shoehorn. Greenblatt is thus an aesthete, insofar as he exalts the aesthetic above any one, text-- or con-­ text--bound explanation favored by more restrictive or less sensitive critics. Greenblatt uses skepticism to create a realm where the origin of literary sensation may remain unlocated and thereby inviolate. Even the relation of this realm to historical context is indeterminate. Contrary to popular perception, Greenblatt does not advocate a return from text to context so much as he recommends an oscillation between text and context, because the grandeur of aesthetic experience overwhehns the boundaries between them and so belongs to both. Greenblatt's brand of New Historicism manifests, most clearly in its efforts to define itself, a double tendency toward skepticism and sublimity. He declares the uncertainty fundamental to his intellectual development and scrupulously avoids stating his critical precepts in absolute terms. He relies on a sense of wonder to liberate the aesthetic force of literature from any one fixed residence and thus to expand its territory ad infinitum. These concerns, moreover, symmetrically lend depth to each other: Greenblatt both develops losses of belief into an enriched aesthetics and cultivates in an enriched aesthetics losses of belief. The preceding discussion of New Historicism shows that the relation between sublimity and skepticism extends beyond the direct treatments of

8

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

them. This book attempts to explain this relation. Local pressures-taste or distaste for critical movements such as New Criticism, deconstruction, or postmodernism, the culture of Yale in the sixties or Berkeley in the sev-­ enties, Anglo--American or Continental habits of doing philosophy, agree-­ ment with Kant or with Burke-certainly inform it. The following pages, however, explore the possibility that the insecure intimacy between skep-­ ticism and the sublime also registers the influence of relatively remote fac-­ tors. While the roots of the current discussion obviously descend to the Enlightenment arguments of Burke and Kant, they also reach a shift in intellectual and cultural history that occurred toward the end of the Renaissance, or in other words, toward the beginning of the modern period. The cohabitation of skepticism and the sublime observable in recent criticism derives not only from critics' ideas, inclinations, and expe-­ riences but also from the situation of sublimity and skepticism in a post-­ Renaissance, modern culture, where epistemological difficulty and aes-­ thetic force energize each other. I argue that two early modern phenomena, the rise of the sublime as an aesthetic category and the emergence of skepticism as a philosophical problem, are interrelated. This argument, developed through studies of Montaigne and Milton, takes on complementary forms. The first is that sublimity motivated skepticism: the sense that a force existed outside the aesthetic categories conventional in the Renaissance drove authors into a skeptical frame of mind. The second is that skepticism created sublimity: the skeptical mind--set offered alternative resources of aesthetic power and enabled authors to fashion a sublime style. These claims revise standard views of skepticism and the sublime, suggesting a mandate for an enriched aesthetics behind late--Renaissance loss of belief and exposing the Renais-­ sance impulse behind the modern career of sublimity. I pursue these concerns in chapters on Montaigne's Journal de voyage and Essais and on Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost. While these individ-­ ual episodes address Renaissance scholars, the narrative as a whole appeals to intellectual historians and critical theorists, who have been indepen-­ dently telling stories of skepticism and the sublime. Historians of ideas examine the impact of skepticism on early modern culture to see how its intellectual enterprises assume their modern forms. Meanwhile, successive schools of literary theory have appropriated the sublime in order to articu-­ late and justify their methodologies. By exposing the twin origins of skep-­ ticism and sublimity, I hope to contribute to ongoing discussion of the ori-­ gins of modernity and genealogies of modern habits of criticism. The contemporary prominence of sublimity is the inheritance of what

Introduction

9

I have just called "the rise of the sublime." To say that the sublime rose is not to say that sublimity at one point did not exist, but rather that during the seventeenth century sublimity moved from the periphery to the center of discussions of what constitutes the experience of art and why art mat-­ ters. Before its rise, sublimity was just one among a cluster of similar con-­ cepts, as a vein of interest in aesthetic extremes, especially admiratio (won-­ der), cut across several domains of Renaissance culture. 17 Over the last fifteen or so years, scholars have freshly defined the early modern period as an age of the marvelous, whose key activities revolved around the produc-­ tion of wonderful sensations. Wonder was perceived to confer value on the activities of physics, biology, anthropology, exploration, the collection of oddities, the study of monsters, the visual arts, and especially literature. In the Renaissance, it was given that an author (particularly of tragedy and epic) should relate an incident as marvelously as possible. rS But whereas during the Renaissance admiratio presided over literary creation and recep-­ tion, subsequently wonder ceded prestige to sublimity as the way that one was supposed to move and be moved. Explanations of this shift have traditionally revolved around the trans-­ mission of the Longinian treatise Peri hypsous (On the Sublime), which con-­ cerns a distinctively explosive and sensational notion of grandeur. The sublimity of Longinus involves less a well--defined species of expression than an ephemeral and elusive quality that inheres in and emanates from great writing regardless of its style. The treatise elaborates particularly the sensational aspects of grandeur, depicting it as a form or state of attention that great literature compels its audience to enter. Longinus emphasizes the aesthetic experience of sublimity to such an extent that it becomes an essential ingredient: while a variety of formal features may provoke the effect of sublimity (such as asyndeton, change of case, word order, and rhythm), the effect itself remains consistent. On the Sublime abounds with aesthetic responses, all of which share the characteristic of intensity, the result of a powerful impact. The very extremism that unites these sensa-­ tions into the category of sublimity resists categorization. The sublime transports readers out of themselves: r9 the state of attention created by sub-­ limity is not just grand in comparison to other states but superlatively so to the point where it does not really comprise a state at all. Sublimity is a state of ecstasy, a state that transcends statehood. Consider one of Longi-­ nus's comments on Homer: "He uses a cosmic interval to measure their [i.e., the divine horses' at Iliad 5· 770-72] stride. So supreme is the grandeur of this, one might well say that if the horses of heaven take two consecu-­ tive strides there will then be no place found for them in the world"

IO

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

(9·5.187). What fascinates Longinus is not so much movement between places as tnovement out of place per se. He focuses on an aesthetic anti-­ category, a category that paradoxically contains a force that overwhelms all containment. The special contents of the Longinian text inspire Monk to begin with Boileau as its first major modern transmitter, and this chronology still serves most theoretical accounts of sublimity, whose references rarely go earlier than the eighteenth century.20 This timeline is out of date, how-­ ever, as literary historians have illuminated a pre--Boileauvian tradition that reaches into the Renaissance. Philological research has demonstrated that Longinus had a wider distribution and appreciation subsequent to and even before Francesco Robortello's editio princeps (1554) than previously realized. 21 The exposure of this earlier phase to modern sublimity rein-­ forces the notion of the Renaissance as an age of the marvelous where interest in aesthetic extremes flourished. Awareness of the availability of

On the Sublime long before its vogue also suggests, however, that interest in Longinus did not cause interest in sublimity so much as the other way around: it was the search for something more than admiration that led to the rediscovery of Longinus. A new question, then, arises: what would drive such a search? Freed from the strictly Longinian tradition and thus open to the concerns that promoted the popularity of On the Sublime as well as those that were gen-­ erated by it, historians of the pre-- Boileauvian sublime have proposed some answers: the desire to bolster a monarchy threatened by civil war or a papal authority threatened by theological schism, the loss of familiarity with conventional techniques of persuasion due to pedagogical negligence, or the perpetuation of the ancient trend toward a rhetoric that appeals to volition as well as cognition.22 The answer that I would like to propose is skepticism; in order to explain why, it is necessary to say something about the Renaissance in general. The wild complexity of Renaissance culture makes any general-­ ization about it at least somewhat mistaken. Nevertheless, a deep streak of concern with the revival of antiquity runs from Petrarch to Peiresc. This preoccupation was far from being a unique or exclusive feature; but it was perhaps the most consistent one, and it is the one most consistently rec-­ ognized by scholars.23 Through such strategies as philology, archaeology, and imitation, Renaissance artists and thinkers in various fields were inter-­ ested in trying to recollect pieces of ancient culture-texts and temples, ideas and styles of expression-that had been scattered or lost after the fall

Introduction

I I

of the Roman Empire. A certain optimism subsidized this economy of recovery, an optimism about the capacity of the early modern mind to per-­ ceive and reconstitute the grandeur of antiquity. The idea was that the Renaissance mind could, despite obstacles, apprehend and represent ancient civilization as a model for early modern thought, art, and con-­ duct.24 The Renaissance preeminence of such notions as admiratio reflected the investment of Renaissance culture per se in strategies of recu-­ peration. Admiratio and its relatives fed off and into the Renaissance econ-­ omy of recovery. They also, of course, structured its discourse of discovery in encounters with the New World. In various ways, wonder supported and depended on the potential of the mind to recover what is lost, to illu-­ minate what is obscure, to know what is ignored. Skepticism threatened this confidence and the projects it sustained. Skepticism involves doubt; a skeptic resides in a state of ignorance, too sensitive to the difficulties of knowing to claim knowledge about anything. As skepticism emerged in the late sixteenth century as a prevalent intel-­ lectual orientation (I will say more about the rise of skepticism presently), it interfered with the optimism about what the Renaissance mind could do in the way of knowing and reviving ancient culture. Skepticism thus inter-­ rupted the Renaissance economy of recovery, and in doing so, drained the notions sustained by that economy-such as wonder-of some of their power. In the meantime, however, sublimity rose, because the absence of knowledge both deprived wonder of its primary source of energy and sup-­ plied the source that fueled sublimity. Whereas the wonderful reaches the frontier of understanding, the sublime plunges the mind into confusion. Knowledge inspires wonder; sublimity thrives on ignorance, the only inspiration available in the modern age of skepticism.25 Using skepticism to understand the rise of sublimity thus helps to dif .. ferentiate it from its Renaissance rivals and to account for its subsequent success. This pairing illuminates skepticism as well. Ancient skepticism consisted of a series of philosophical schools concerned with the manufac-­ ture of eudaimonia, or well--being.26 Skeptics employed doubt as a means to

ataraxia, a tranquility undisturbed by the trauma of having to abandon beliefs in a world where beliefs are constantly overturned. The skeptic achieves this therapeutic end by suspending judgment so as to have no beliefs to abandon. This suspension, accomplished through a series of tropes or modes of argument, purges the mind of any dogmatic position that would otherwise incite commitment and ultimately, in the deceptive world of appearances, disquiet. The skeptic thus becomes an expert at rais--

12

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

ing doubt, at calling attention to a distance between the mind and the objects of its cognition, at fragmenting one absolute truth of the matter into multiple and equally possible truths. 27 The rise of skepticism during the early modern period has received extensive treatment by scholars. During the medieval period, doubt as an intellectual attitude obviously persisted, but the schools of thought called "skeptical" in antiquity subsided. 28 Intellectual historians tend to describe the early modern rise of skepticism as an epistemological accident trig-­ gered by two events: the recovery of ancient texts by humanism and the theological controversy that arose as a result of the Reformation. 29 Renais-­ sance humanists recovered, diffused, and studied texts that contained the ideas and arguments of ancient skepticism: the Lives of the Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, Cicero's Academica, and especially the works of Sextus Empiricus, first published in

I 562

but previously circulated in manuscript.

Around the same time, the Reformation challenged the authority of the church to establish what counted as religious truth. By rejecting what the church used to determine truth (Roman tradition) in favor of another cri-­ terion (what one believed from reading the Bible), Luther created an intellectual environment open to the influence of skeptical ways of thought. In other words, skepticism became useful, and so was employed, in a context where the criterion of truth, the sign or mark one pointed to in order to distinguish true from false, was up for grabs. Having entered the theological realm, skepticism then seeped by osmosis through the texts supplied by Renaissance humanism into other domains where knowledge was sought. Eventually, the incremental absorption of skepticism by Mon-­ taigne and other thinkers precipitated a crisis of knowledge, the recogni-­ tion that the difficulty of knowing was a problem that had to be addressed for doing serious work in a number of fields-especially philosophy, where skepticism became the major preoccupation of Descartes and Hume. This account of the rise of skepticism was originally proposed by Richard Popkin in a book first published in I 960. Accepted as standard for decades, Popkin's thesis has only recently come under attack by a new generation of scholars.3° These scholars question the link drawn by Pop-­ kin between skepticism and fideism, suggest that sixteenth--century skepti-­ cism differs from the skepticism of later centuries, and maintain that dur-­ ing even a single period there is less skepticism than there are skepticisms.31 In an important respect, however, these criticisms follow Popkin rather than break with him. They follow insofar as they still work on the tradition of explicitly engaging problems of knowledge from Sextus to Hume that Popkin outlined. Lately, however, critics writing in French

Introduction

I

3

and using literary materials have revealed that the history of skepticism involves more than a series of explicit discussions.32 Terence Cave in par-­ ticular has demonstrated that during the early modern period epistemo-­ logical trouble often surfaced in mysterious ways. Uninvited, unannounced, and even unwelcome, doubts slipped into literature and disturbed its official procedures. Such stealthy intrusions suggest that more motivated the rise of skepticism than the philological seepage of ancient ideas into philosophical discussions.33 Making the connection between skepticism and sublimity specifies what some of this extra motivation was. The overwhelming impact of skepticism subsequent to its rise has inspired commentators to found on it a theory of modernity. According to this theory, modernity happens when skepticism becomes irresistible. Although many modes of doubt more or less recognized as "skeptical" existed throughout the Renaissance, toward its end skepticism acquired a contagious energy and a transformative impact. A number of notions and areas of thought were obliged to con-­ front skepticism and adjust to its influence. The result of these adjust-­ ments, as their historians have shown, was a series of characteristically modern structures. Popkin himself explains the modernization of philosophy as the after-­ math of Descartes's doomed effort to overcome doubts about the possibil-­ ity of knowledge. Despite his "heroic" effort, Descartes left skepticism "unsolved and insoluble at the base of all modern philosophy" (I 57). Pop-­ kin also traces the effect of doubt on scientific hopes of knowing the essen-­ tial natures of objects. In the face of the "full force of the sceptical attack," the science of essences pursued by Galileo gave way to the pursuit of hypotheses about the way the world appears (I I2). This new approach, formulated in France by Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi and adopted in England by the Royal Society, eventually defined the aspirations of Newtonian physics (I24).34 Whereas Galileo thought he could grasp the reality of what he observed, Newton forwent that ambition and tried instead to account for the apparent surfaces of his observations. The model of modernity erected by Popkin for philosophy and science has been extended to other fields. Richard Tuck, for example, studies the increasing importance of skepticism about moral principles to early mod-­ ern theories of government, which veered away from the idea of an inher-­ ently rational state and toward new conceptions of Realpolitik, raison d'etat, and social contract. Tuck's account culminates with Hobbes, whose

skepticism inspired him to abandon the search for the natural structure of government in favor of artificial standards of civility. Once the ideal way

14

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

to organize society became unknown, a practical arrangement became necessary to avoid chaos.Hobbes, claims Tuck, "saw deeper into the issues of relativism than any philosopher of his time....For that reason he must remain the foundational philosopher of our political institutions." 5 3 In his study of the development of modern historiography, Zachary Schiffman argues that the sensitivity to differences between various cultures inspired by late--Renaissance skepticism provoked historians to focus "not on what endured through change but on what was new and unique" ( 76).36 This focus ultimately yielded Giambattista Vico's understanding of history as an evolutionary process, an understanding that Schiffman identifies as "the prototype of our own ...relativism" ( 136).37 The theory that underwrites these histories of intellectual enterprises follows an equation in which skepticism makes the difference that consti-­ tutes modernity. The old form of a discipline plus skepticism equals the new configuration.The absorption of doubt into the domains just surveyed converted each one to its modern format: analytic epistemology, empirical science, social contract theory, developmental historiography. The differences made by skepticism, however, stemmed from its repeti-­ tion. The irresistibility of doubt meant that detours around it had closed and that only thinking through doubt remained possible. As a conse-­ quence, once raised, uncertainty persisted as part of the solution to the very problems it had created. The classic example of this double role of skepticism is Descartes, who insisted on knowing the essential truth and yet took skepticism seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he used doubt to answer the very questions that doubt had raised.Descartes inspected what the doubter says (i.e., "I doubt") for criteria of truth (i.e., clarity and dis-­ tinctness), which he then used to identify all further truths that interested him.Descartes recycled the doubter's discourse as a picture of what know-­ ing looks like, which once in hand, functioned as an epistemological field guide. The critics of this procedure claimed the result to be not less but more skepticism, and indeed Descartes did not eradicate skepticism as much as he registered its preeminence in modern philosophy.38 In the following pages I will argue that the phenomenon exemplified by the case of Descartes-intellectual industries recycling skepticism and in the process assuming their modern structures-also occurred in the field of aesthetics.The result of the confrontation and absorption of skepticism on these grounds was the rise of the sublime.39 The story of the rise of sublim-­ ity as a function of skepticism will add evidence to the skeptical model of modernity. This story will also suggest why this paradigm is so powerful, and thus why modern skepticism has such power.Crediting doubt with its

Introduction

I

5

part in the construction of sublimity does more than further document the spread of epistemological trouble throughout early modern culture and thus once more confirm the equation that what's old plus skepticism equals what's modern. An account of the aesthetic use of ignorance tells a different story, a story that enriches one's notion of what skepticism is. Sublimity is not only the effect of skepticism but also its cause: exposing what doubt motivates also exposes the spur to suspend belief. By seeing that skepticism contributes power and style to literature, one sees that ignorance contains a potent form of expression. And when one sees that skepticism makes such a compelling contribution, one sees how forceful it must be for modern thought and art. Sublimity and skepticism belong together, therefore, because they are incomplete apart. Since they developed not just collaterally but con-­ jointly, each answers questions about the career of the other. Skepticism helps make sense of the rise of the sublime over wonder and its Renais-­ sance cognates. The sublime helps account for the irresistibility that char-­ acterizes the rise of skepticism. 4o While the first juxtaposition proposed by the title of this book may be anticipated, the second one, between Montaigne and Milton, is likely a surprise. The faithful, Protestant, and Republican poet would apparently have little to do with the skeptical, Catholic, and noble essayist. A com-­ monplace ofMilton criticism dictates that he cared far less for French than (say) Italian writing. My selection of authors, however, primarily respects the problem of skepticism and the sublime. Montaigne holds an important place in histories of skepticism as the first Renaissance thinker to absorb deeply the ideas of ancient doubters. Milton wrote the first postclassical poetry consistently considered to be sublime. The juxtaposition of these two authors thus coordinates the traditions that have canonized them and reveals how interrelated those traditions are. This perspective also compli-­ cates the canonical views ofMontaigne andMilton. Montaigne cultivated skepticism, I argue, in order to produce sublimity. Milton forged sublimity, I contend, through his encounter with skepticism. This study, furthermore, does not concern influence in the standard sense. Whether or not Milton read Montaigne is less important than the impact of skepticism on Milton. Such impact does not read as a series of explicit references to skeptical themes. I have already mentioned that early modern doubt flowed through unrecognized and unwarranted chan-­ nels. This characterization applies doubly to skepticism combined with sublimity, which resembles not so much a concept proposed to the mind as an explosion that blows it. Their relation thus generated disturbances that

16

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

overrode the conventional circuits of influence and whose detection requires reading outside them. In this context, the absence of direct con-­ nections between Montaigne and Milton does not prevent but rather encourages their conjunction. The third reason for pairing Montaigne and Milton involves the mod-­ ern trajectory that I have treated earlier in this introduction as an impli-­ cation of my argument. While I take the term "early modern" seriously, I do not accept modernity as a teleological or punctual process. The selec-­ tion of heterogeneous authors and the various genres they practice-travel journal, essay, masque, epic-respects the notion that early modern cul-­ ture does not evolve into modernity at any one time or place, but rather over a range of coordinates that define, however indefinitely, a threshold. This study seeks to contribute to the enterprise of locating some points of this threshold.41 Finally, in case it is not already obvious, I would like to point out that this book is not a survey of the history of the relations between sublimity and skepticism. Rather, it is an essay in comparative literature that pro-­ poses a model of reading. I have chosen to concentrate on Montaigne and Milton because I am less interested in covering a range of material than in opening a range of problems embedded in that material. The spectrum of these problems-modernity, aesthetics, influence, New Historicism, and interdisciplinarity (in addition to the ones in my title )-is generated by a focus on a cluster of texts. I do not, moreover, mean to suggest that my close--ups are qualitatively superior to a bird's--eye view of the Renaissance favored by other studies.42 Both perspectives can enrich how we see early modernity, and those who study early modernity will want to see both. Chapter I studies the encounter between skepticism and archaeology triggered by Montaigne's visit to Rome in 158o-8I. In his Journal de voy-­

age, Montaigne views as reductive the Renaissance efforts to admire the ruins of the capital by reconstructing them. His meditation on the ruins uses this doubt to develop an alternative discourse of grandeur paradoxi-­ cally through fragmentation. Montaigne's skepticism thus depends on a dissatisfaction with the capacity of wonder to respect ancient eminence and results in the form of respect to be known as the sublime. Chapter

2

explores the hypothesis that the fragmentary discourse of

grandeur deployed in the Journal also defines the Essais. Montaigne's mas-­ terpiece presents a series of ruined structures: essays, citations, ellipses. These textual ruins take shape in the epistemological vacuum created by skepticism and in accordance with its procedures of mental detachment. Skeptical undoings dismantle the conventional Renaissance claims to

Introduction

I7

grandeur (admiratio, furor, copia) only to discover in their ruins the articu-­ lation of the passions that animate the entire Essais project: Montaigne's reverence for antiquity and his love for his departed friend Etienne de la Boetie, bearer of the "ancient mark." Basic to the Essais, therefore, is a sublimity that both requires and inspires their skepticism. Chapter 3 shifts the focus to Milton and particularly to his formative encounter with the extreme aesthetics of the English masque. Rather than leading its heroine to the science of magnificence usual to the genre, the plot of Comus insists on the Lady's failure to recognize the objectivity of her perceptions. She finds in her confusion, however, an echoic pattern, which generates the song to Echo that allows her to get the attention of others and then pay attention herself. As a "Lady" himself, Milton repre-­ sents his own effort to find a way of writing that resonates with the skepti-­ cism troubling English culture in the early seventeenth century. Comus thus portrays Milton in the process of inventing through skepticism the sublime style for which he would eventually become famous. Chapter 4 traces the source of the reputation of Paradise Lost for sub-­ limity. While Milton's masque represents the discovery of his grand style, his epic offers lessons in elevation through the negative example of Satan. Satan's downward mobility is the consequence of his bad taste founded on his arrogant attitude toward knowledge. Andrew Marvell's introductory poem to the twelve--book edition ( 1674) suggests how early readers could access and assimilate the interplay of eminence and ignorance that Par--­

adise Lost promotes. Milton's epic, therefore, does not merely offer a pas-­ sive site for its readers to build their theories, but rather includes a blue-­ print for the skeptical construction of sublimity. The individual chapters not only support the overall argument, but also demonstrate the capacity of that argument to produce what I hope are convincing and helpful readings of great and difficult works. The conclu-­ sion, more speculative than the preceding chapters, considers how the pre-­ history of the sublime and its relation to skepticism may enrich studies of sublimity as an Enlightenment phenomenon. Burke not only uses Milton as evidence for his theories, but theorizes according to Miltonic principles. Kant's reading of sublimity exploits the value of fragmentation established by Montaigne and cultivated by Pascal. These connections suggest a fresh way to understand the collective indecision of the great theorists about whether epistemological difficulty energizes or enervates aesthetic force. They also bring us closer to the frame of mind that shaped the texts that still animate our contemporary debates.

CHAPTER ONE

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage

' MONTAIGNE s MEDITATION

on the ruins of Rome in the Journal de voy-­

age, his major written work after the Essais, serves as my initial example to elaborate the set of claims advanced in the introduction. I treat the Jour-­ nal first because it illustrates every aspect of my overall argument about sublimity and skepticism: their association; the role of Renaissance skepti-­ cism in forming and promoting sublime style and sensation at the expense of such notions as admiratio; the aesthetic mandate and nature of early modern doubt; and the involvement of skepticism and the sublime in the transition from Renaissance to modern culture. Montaigne's meditation illustrates these arguments so well because it epitomizes Montaigne's encounter with both Renaissance aesthetics and the Renaissance per se. By meditating on Rome, Montaigne confronts admiratio, the category of sensation traditionally used to articulate and contain responses to the city. By meditating on Rome's ruins, Montaigne performs an essential, recollective task of Renaissance thought. When Montaigne applies himself to admiratio and to Renaissance thought, he applies the pressure of his skepticism. The account ofMontaigne's medita-­ tion provided by the Journal thus records the impact that doubt had on the form of wonder and on the culture that established and sustained that form. In representing these incursions of doubt, the meditation reveals

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage

19

skepticism in the process of transforming wonder into sublimity and help-­ ing to turn the Renaissance toward modernity. Another reason to begin with the Journal de voyage involves the trajec-­ tory of what I say about Montaigne over this and the next chapter. The meditation on Rome, I will show, addresses the question of how to com-­ municate grandeur.Montaigne's answer is what he calls a "new and extra-­ ordinary testimony of grandeur,"1 by which he means the style that he employs to convey the impression that Rome makes on him.The concern and style of the meditation are also the concern and style of the Essais, the subject of chapter 2.My analysis of the Journal, therefore, prepares a model for understanding Montaigne's masterpiece. Skepticism contributed to the demise of the Renaissance and to the birth of post--Renaissance culture.One may understand this transition as a shift in the appreciation of ancient authors.Whereas early in the Renais-­ sance the classics tended to preside as authorities for knowing the early modern world and living the early modern life, later their epistemological and moral authority attenuated. The very notion of the Renaissance depends on an economy of recovery, an economy subsidized by the possi-­ bility that the Renaissance mind could, despite intellectual and physical obstacles, apprehend and represent ancient civilization as an exemplar applicable for early modernity.This economy, however, eventually inter-­ rupted itself: the effort to repair the fragmented grandeur of antiquity, an effort advocated especially by Renaissance humanists from Petrarch for-­ ward, assumed and emphasized the fragmentation of the grandeur that required repair in the first place.Recollection lives by fragmentation.

2

Several scholars have remarked that as the Renaissance proceeded into the sixteenth century, skepticism grew about the recollective efforts of humanism and therefore about the possibility of referring to ancient authors as models of knowledge and morality) In describing this shift, these scholars have often turned to Montaigne to determine where and how the intellectual enterprises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries exhausted themselves.For example, in an essay about Joachim Du Bellay's sonnet sequence Les antiquitez de Rome, Thomas Greene identifies Mon-­ taigne's meditation on the ruins of Rome in the Journal de voyage as the point where skepticism precluded the possibility of recollecting antiquity.4 Greene remarks in the Antiquitez an unresolved tension between archaeo-­ logical and architectural motifs that epitomizes the tension evident across Renaissance culture between the threat of fragmentation and the hope of recollection.Du Bellay's poetry produces "paradoxically a ...truly coher-­ ent, if deeply skeptical, commentary on the humanist adventure" (220).

20

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

Skepticism denotes the threat that despite the recollective efforts of Renaissance humanism, the fragments of antiquity will remain incoher-­ ent. Du Bellay's doubtful humanism "both produced and endured its own skepticism" (228). In discussing Du Bellay, Greene describes Renaissance culture as char-­ acterized by a tension ceaselessly eased and redrawn, by a cycle of doubt and transcendence that underwent innumerable revolutions. The radical skepticism of Montaigne's meditation on Rome, however, slackened this tension and thus marked the end of the Renaissance: With [Montaigne's] refusal to conjecture [about Rome's topogra-­ phy] we come to a turning point. With the visible ruins meaningless and the substantial inheritance unreachable, incapable of disinter-­ ment, the humanist Renaissance on the Continent reached a con-­ clusion. (2 38) According to Greene, the Continental Renaissance lasted until a skepti-­ cism too deep for humanist repair tipped the balance exemplified by Du Bellay between doubt about and belief in the quintessentially humanist project of recollecting ancient ruins.s Historians of skepticism per se corroborate Greene's sense that Mon-­ taigne wielded a form of doubt incisive enough to dismantle the intellec-­ tual architecture of the Renaissance. Richard Popkin argues in his history of early modern skepticism that Montaigne's absorption of the modes of doubting in the works of Sextus Empiricus (first published in translation in 1562), combined with the uncertainty created by the Reformation chal-­ lenge of church criteria, produced the devastating skepticism of the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond [Apology for Raymond Sebond]": "By extending the implicit sceptical tendencies of the Reformation crisis, the humanistic crisis, and the scientific crisis, into a total crise pyrrhonienne, Montaigne's genial 'Apologie' became the coup de grace to an entire intel-­ lectual world" (s6).6 Since Montaigne left for Rome just after the publica-­ tion of the "Apologie" in the first edition of the Essais (158o), it makes sense that in the Journal, which describes his Roman visit, Montaigne would question the early tnodern mind's capacity to infer the originary grandeur of antiquity from Renaissance ruins. Skepticism as Montaigne practiced it renders all truth, let alone truth about the distant past, inac-­ cessible or at best duplicitous. As I show in this chapter, Montaigne's skep-­ tical refusal to conjecture about ancient Rome on the basis of its remains

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage

21

implies a distance between ancient presence and modern representation too great to be closed by conventional humanist methods. But skepticism had a productive side that is ignored by discussions of its preventive effects, and Montaigne's meditation on the ruins of Rome sig-­ nals not just a sterile renunciation but also a seminal moment in Western consciousness. While Montaigne's skepticism may invalidate Renaissance knowledge of antiquity and thus reduce the authority of antiquity as a col-­ lection of moral and epistemological exemplars, it also fashions for antiq-­ uity a new notion of aesthetic authority, an authority requiring a special category-the sublime-to accommodate it. This argument complements and expands some scholarly acknowledg-­ ment of sublimity as a notion available, primarily through Peri hypsous (first published in 1554), to a select group of rhetoricians and literary the-­ orists in the second half of the sixteenth century, some of whom Mon-­ taigne may have encountered during his sojourn in Rome.7 My approach differs, however, from the few direct treatments of the sublime in Mon-­ taigne, which focus mostly on verbal and thematic echoes of Peri hypsous in the Essais. 8 Such analysis amounts to guesswork, because Montaigne does not cite Longinus explicitly, nor does he employ a consistent, con-­ trolled vocabulary for the sublime. What appear to be paraphrases ofLong-­ inus, therefore, may actually stem from a variety of other cognate notions such as admiratio ("admiration" or "wonder") mentioned by several ancient, medieval, and Renaissance authors, or Ficinian furor poeticus ("poetic frenzy"). Montaignian sublimity, in my view, entails the skeptical recognition of the inadequacy of any one notion of eminence, Longinian or otherwise. My argument thus concerns less the influence of a particular model than the abandonment of all models. I study how the ruins of Rome appear under Montaigne's skeptical gaze and how that appearance invokes and is inspired by an aesthetic category beyond those native to Renais-­ sance humanism. The Journal de voyage records Montaigne's trip from his home near Bor-­ deaux in the southwest of France through what are now Switzerland, Ger-­ many, Austria, and Italy in I58o-81, just after the first edition of the Essais appeared. Rome was the point of the whole trip. Everything about Mon-­ taigne drew him there, especially his training as a Renaissance humanist, that is, as someone invested in the project of studying antiquity in order to transfer its grandeur to a new age.9 As a humanist, Montaigne would get to walk the ground walked by the Latin authors whose works he revered. But Montaigne was no ordinary Renaissance man. Montaigne respected

22

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

antiquity with a special fervor that reflected the extreme education that he had received as a child. In "De !'institution des enfans [On the Education of Children]" (I .26), Montaigne describes this education: [A] Feu mon pere, ayant fait toutes les recherches qu'homme peut faire, parmy les gens s<;avans et d'entendement, d'une forme d'insti-­ tution exquise, fut advise de cet inconvenient qui estoit en usage; et luy disoit--on que cette longueur que nous mettions a apprendre les langues, [C] qui ne leur coustoient rien, [A] est la seule cause pourquoy nous ne pouvions arriver a la grandeur d'ame et de cog-­ noissance des anciens Grecs et Romains. J e ne croy pas que ce en soit la seule cause. Tant y a que l'expedient que mon pere y trouva, ce fut que, en nourrice et avant le premier desnouement de rna langue, il me donna en charge a un Alleman, qui depuis est mort fameux medecin en France, du tout ignorant de nostre langue, et tresbein verse en la Latine....Quant au reste de sa maison, c'estoit une reigle inviolable que ny luy mesme, ny rna mere, ny valet, ny chambriere, ne parloyent en rna compaignie qu'autant de mots de Latin que chacun avoit apris pour jargonner avec moy. C'est mer-­ veille du fruict que chacun y fit....Quant a moy, j'avois plus de six ans avant que j'entendisse non plus de Fran<;ois ou de Perigordin que d'Arabesque. (I 73)

[My late father, having made all the inquiries a man can make, among men of learning and understanding, about a superlative system of educa--­ tion, became aware of the drawbacks that were prevalent; and he was told that the long time we put into learning languages which cost the ancient Greeks and Romans nothing was the only reason we could not attain their grandeur in soul and in knowledge. I do not think that that is the only reason.At all events, the expedient my father hit upon was this, that while I was nursing and before the first loosening of my tongue, he put me in the care of a German, who has since died a famous doctor in France, wholly ignorant of our language and very well versed in Latin. ...As for the rest of my father's household, it was an inviolable rule that neither my father himself, nor my mother, nor any valet or housemaid, should speak anything in my presence but such Latin words as each had learned in order to jabber with me. It was wonderful how everyone profited from this....As for me, I was over six before I understood any more French (or Perigordian) than Arabic.] ( 128) 10

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage

23

This pedagogical measure was extraordinary even at the height of the Latin vogue in France during the 1530S.11 (Montaigne was born in 1533.) Montaigne's introduction to Latin as an infant and among women pre-­ vents the division between the worlds of home and school.12 It is in the school where humanists supposed that a Latinate connection to ancient wisdom would strengthen a boy's courage. r3 Montaigne's contact with the means to antique "grandeur d'ame et de cognoissance" before the scholas-­ tic hardening of his passions helped make him particularly sensitive to such grandeur. By raising Montaigne to speak Latin as his mother tongue, Montaigne's father engineered his son to realize the dream of detecting and reviving ancient "grandeur." Its communication is exactly the subject of Montaigne's meditation, and no wonder, since he was destined to treat this subject by his special formation. Not surprisingly, then, after five months of travel Montaigne was excited to get to Rome: on the morning of their arrival, Montaigne awak-­ ens his entourage so that they may start three hours before dawn, "tant il avoit envy de voir le pave de Rome [so eager was he to see the pavement of Rome]" (90/71 ) . r4 And yet, despite his apparent readiness to throw himself at Rome's physical surfaces, Montaigne does not commit his med-­ itation to the Journal until almost two months after he gets there, during the last week of January 1581 (he had arrived at the end of November). In the meantime, Montaigne keeps busy: among other things, he complains about Roman hotels, passes a kidney stone, attends mass at Saint Peter's, has an audience with the pope and remarks the inelegance of his Italian, goes out to dinner, and sees a convicted thief hung, drawn, and quartered. Montaigne's hesitation to say something has to do with what others have already said. Understanding the import of Montaigne's meditation on the ruins of Rome requires reconstructing the horizon of expectation established for such meditations by humanist antiquarianism. By the time of Montaigne's visit, Rome had for well over two centuries embodied humanism's highest hopes and deepest doubts about the possibility of ren-­

ovatio Romae, the transfer of ancient culture to a new age. This project received its Renaissance impulse from Petrarch, who repeatedly and in various poetic and political contexts urged the return of modern Rome to its ancient grandeur. rs Petrarch's glorification of the ruins as reminders of former eminence inspired an industry of Roman antiquarianism. This industry developed increasingly precise methods of extrapolating from existing fragments a re--creation of the ancient city as a target for renovatio. Works such as Flavia Biondo's Roma instaurata (Rome Restored, composed

24

SUBLIMITY AND SKEPTICISM IN MONTAIGNE AND MILTON

1444-46), which undertook this archaeological reconstruction, presup-­ posed that careful study could close the distance between old and new Rome and thus enable the transfer of ancient virtue to the modern city. These works assumed that no matter how mutilated the ruin, one could refer to its original status and make available to the modern world the exemplar of antiquity and thus that the scientific recovery of the past grandeur of Rome might contribute to the city's rebirth. Though the sci-­ ence of Rome underwent many refinements, this presupposition remained largely intact into the sixteenth century. 16 Raphael Santi's letter of 1519 to Pope Leo X (possibly written in col-­ laboration with Baldassare Castiglione), reporting how Raphael executed the pope's commission to reconstruct ancient Rome pictorially, reflects the assumptions that underwrote the prevailing humanist science of Rome. Raphael asserts that despite centuries of ongoing ruin, through meticulous research he has "conseguito qualche notitia di quell'antiqua architectura [I have acquired at least some knowledge of the ancient archi-­ tecture]" (301/290). r7 Raphael proceeds to describe his methods in service of the pope's determination to preserve "vivo el paragone de li antichi [the example of the ancient world still alive]," so that the pope may "agguagliari et superarli [equal and surpass the men of ancient days]" (302/292). In describing the pope's charge Raphael reveals the kind of thinking that such a project required and inspired: Havendomi Vostra Santita comandato che 'io ponessi in disegno Roma anticha, quanta conoscier si puo, per quello, che oggidl si vede, con gli edificii che di se dimostrano tal reliquie, che per vero argumento si possono infallibilmente ridurre nel termine proprio come stavano, facendo quelli membri che sono in tutto ruinati, ne si veggono punto, corrispondenti a quelli che restano in piedi e che si veggono. (302)

[Your Holiness has commanded me to make a drawing of ancient Rome-as much as may be known from what can be seen today-with those buildings showing so much of what remains that, with careful study, you may know exactly what they were. Those that are completely ruined and no longer visible may be understood by the study of those that still stand and can be seen.] (292) The science of antiquity presumes to provide an understanding of how things in Rome once stood. rS

Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne's Journal de voyage

25

The antiquarian recollection of ancient Rome concretized and epito-­ mized the various recollective endeavors of the Renaissance. The success or failure of Roman antiquarianism signaled the success or failure of an entire culture. Because Montaigne's meditation addresses the foundations of a culture, it may record a tectonic shift in cultural history. The first and most memorable pronouncement of Montaigne's meditation therefore seems to authorize casting him as the disenchanter of the Renaissance: "[O]n ne voyoit rien de Rome que le ciel sous lequel elle avoit este assise et le plan de son giste [One saw nothing of Rome but the sky under which it had stood and the plan of its site]" ( Ioo/79). This statement is skeptical and counter--Renaissance: skeptical in that it implies an irreducible rift between the originary presence of Rome and the representation of Rome accessible through the senses, counter--Renaissance in that it consequently rejects the humanist revival of Rome that would require transmissions from the far side of that rift. "Rien de Rome," or merely its "ciel" or its "plan," erodes any basis for references from ruin to grandeur. Montaigne interrupts the economy of recovery on which Renaissance humanism, especially Renaissance humanist antiquarianism, and above all Renais-­ sance humanist Roman antiquarianism, depended. As I have proposed, Montaigne's "rien de Rome" does more than declare the death of the Renaissance by skepticism. The possibility that Montaigne preserves the grand dream of humanism (if not the methodol-­ ogy for realizing it) arises from a slightly wider cross section of the text, which, as usual in Montaigne, reveals very different attitudes and ideas. Immediately before Montaigne's meditation, the Journal describes Mon-­ taigne's avidly joining the humanist industry of Roman antiquarianism. Having first arrived in Rome on 30 November 158o, Montaigne has by late January of the following year dedicated himself to acquiring the "sci-­ ence" of the city:

Tous ces jours la, il ne s'amusa qu'a estudier Rome. Au commence-­ ment, il avoit prins un guide Fran<;ois; mais celuy la, par quelque humeur fantastique, s'estant rebute, il se piqua, par son propre estude, de venir a bout de cette science, aide de diverses cartes et livres qu'il se faisoit lire le soir, et le jour alloit sur les lieux mettre en pratique son apprentissage; si que, en peu de jours, il eust ayse-­ ment reguide son guide. (99-Ioo)

[All these days he spent his time only in studying Rome. At the beginning he had taken a French guide; but when this man quit because of some

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fancy or other, he made it a point of pride to learn all about Rome by his own study, aided by various maps and books that he had read to him in the evening; and in the daytime he would go on the spot to put his appren--­ ticeship into practice; so that in a few days he could easily have guided his guide.] ( 79) As an aid to study, Montaigne hires a French guide, presumably someone who not only knows more about Rome than Montaigne does but also will translate that knowledge into the language in which Montaigne can most easily grasp it. The act of engaging the guide expresses the characteristi-­ cally humanist faith that with the proper equipment, one can transfer the pattern of the past to the present. When the guide leaves, he takes his knowledge with him and thus removes the access to a French Renaissance science of Rome that Mon-­ taigne has sought from him. Montaigne's stubborn pursuit of such access despite the guide's departure indicates the strength of his commitment to rendering ancient Rome an object of humanist science. To this end, Mon-­ taigne almost certainly used Lucio Mauro's Antichita della Citta di Roma

(Roman Antiquities, 1558), a handy, compendious descendant of Biondo's Roma instaurata. An extant copy of this work bears Montaigne's signature on the title page. r9 Montaigne's determination, with the help of such works as Mauro's, "de venir a bout de cette science" embraces the project of renovatio Romae inherited from Petrarch. And apparently Montaigne succeeds: practicing by day the "apprentissage" absorbed by night, soon Montaigne could have "reguide son guide." In fewer than eighty words, this little drama of Montaigne's antiquar-­ ian activities stages the fundamental drama of Renaissance humanism. The presence, loss, and recovery of guidance to the ruins of Rome, the fad-­ ing in and out and in again of the signal from their archetypal configura-­ tion, realize the dream of transmitting over interference ancient grandeur to the postancient world. Expanding this inquiry to text adjacent to Montaigne's meditation shows that his doubtful departure from humanism abuts his credulous prac-­ tice of it. Having demonstrated this proximity, I return to the meditation to reveal a more intimate relation than one might suppose between skepticism and the impulse to reclaim grandeur that drives Renaissance culture: Il disoit "qu'on ne voyoit rien de Rome que le ciel sous lequel elle avoit este assise et le plan de son giste; que cette science qu'il en avoit estoit une science abstraite et contemplative, de laquelle il n'y

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avoit rien qui tombast sous les sens; que ceux qui disoient qu'on y voyoit au mains les ruines de Rome en disoient trop; car les ruines d'une si espouvantable machine rapporteroient plus d'honneur et de reverence a sa memoire; ce n'estoit rien que son sepulchre." ( Ioo )

[He said that one saw nothing of Rome but the sky under which it had stood and the plan of its site; that this knowledge that he had of it was an abstract and contemplative knowledge of which there was nothing percep--­ tible to the senses; that those who said that one at least saw the ruins of Rome said too much, for the ruins of so awesome a machine would bring more honor and reverence to its memory: this was nothing but its sepul--­ cher.] (79)

Montaigne's first two assertions, that one sees almost nothing of ancient Rome and that therefore knowledge of it lacks any sensuous content, retract the antiquarian behavior recorded in the preceding quotation. There Montaigne pursued "science" as a way to attain an "apprentissage" of Rome, to lay his mind on Rome directly. Here Montaigne says that such science is not apprehensive but "abstraite." It does not grasp Rome; it remains out of touch. The recuperative urge that drives Montaigne to obtain "science," how-­ ever, also animates his skepticism. Beyond his general worry about the abstractness of Roman science, Montaigne concerns himself particularly with the accuracy of the words used to designate Rome. Those who say ''ruines" say too much. The word ''ruines" is excessive, because it denotes more than what actually endures. This claim about the overstatement committed by ''ruines" receives interesting argumentative support. Instead of simply reverting to the opening charge ("qu'on ne voyoit rien de Rome") and thus again denying that anything of Rome could be an object of perception or knowledge, Montaigne asserts the exaggeration of ''ruines" on the basis of his speculation about the hypothetical effect actual ruins-were they to exist-would have on viewers. The words of those who say that they see ruins fall far from the mark, not only because of the distance of the ruins from human cognition or because of cognitive cal-­ lousness but also because the ruins of Rome, if present, would evoke more honor and reverence than Renaissance descriptions and tributes offer. As much as Montaigne criticizes the errors of antiquarian nomencla-­ ture, he criticizes the aesthetic responses others have offered to the mem-­ ory of Rome before his own meditation, responses unworthy of the frag-­ mented remains, let alone of the "espouvantable machine" that was

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ancient Rome. The phrase "espouvantable machine" represents the core of Montaigne's argument, a point not argued but assumed, the foundation for everything else that Montaigne says, including his skepticism. Mon-­ taigne's sense that early modern responses to Rome do not grant as much glory as they should to its ruins provokes him to declare the absence of those ruins. The assumption that any response to Rome must fit a certain aesthetic category-here, the "espouvantable"-makes Montaigne a skep-­ tic about Rome as an object of knowledge. This last point eludes the conventional wisdom about the history of skepticism. Here, awareness of the difficulty of knowing does not corre-­ spond to the digestion of ancient texts or to the intellectual fallout of the Reformation. Rather, Montaigne doubts the susceptibility of ancient Rome to knowledge because Rome's grandeur exceeds all Renaissance reports of it. In addition to inspiring skepticism, sublimity is inspired by it: Mon-­ taigne uses his doubts to fashion an aesthetic category for the grandeur that he feels. As the meditation continues, Montaigne waxes skeptical about admiratio, a flagship category of Renaissance aesthetics, and as a result an alternative category begins to emerge. Having questioned the accuracy of ''ruines," Montaigne substitutes his own, presumably more pre-­ cise term for the remnants of old Rome: "ce n'estoit rien que son sepul-­ chre." Then Montaigne draws a genealogy of this sepulchre, telling the story of the ruin of Rome and of the entombment of the city's ruins:

Le monde, ennemy de sa longue domination, avoit premierement brise et fracasse toutes les pieces de ce corps admirable; et, parce qu'encore tout mort, renverse et desfigure il luy faisoit horreur, il en avoit enseveli la ruine mesme. (I oo )

[The world, hostile to its long domination, had first broken and shattered all the parts of this wonderful body; and because, even though quite dead, overthrown, and disfigured, it still terrified the world, the world had buried its very ruin. 1 ( 7 9) The rest of the world, as Montaigne tells it, sought to undermine the dominion of Rome by shattering the parts of its marvelous body. But the strategy failed, because the body, though mutilated, still horrified its ene-­ mies. Therefore, as a backup measure, the enemies also buried the ruins, leaving only a sepulchre visible. Like the rejection of ''ruines," the substitution of "sepulchre" answers a

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sensation of surpassing grandeur. Montaigne represents the entombment of the ruins, and consequently his early modern skepticism about them (since their entombment justifies his original, skeptical claim that one sees "rien de Rome"), as a consequence of the effort to shut down an effect that ancient Rome, and then its ruins, had on the rest of the world. The failure of this effort-even the ruins still horrified Rome's enemies, and even the tomb provides the occasion for Montaigne's stirring meditation-implies that Rome had more grandeur than the enemies thought. The enemies failed to flatten Roman eminence because they based their efforts on a flawed conception of how the city affected its spectators. Montaigne specifies this conception when he says that the opponents of Rome treated it as a "corps admirable" requiring dismemberment and burial. As a "corps admirable," ancient Rome made its enemies wonder. "Admirable" signals admiratio, the popular notion of aesthetic experience with classical and medieval roots that by Montaigne's time was particu-­ larly associated with the way Rome moved its visitors. Admiratio under-­ writes the great meditations on Rome that precede Montaigne's. By imply-­ ing through the portrayal of Rome's hapless enemies the underestimation perpetrated by admiratio, Montaigne offers a critique of the history of attempts to recognize the grandeur of the city. His meditation thus medi-­ tates on Roman meditations and on the senses of grandeur that have fos-­ tered them. Understanding admiratio and its implications illuminates how Montaigne's treatment of Rotne challenges previous treatments and calls for an expanded aesthetics of eminence.20

Admiratio is an aesthetic response that includes and then excludes skepticism. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle, the major authority on admiratio for the Renaissance, associates the concept with both the perplexity incited by obscure or enigmatic phenomena and the curiosity that demands their coherent explanation: It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. (982b12-22)21

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Admiration drives the admirer to ascertain the cause of and thus put an end to his wonder. For Aristotle and Aristotelian critics, therefore, the aesthetic experience of admiratio orients its subject from confusion to coherence, initiating a series of inferences that culminates in knowledge.22 The educational orientation of admiratio eventually made it a ready conductor of the hopes that impelled renovatio Romae. Admiratio supplied humanists with a response to ruins that did not leave them totally ruined. Renaissance antiquarianism exploited admiratio's contacts with both inco-­ herence and coherence as a way to correlate fragmentation with recollec-­ tion and thus to argue that ancient ruins can form the foundation of early modern comprehension. Admiratio facilitated the exchange between parts and whole on which the Renaissance economy of recovery depended. It became a favorite means of describing and justifying processes of recollect-­ ing for a new age the moral, architectural, and textual fragments of antiq-­ uity. Since Rome posed a crucial test case for such processes, it is not sur-­ prising to find that Renaissance encounters with Rome's ruins provoked expressions of admiration. One finds evidence of the Roman application of

admiratio in the twelfth--century guidebook Mirabilia urbis Romae (Marvels of Rome) as well as in famous visitors' evocations of Rome, such as Petrarch's in the fourteenth century and Du Bellay's in the sixteenth. During what has been called the Renaissance of the twelfth century, excitement about Rome's former grandeur and its possible revival inspired the Mirabilia. 23 It permitted the traveler and pilgrim not only to retrace the steps of early Christian figures but also (and more predominantly) to refer himself to the remains and sites of ancient, pagan Rome. The third part of the Mirabilia concludes with the closest thing in it to a method-­ ological statement: Haec et alia multa templa et palatia [exempla et consulum] impera-­ torum, consulum, senatorum, praefectorumque tempore paganorum in hac Romana urbe fuere, sicut in priscus annalibus legimus et oculis nostris vidimus et ab antiquis audivimus. Quantae etiam essent pulchritudinis auri et argenti, aeris et eboris pretiosorumque lapidutn, scriptis ad posterum memoriam, quanta melius potuimus, reducere curavimus. (3.65)

[These and more temples and palaces of emperors, consuls, senators, and prefects were inside this Roman city in the time of the heathen, as we have read in old chronicles, have seen with our own eyes, and have heard the

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ancient men tell of.In writing we have tried as well as we could to bring back to the human memory how great was their beauty in gold, silver, brass, ivory and precious stones.] (46)24 The "marvels" of the Mirabilia are the ruins of late medieval Rome; they become marvelous when their ancient grandeur is remembered through the references of the guidebook. Before the Renaissance proper, the

Mirabilia signaled the establishment of admiratio as the premier aesthetic category for articulating Roman grandeur. Two centuries after the Mirabilia, Petrarch adopted admiratio as both an expression of bewilderment verging on writer's block and a pretested strategy that enabled the recollection of ancient greatness.In book 2, let-­ ter 14 of the Rerum familiarium (Letters on Familiar Matters), he uses the concept to express his confoundment upon seeing the rubble of Rome for the first time: Ab urbe quid expectet, qui tam multa de montibus acceperit? Putabas me grande aliquid scripturum, cum Romam pervenissem. lngens michi forsan in posterum scribendi materia oblata est; in pre-­ sens nichil est quod inchoare ausim, miraculo rerum tantarum et stuporis mole obrutus .... Illa vero, mirum dictu, nichil imminuit, sed auxit omnia. Vere maior fuit Roma, maioresque sunt reliquie quam rebar. lam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum miror. (2.14.103)

[What news can one expect from the city of Rome when one has received so much news from the mountains? You thought that I would be writing something truly great once I had arrived in Rome.Perhaps what I shall be writing later will be great.For the present I know not where to start, over ... whelmed as I am by the wonder of so many things and by the greatness of my astonishment....In truth Rome was greater, and greater are its ruins than I imagined.I no longer wonder that the whole world was con--­ quered by this city but that I was conquered so late.] ( I 13)2s Petrarch describes his response to Rome's ruins in terms of admiratio. Although Petrarch's admiratio denotes confusion, one senses how wonder already leads him to begin to draw correspondences between the modern ruins he sees and the ancient grandeur the ruins represent.Petrarch is not spontaneously struck with wonder but strategically adopts admiratio as a contribution to renovatio Romae.

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One of the literary ways that Petrarch pursued renovatio was Africa, his poem about the Second Punic War, which represents the Roman republic in the epic form, itself one of ancient Rome's great institutions.26 Petrarch's opening lines describe this enterprise as the singing of wondrous th.tngs ("mtran . da") : Et michi conspicuum meritis belloqui tremendum, Musa, virum referes, Italis cui fracta sub armis Nobilis eternum prius attulit Africa nomen. Hunc precor exhausto liceat michi sugere fontem Ex Elicone sacrum, dulcis mea cura, Sorores, Si vobis miranda cano.

[Muse, you will tell me of the man renowned for his great deeds, redoubtable in war, on whom first noble Africa, subdued by Roman arms, bestowed a lasting name. Fair sisters, ye who are my dearest care, if I propose to sing of wondrous things may it be given me to quaff full deep of the sweet sacred spring of Helicon.] Accompanying both the initial experience of Rome's ruins and the occa-­ sion of its epic reconstruction, admiratio sets fragmentation and recollec-­ tion along a single continuum.28 While Petrarch confirmed admiratio as the conventional Renaissance response to Roman ruins, Du Bellay, chronologically and culturally much closer to Montaigne, questioned appeals to admiratio, as the recuperative appreciation of the ruins inherited from the Mirabilia began to break down. In the Deffence, et illustration de la langue franc;oyse, in the Latin elegy "Romae descriptio," and in the sonnets of the Antiquitez de Rome, Du Bel-­ lay admires the ruins but then interrogates his own admiration, asking how one can derive a sense of grandeur from dilapidation. In the Deffence ( I 549), written in Paris as a manifesto of what would become known as the Pleiade, the link between wonder and the repair of Roman grandeur tacitly loosens. Du Bellay receives wonder as the stock response to Latin literature. He describes, for example, how through imi-­ tation "les Romains on baty tous ces beaux Ecriz, que nous louons, et admirons si fort [the Romans built up that store of fine writings which we so praise and admire]" (91-92/51).29 Du Bellay's ambition for his vernacu--

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lar, however, requires that this admiration by Frenchmen be oriented toward themselves. He asks, "Pourquoy donques sommes nous si grands admirateurs d'autruy [Why then are we such great admirers of others]?" (I74l88).The expansion of wonder to France as well as Rome corresponds to the realization that the French empire of literature and politics to which he dedicates the Deffence cannot result from rebuilding what was once built and ruined in Rome.3° The famous conclusion of the Deffence urges not so much an archaeology as a pillaging of Rome: "Fran<;oys, marchez couraigeusement vers cete superbe Cite Romaine: et des serves Depouilles d'elles ...ornez voz Temples, et Autelz [Frenchmen, march bravely toward that proud city of Rome. From its indentured remains . . . decorate your temples and altars]" (I7919I). Instead of recommending a repair of the fragments of Roman grandeur, Du Bellay urges their further ravagement. The "Depouilles" are ruins torn from their original setting. Whether the

admiratio mentioned previously in the Deffence is now absent or only invis-­ ible, it clearly has not induced the desire for reconstruction that it did for Petrarch and other purveyors of renovatio Romae. The derailment of wonder from its reconstructive track preoccupies Du Bellay in his treatments of the ruins of Rome written during his time there from I553 to I557· "Romae descriptio," composed before the Antiquitez, begins by surveying the universally admired Roman marvels, which upon archaeological disinterment emerge from the earth revitalized: "Multaque praeterea veteris miracula Romae, I Undique defosso nunc rediviva solo [And many more marvels of ancient Rome, which now emerge revitalized from the trodden ground]" (37-38).31 As the poem continues, however, the wonder that inspires collective acknowledgment of Rome's great-­ ness-"Caesareos vultus quis non miretur et ora I Tam multis Romae con-­ spicienda locis [Who would not admire the countenances of the Caesars and so many remarkable heads throughout Rome]?" (9I-92)-produces less recollection and more fragmentation, as Rome's marvels overwhelm the poet's powers of description. The marvels transform, as Du Bellay doggedly persists in listing them, into ruins, mutilated signs of greatness lost forever: "Ardua Pyramidum dicam, truncosque Colossos, I Maestaque nunc vacuo muta theatra sinu [Shall I utter the height of the Pyramids, the colossal statues maimed, the theaters now mournful and silent, their hol-­ lows empty]?" (Io9-Io). From this unredeemable ruin, underscored by a retreat from the present to the past tense (Iosff.), Du Bellay draws the les-­ son of a chastened confidence in material things. The deterioration of Rome's physical aspect ultimately manifests the eternal life of Latin poetry, whose energy Du Bellay requests for a new, French context in a

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plea that forms the conclusion of the elegy. Rome's physical elevation brought low, Rome's poetry alone supplies eminence: "Sola virum virtus caeli super ardua tollit, I Virtutem caelo solaque Musa beat [Only the virtue of man uplifts him to the heights of the sky, and only the Muse blesses virtue with heaven]" (I4 7-48).Given the final silence about admi--­

ratio in "Romae descriptio," Du Bellay leaves another mixed tnessage con-­ cerning the fate of wonder: has it mutated or just disappeared? The Antiquitez reflect at length on wonder's fortune.In the second son-­ net, Du Bellay declares that while others may praise the seven wonders of the ancient world, he finds their effect concentrated in the seven hills of Rome: "[Q]uant a moy pour tous je veulx chanter I Les sept Costaux Romains, sept miracles du monde [But I will will sing above all monu-­ ments I Seven Roman Hills, the world's seven wonderments]" (2.I3-I4).2 3 Such a declaration leads one to expect the Antiquitez to celebrate a rebirth of the city's former greatness. The next sonnet, however, disappoints the expectation of grandeur associated with wonder: Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome, Et rien de Rome en Rome n'appen;ois, Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcz que tu vois, Et ces vieux murs, c'est ce que Rome on nomme.

[Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest, And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv'st at all, These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest, Old Palaces, is that which Rome men call.] The repetition of the word "Rome" five times in these first four lines mul-­ tiplies its meaning."Rome" may signify ancient grandeur, modern ruin, or both.Such ambivalence disintegrates the very object that renovatio Romae seeks to reconstitute. Ruin has acquired a share of what "Rome" means. This entrenchment of fragmentation would complicate any effort to remove it.

Admiratio and grandeur nevertheless resurface together in sonnet I3. No amount of destruction done to Rome has humbled it so much that "la grandeur du rien ...I Ne face encor' esmerveiller le monde [But that this nothing ...I Makes the world wonder]" (I3.I3-I4).The "rien de Rome" of sonnet 3 that appeared to discount the wonder of sonnet 2 reconnects in sonnet I3 to a "grandeur" and the wonder that it still generates. The

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appearance of "esmerveiller" at the pointe of the poem registers the surprise of finding wonder still there.The endurance of wonder fascinates Du Bel-­ lay, as he focuses on the problem of how despite its reconstructive heritage wonder may express the unreconstructed grandeur of "rien." In a cluster of three sonnets toward the end of the Antiquitez, the ques-­ tioning of how wonder and ruin relate reaches a climax.Sonnets 27, 28, and 29 form a triptych bracketed by appearances of admiratio at the begin-­ ning of the first and at the end of the third.These appearances communi-­ cate a shift in what wonder is supposed to be about.Sonnet 27 addresses someone who admires the ruins of Rome: "Toy qui de Rome emerveille comtemples I L'antique orgueil [Thou that at Rome astonished dost behold I The antique pride]" (27.1 2).The admirer is then asked to modify his wonder in such a way as, Du Bellay predicts, to distract it from renovatio: Juge, en voyant ces ruines si amples, Ce qu'a ronge le temps injurieux, Puis qu'aux ouvriers les plus industrieux Ces vieux fragments encor servent d'exemples. Regarde apres, comme de jour en jour Rome fouillant son antique sejour, Se rebatist de tant d'ceuvres divines: Tu jugeras, que le demon Romain S'efforce encore d'une fatale main Ressusciter ces pouldreuses ruines. []udge by these ample ruins' view, the rest The which injurious time hath quite outworn, Since of all workmen held in reckoning best, Yet these old fragments are for patterns born: Then also mark, how Rome from day to day, Repairing her decayed fashion, Renews herself with buildings rich and gay; That one would judge, that the Roman Daemon Doth yet himself with fatal hand enforce, Again on foot to rear her powdered corse.]

At first the ruins look "amples," forming a sufficient basis for the ongoing reconstruction ("Rome ... Se rebastist") that the admirer observes.At

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last, however, the ruins appear "pouldreuses," a bad omen for those trying to renovate Rome. In the Deffence, ruins that are powdery are impossible to recollect:

Et si vous esperez (comme fist Esculape des Membres d'Hippolyte) que par ces fragments recuilliz, elles puyssent estre resuscitees, vous vous abusez: ne pensant point qu'ala cheute de si superbes Edifices conjointe ala ruyne fatale de ces deux puissantes Monarchies, une partie devint poudre, et l'autre doit estre en beaucoup de pieces, les queles vouloir reduire en un, seroit chose impossible. ( I I 2- I 3)

[If you hope that they can be resuscitated with these gathered fragments, as Aesculapius did with Hippolytus' members, you are fooling your--­ selves. You neglect the fact that when these great structures fell, linked as they were to the fatal collapse of two great world powers, one part was pulverized and the other was reduced to small pieces. To try to fuse them together again would be impossible.] ( 6o-6 1) The last line of sonnet 27 echoes the words of this passage ("resusciter," "poudreux") and its claim that powder manifests more fragmentation than any renovatio can fix. Sonnet 29 presents the same verdict regarding renovatio. Whereas Petrarch promoted Rome's present and future as well as past grandeur, Du Bellay puts it entirely in the past:34 Tout ce qu'Egypte en poincte fa<;onna, Tout ce que Grece ala Corinthienne, A l'Ionique, Attique, ou Dorienne Pour l'ornement des temples ma<;onna: Tout ce que l'art de Lysippe donna, La main d'Apelle, ou la main Phidienne, Souloit orner ceste Ville ancienne, Dont la grandeur le ciel mesme estonna. Tout ce qu'Athene' eut onques de sagesse, Tout ce qu'Asie eut onques de richesse, Tout ce qu'Afrique eut onques de nouveau, S'est vue icy.

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[All that which Egypt whilome did devise, All that which Greece their temples to embrave, After th' Ionic, Attic, Doric guise, Or Corinth skill' d in curious works to grave; All that Lysippus practike art could form, Apelles wit, or Phidias his skill, Was wont this ancient City to adorn, And the heaven itself with her wide wonders fill; All that which Athens ever brought forth wise, All that which Afrike ever brought forth strange, All that which Asie ever had of prize, Was here to see.]

Here the prospect of Roman grandeur arises repeatedly, as six of the first eleven lines mention "everything" that went into it. For every "tout," however, awaits a verb in the past tense. These verbs-"fa<_;onna," "ma<_;onna," "estonna," and "s'est vue"-hammer the grandeur under-­ ground where it now lies. And yet it is precisely this entombment that pro-­ duces wonder in the last three lines: "0 merveille profondel I Rome vivant fut l'ornement du monde, I Et morte elle est du monde le tumbeau [0 mar-­ velous great change: I Rome living, was the world's sole ornament, I And dead, is now the world's sole monument]" (29.12-14). Whereas in sonnet 27, the fall of Rome terminated wonder, in sonnet 29 wonder figures in the aftermath of Rome's demise. This resistant strain of wonder is "profonde" (as Du Bellay says) in more ways than one. In a literal sense wonder descends to a much lower level of the poem (line r2) than it did in sonnet 27 (line r). In going deeper on the page-sonnets 27 and 29 are printed on the upper halves of facing leaves in the first edition of the Antiquitez (rss8)-this wonder also expresses a more profound appreciation of ruin than conventional admiratio. The approfondissement of wonder occurs in sonnet 28, the pivotal poem in the sequence that I am discussing. This sonnet does not refer explicitly to wonder, but it helps make the transition from sonnet 27 to sonnet 29 in that it articulates forcefully how ruin amounts to grandeur. It compares Rome to an old and decaying oak tree: Qui a veu quelquefois un grand chesne asseiche, Qui pour son ornement quelque trophee porte,

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Lever encor' au ciel sa vieille teste morte, Dont le pied fermement n'est en terre fiche, Mais qui dessus le champ plus qu'a demy panche Monstre ses bras tous nuds, et sa racine torte, Et sans fueille umbrageux, de son poix se supporte Sur son tronc nouailleux en cent lieux esbranche: Eh bien qu'au premier vent il doive sa ruine, Et maint jeune a l'entour ait ferme la racine, Du devot populaire estre seul revere. Qui tel chesne a peu voir, qu'il imagine encores Comme entre les citez, qui plus florissent ores, Ce vieil honneur pouldreux est le plus honnore.

[He that hath seen a great oak dry and dead, Yet clad with reliques of some trophies old, Lifting to heaven her aged hoary head, Whose foot in ground hath left but feeble hold; But half disbowel'd lies above the ground, Showing her wreathed roots, and naked arms, And on her trunk all rotten and unsound Only supports herself for meat of worms; And though she owe her fall to the first wind, Yet of the devout people is adored, And many young plants spring out of her rind; Who such an oak hath seen, let him record That such this city's honor was of yore, And 'mongst all cities flourished much more.] The classical basis of this text is Lucan's description of Pompey, the Roman general and statesman, at the beginning of De bello civili (The Civil

War): Qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro Exuvias veteres populi sacrataque gestans Dona ducum nee iam validis radicibus haerens Pondere fixa suo est, nudosque per aera ramos Effundens trunco, non frondibus, efficit umbram; Et quamvis primo nutet casura sub Euro,

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Tot circum silvae firma se robore tollant, Sola tamen colitur.

[Thus an oak---tree, laden with the ancient trophies of a nation and the consecrated gifts of conquerors, towers in a fruitful field; but the roots it clings by have lost their toughness, and it stands by its weight alone, throwing out bare boughs into the sky and making a shade not with leaves but with its trunk; yet it alone is worshipped.)35 This simile, combined with the subsequent comparison of Julius Caesar to a bolt of lightning (I .I5 I-57), foreshadows Pompey's defeat by Caesar at Pharsalus. (Pharsalia is the alternative title of Lucan's epic.) Like Lucan, Du Bellay organizes his description around a paradox that challenges the opposition between grandeur and ruin. Indeed, his sonnet actually impresses in the very process of dissolving.Like the oak it describes, son-­ net 28 coheres by virtue of its decrepitude. The words that indicate the tree's autodismemberment also anchor the rhyme scheme that holds the 1.tnes of the poem together: "paneh" e ...esbranch"e, " "torte ...supporte."

Unlike Lucan, however, Du Bellay maps his challenge to the distinction between ruin and grandeur onto the Renaissance issue of wonder.By plac-­ ing sonnet 28 between two sonnets that register a deepening of admiratio, Du Bellay harnesses that challenge to this extension of the aesthetic cate-­ gory.The Antiquitez ask wonder to accommodate "la grandeur du rien." Montaigne's awareness of Du Bellay's oeuvre and the tradition of Roman meditations behind it comes across in Montaigne's opening remark-"On ne voyoit rien de Rome "-which echoes sonnet 3 of the

Antiquitez. But whereas Du Bellay seems to want to reform admiratio, Mon-­ taigne rejects it in favor of sublimity. Part of this process involves the cri-­ tique of admiratio implied by Montaigne's portrayal of the enemies of Rome as bad aestheticians. The enemies dismember Rome because they expect it to obey the logic of admiratio, which equates grandeur and coher-­ ence. Their failure means that they have miscalculated and that there exists a grandeur beyond admiration.After an intervening sentence, admi--­

ratio reappears, and Montaigne's critique of it proceeds: Que ces petites montres de sa ruine qui paroissent encore au dessus de la biere, c'estoit la fortune qui les avoit conservees pour le tes-­ moingnage de cette grandeur infinie que tant de siecles, tant de feux, la conjuration du monde reiteree a tant de fois a sa ruine, n'avoient peu universellement esteindre. Mais qu'il estoit vraisem--

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blable que ces membres desvisages qui en restoient, c'estoient les mains dignes, et que la furie des ennemys de cette gloire immortelle les avoit portes premierement a ruiner ce qu'il y avoit de plus beau et de plus digne; que les bastimens de cette Rome bastarde qu'on alloit asteure attachant a ces masures antiques, quoy qu'ils eussent de quoy ravir en admiration nos siecles presens, luy faisoient resou-­ venir proprement des nids que les moineaux et les corneilles vont suspendant en France aus voustes et parois des eglises que les Huguenots viennent d'y demolir. (I oo )

[These little signs of its ruin that still appear above the bier had been pre--­ served by fortune as testimony to that infinite greatness which so many centuries, so many conflagrations, and all the many conspiracies of the world to ruin it had not been able to extinguish completely. But it was likely that these disfigured limbs which remained were the least worthy, and that the fury of the enemies of that immortal glory had impelled them to destroy first of all what was most beautiful and most worthy; and the buildings of this bastard Rome which they were now attaching to these ancient ruins, although fully adequate to carry away the present age with admiration, reminded him precisely of the nests which sparrows and crows in France suspend from the arches and walls of the churches that the Huguenots have recently demolished.] ( 79) Buried in a dependent clause, admiratio responds no longer to the ancient grandeur of Rome but, rather, to its modern, bastardized version, which, however admired by Montaigne's contemporaries, elevates Montaigne only to the level of birds' nests in churches brought low by the iconoclasm of Huguenots.36 Montaigne uses the same doubt with which he disparages admiratio to create an alternative discourse of grandeur. He incorporates skepticism into the style of his meditation, a grand style whose grandeur depends not on a scientific but on a skeptical aesthetics. In the meditation eminence stems not from coherence but from fragmentation, not from apprehension but from abstraction, not from the success of cognition but from cogni-­ tion's collapse. Skepticism, therefore, is not a casualty of Montaigne's mis-­ sion of calling attention to Roman greatness. Rather, the achievement of his mission requires the growth of skepticism beyond the ruinous role assigned to it by admiratio and into an index of grandeur. The failure of Rome's enemies to attenuate its aesthetic force by dis-­ membering and crushing its "corps admirable" establishes a pattern iter--

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ated throughout the meditation. To a great extent, the meditation consti-­ tutes a potpourri of references, descriptions, and comparisons pertaining to Rome that are almost studied in their inconsistency. Montaigne repeat-­ edly refers to the object of his meditation as sotne kind of tomb, but never the same way twice: it is variously described as "sepulchre," "biere," "tombeau," "sepulture." Rome is represented in turn by its sky and plan, by the science of it, by its ruins, by the honor and reverence due and brought to it, by the memory of it, by its domination, by its body, by the broken pieces of its body, by the "montres" of its ruin, by its infinite grandeur, by testimony of its infinite grandeur, by its modern buildings, by its ancient walls, and by its glory and preeminence. The frenzied multiplication of efforts to refer to Rome belies the success of any one of them. The very abundance of errant references, however, points to the true dimensions of ancient grandeur insofar as they indicate the magnitude of the exertion involved in trying to wrap the meditative mind around Rome. Admiration that pretends to succeed in this effort manages only to reduce Rome to the dimensions of the human mind. Montaigne's praise orients itself not away from but toward skepticism, which in turn elevates the object of praise, since the confusion that results from trying to comprehend Rome lifts Rome above the ceiling of comprehension. The meditation's final sentence, its longest and most complex, both formally and thematically argues a new grandeur for ancient Rome: Encore craignoit il, a voir l'espace qu'occupe ce tombeau, qu'on ne le recognust pas tout, et que la sepulture ne fust elle mesme pour la pluspart ensevelie; que cela, de voir une si chetifve descharge, comme de morceaux de tuiles et pots casses, estre anciennement arrivee a un monceau de grandeur si excessive qu'il egale en hauteur et largeur plusieurs naturelles montaignes [car il le comparoit en hau-­ teur a la motte de Gurson et l'estimoit double en largeur], c'estoit une expresse ordonnance des destinees, pour faire sentir au monde leur conspiration a la gloire et preeminence de cette ville, par un si nouveau et extraordinaire tesmoingnage de sa grandeur. (Ioo-Ioi)

[He feared further, seeing the space that this tomb occupies, that we were not aware of all of it, and that the sepulcher itself was for the most part buried; and that judging from the fact that such paltry rubble as pieces of tile and broken pots had built up in ancient times to a pile of such excessive size that it equals in height and breadth several natural mountains (for he compared it in height to the hill of Gurson and estimated it to be twice as

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broad) , this must have been an express ordinance of the Fates, to make the world feel that they had conspired for the glory and preeminence of this city by so novel and extraordinary a testimonial of its greatness.] ( 79-80) This sentence forces the reading mind to gather momentum, weighing the mind with more and more things to ponder, as the sentence's units, syn-­ tactical and connotative, become increasingly long and interdependent and as the imaginative swings (from "descharge" to "montaignes," from Rome to the chateau of his neighbors Louis and Diane de Foix ["la motte de Gurson"]) cover greater distances more quickly. Finally, the reader hur-­ tles at top speed into the concluding argument of the meditation: that the accumulation of ancient Roman rubble into mountains manifests the Fates' deliberate ("expresse") authorization of a "nouveau et extraordinaire tesmoingnage de sa grandeur." Thematically, the sentence reflects its own fragmented structure in that it concerns how eminence ("un monceau de grandeur si excessive") rests on mere fragments ("chetifve descharge"). Montaigne's ultimate interest is not so much Roman grandeur as a testimony of grandeur, a ruined style capable of intimating ancient grandeur to a new age. An argu-­ ment for such a style of scattershot references is an argument for the style of the Essais, Montaigne's own "nouveau et extraordinaire tesmoingnage." The foregoing analysis of Montaigne's Journal de voyage depicts an interactive relation between the retreat of epistemological and moral authority and the advancement of a certain notion of aesthetic experi-­ ence. Montaigne's skepticism stems not merely from cognitive difficulty, which he was simply more sensitive to or better equipped to express than were his precursors, but also from his sense of a degree of aesthetic force to which Rome must correspond. In turn, Montaigne's skepticism, reflected in his dissatisfaction with any single definition of Rome in his meditation, furnishes a high style for communicating grandeur. Sublimity for Mon-­ taigne is a function not of particular references to Rome, the kind enabled by admiratio, but rather of the shortcomings of all references to the grandeur that paradoxically constitutes the subject of a discourse unable to refer to it. The sublime emerges through a series of impasses to grandeur erected by skepticism-a skepticism, however, that is itself invoked by a relentlessly demanding notion of aesthetic eminence. Montaigne does not only derive the aesthetic from his skepticism; for him, skepticism also becomes a strategy for creating the aesthetic, for fragmenting antiquity and thereby appropriating its power. Skepticism both answers a demand for and gives shape to sublimity.

CHAPTER TWO

The Grandeur of Ruin in the Essais

IN THE PREVIous CHAPTER,

I concluded that Montaigne's meditation on

the ruins of Rome in the Journal de voyage reflects the style and substance of the Essais. By this I did not mean to suggest that Montaigne discovered how to write essays at Rome. In any event, most of them predate Mon-­ taigne's trip. The meditation does, however, illuminate some of the prin-­ ciples that govern the major work. The things that are true of the medita-­ tion are the rules of the Essais: Montaigne's sensitivity to ancient grandeur leads him to doubt; Montaigne communicates with antiquity through ignorance; Montaigne's skepticism generates the ruined pattern of his sub-­ lime style; Montaigne degrades wonder as he elevates sublimity. The med-­ itation turns out as it does because its author is the mind of the Essais. After all, long before Montaigne went to Rome he knew ruins as the body of ancient literature that Renaissance scholars had incompletely reassembled and partially understood. Hundreds of parts of that body­ books-lined the shelves of the study where Montaigne did his writing.

1

Montaigne also had dozens of scraps of Greek and Latin inscribed on the beams of the study's ceiling, where they remain to this day. Surrounded by 2

such fragments of antiquity, Montaigne incorporated them into his work. Almost every essay includes ancient material cut and pasted into the 43

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French text. 3 In this sense, each essay presents a ruin and the Essais as a whole represent the ruins of antiquity. Over the course of the last century, the problem of fragmentation has increasingly occupied efforts to make sense of Montaigne. Pierre Villey inaugurated modern Montaigne studies by organizing the divergent ten-­ dencies of the Essais into an evolution.4 According to Villey, the contra-­ dictions within the Essais indicate not their discontinuity but the fact that they progress through stages of development: first Stoicism, then skepti-­ cism, and finally Epicureanism and the discovery of a "deep self." This the-­ ory, rooted in the progressionist philosophy of Ernest Renan and based on massive erudition, transformed the Essais into a coherent object of analy-­ sis by reducing their skepticism to a passing phase.S Although Villey played down the inconsistencies ofMontaigne's work, he could not help but notice them. The late Montaigne, remarked Villey, tends even more than the earlier one to digress, stop short, create disorder, and generally interrupt "le fil du discours [the line of argument]" ( 155).6 Villey wondered how these breakdowns in composition could occur after Montaigne had supposedly gotten over his skepticism: "Ce desordre--la, qui n'est plus calcule, mais qui est consenti par negligence, ne sert plus du tout a la peinture du Moi [Such disorder, which is not calculated but allowed only by negligence, contributes nothing whatsoever to self--portraiture]"

( 156). The disorders of the Essais made sense to Villey only as accidents. Hugo Friedrich's book on Montaigne still stands as the major alterna-­ tive to Villey's approach.? From Friedrich's perspective, the fragmentation that his predecessor had marginalized appeared central. Rather than arrange the Essais into discrete periods, Friedrich traced a set of overlap-­ ping themes that persist from the beginning to the end of the work. Friedrich focused not so much on howMontaigne adheres to the style and views of his precursors (as Villey had done), but rather on how the Essais shift on, depart from, and mutilate their foundations. Friedrich senses at the heart of Montaigne's work an aversion to "composition, that is, as it was called in classical rhetoric, the dispositio (taxis, oikonomia), or as the moderns called it, the ordo tractandi" (336). According to Friedrich, Mon-­ taigne achieves the essay form by breaking open the closed order of classi-­ cal composition. Subsequent to Friedrich's midcentury work, concern with the ways in which the Essais pull themselves apart intensified. Jean Starobinski, for example, discarded both the chronological phases of Villey and the achronological themes of Friedrich.8 As a result, the tensions that had been marginal to Villey and central to Friedrich came to be regarded as

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essential. Starobinski concentrated exclusively on the instability of Mon-­ taigne's approach to the issue of identity. According to Starobinski, the

Essais document the "motion" of Montaigne relative to the question of what constitutes selfhood. While at first Montaigne evades the forces that threaten to tear the self apart, he then paradoxically bases his identity on its dismemberment. Starobinski thus sees fragmentation as necessary to Montaigne's establishment of who he is. Through the pivotal studies of Villey, Friedrich, and Starobinski, the problem of fragmentation went from the periphery to the hub of critical conceptions of the Essais. Once in focus, the breaks in continuity demanded explanation. Edwin Duval, in an important article, asked why the Essais had the "open form" illuminated by Friedrich and suggested that it was not accidental but deliberate.9 Subsequent critics have begun to understand this form as strategic by referring it to skepticism. In light of the fact that Villey sought to prevent the Essais from dissolving by con-­ taining their skepticism, it makes sense that brokenness and skepticism would resurface together. Jean--Yves Pouilloux, for example, has referred Montaigne's resolution to "[C]ne dire qu'a demy [speak only by halves]" (996/762) to his determination never to stop thinking-in other words, always to think skeptically. Io Andre Tournon has held that Montaigne's habit of censuring himself by cutting his statements short stems from the special kind of collective verification that skeptical inquiry demands. I I Tournon has also related Montaigne's request that his editor chop up the prose of the Essais by adding capitals and punctuation to the "pyrrhonian" nature of Montaigne's language. I2 Ann Hartle connects what she calls the "skeptical moment" in Montaigne's thought to the apparent lack of tran-­ sitions between and within individual essais. I3 Montaigne criticism has gradually associated the tendencies of the Essais to disintegrate and to doubt. In the following pages, I read the Essais as ruins fashioned by skepticism. This reading confers a logic to the associ-­ ation whose development I have just traced. This logic, in turn, supports the larger claims of my project: the skepticism that ruins the Essais also forges their sublimity. I4 My reading of the Essais has three parts. I begin by considering a clus-­ ter of essays anchored by "C'est folie de rapporter le vray et le faux a nos-­ tre suffisance [It Is Folly to Measure the True and False by Our Own Capacity]" ( r.27), where Montaigne forms doubts as he formulates the ini-­ tial structure of the Essais project. The second part concerns a sequence of essays that runs through "Du jeune Caton [Of Younger Cato]" (1.37), where Montaigne generates sublimity as he defines how he writes. I turn

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finally to "De la vanite [Of Vanity]" (3.9), in which Montaigne revisits his voyage to Rome and realizes what he implied in the Journal about the

Essais and the ruins of Roman grandeur. Histories of modern skepticism have measured the gradual seepage into the Renaissance of doubts contained in ancient texts. The most important of these texts was the Hypotyposes (Outlines of Pyrrhonism) by Sextus Empiricus. From a philological perspective, therefore, Montaigne's "Apol-­ ogie de Raimond Sebond" (2.I2), whose torrent of skepticism stems in large part from the influence of Sextus, assumes preeminence. Even stud-­ ies of Montaigne's skepticism mildly interested in questions of influence concern themselves almost exclusively with the giant "Apologie."rs By choosing to focus on "C'est folie" instead of the "Apologie," I hope to recover fundamental senses of Montaignian doubt ignored by influential studies. Among the essays that Montaigne first composed (around I572), "C'est folie" predates Montaigne's initial exposure to Sextus (around

I576). Yet, the doubts stirred by this brief essay are powerful enough even-­ tually to trigger the shocks of the "Apologie."16 Apart from chronological considerations, the best reason to look in "C'est folie" for the roots of Montaigne's skepticism is that he begins the essay by telling the story of how he became skeptical: [A] Ce n'est pas a l'adventure sans raison que nous attribuons a sim-­ plesse et ignorance la facilite de croire et de laisser persuader: car il me semble avoir apris autrefois que la creance, c'estoit comme un' impression que se faisoit en nostre arne; et, a mesure qu'elle se trou-­ voit plus molle et de moindre resistance, il estoit plus ayse a y empreindre quelque chose.... Voyla pourquoy les enfans, le vul-­ gaire, les femmes et les malades sont plus subjects a estre menez par les oreilles. Mais aussi, de l'autre part, c'est une sotte presumption d'aller desdaignant et condamnant pour faux ce qui ne nous semble pas vraysemblable: qui est un vice ordinaire de ceux qui pensent avoir quelque suffisance outre la commune. ]'en faisoy ainsin autre-­ fois, et si j'oyois parler ou des esprits qui reviennent, ou du prognos-­ tique des choses futures, des enchantemens, des sorceleries, ou faire quelque autre compte ou je peusse pas mordre, Somnia, terrores magi--­

cos, miracula, sagas, I Nocturnos lemures portentdque Thessala, il me venoit compassion du pauvre peuple abuse de ces folies. Et a present, je treuve que j'estoy pour le moins autant a plaindre moy mesme. (I 78-79)

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[Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was a sort of impression made on our mind, and that the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something on it. . . . That is why children, common people, women, and sick people are most subject to being led by the ears. But then, on the other hand, it is foolish presumption to go around disdaining and condemning as false what ever does not seem likely to us; which is an ordinary vice in those who think they have more than common ability. I used to do so once; and if I heard of returning spirits, prognostications of future events, enchant--­ ments, sorcery, or some other story that I could not swallow, Dreams, witches, marvels, magic alarms, / Nocturnal specters, and Thes-­ salian charms, I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in

by these follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself.] ( r 32) Montaigne starts by describing his preskeptical mind--set, what he used to think before he adopted the dubious attitude that he now possesses. This dogmatic posture featured a theory of knowledge. According to this the-­ ory, knowledge happens when solid contact occurs between mind and object: the object makes a good "impression" on the mind and the mind obtains a good feel for the object. Without such a close and firm rapport, no knowing transpires. During the time Montaigne adhered to this episte-­ mological notion, therefore, he would not assent to anything that he could not sink his mental teeth into ("mordre"), such as the insubstantial tales that enthrall "les enfans, le vulgaire, les femmes et les malades." The conversion from dogmatism to skepticism that Montaigne under-­ goes turns on wonder. In order to describe the sort of thing he refused to believe in his dogmatic days, Montaigne adduces two lines from the Epis--­

tles of Horace, which list "marvels" (miracula) among other objects of dis-­ belief. (Horace's miracula should be understood as "marvels" or "objects of wonder" rather than "miracles," since it stems from the same root as admi--­ ratio-miror-and since it is not ecclesiastical Latin.) There was no place for admiration in the rigid thinking now challenged by "C'est folie." The presence of miracula here means that when Montaigne says how he came to be a skeptic, he identifies a sense of wonder as the turning point, as the difference between his sure and shaky perspectives. But not just any wonder. In their original context, Horace's lines form part of a list of inter-­ ests (such as poetry) that a mature retiree should abandon in favor of the

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pursuit of philosophical knowledge. (Having just retired himself to write the Essais, Montaigne would have seriously considered Horace's advice.) Indeed, the next line in the text of the Epistles after "Thessala" is "rides [you laugh]," as Horace asks his addressee (Florus) if he does not laugh (as he should) at such ridiculous matters. r7 So the entire two lines translate, "Dreams, witches, marvels, magic alarms, nocturnal specters, and Thes-­ salian charms-do you laugh at these?" "Rides" both completes Horace's verse (as the last word of the poetic line) and ends wonder (in knowing laughter). But Montaigne omits "rides," and by breaking off the end from this piece of Latin, Montaigne puts off the end of wonder that Horace advises. In my first chapter I noted that the garden varieties of classical and Renaissance admiratio lead to the act of knowing. By pruning-or rather, ruining-wonder, Montaigne creates a hybrid that grows into the act of not knowing, the mature skepticism that his essay espouses. Other critics have noticed something unorthodox about the way Mon-­ taigne handles wonder. In her recent book on Montaigne Ann Hartle makes a comment about the role of wonder in his "accidental" philosophy that helps bring into focus my argument here: The radical contingency of being is the condition for the telos of accidental philosophy. The telos of deliberate philosophy is the divine stasis. Deliberate philosophy begins in wonder and ends in some form of divine impassibility, whether contemplation of the eternal or the ataraxia of skepticism. Accidental philosophy ends in wonder, not at the rare and extraordinary but at the most familiar: what is did not have to be at all. (38) According to Hartle, whereas deliberate philosophy begins with wonder and ends by resolving it, Montaigne's accidental philosophy both begins and ends with wonder, which is thus never resolved. Like Hartle, I see wonder as a starting point for Montaigne, I would describe the difference between conventional philosophy and Montaigne's in terms of what hap-­ pens to wonder, and I find that Montaignian wonder does not disappear as it does for the philosophies that he critiques. Unlike Hartle's, however, my analysis leads me to propose that Montaigne does not conserve wonder but rather transforms it through his art of fragmentation. rS The treatment of Horace that I have demonstrated is not an exception but the rule in "C'est folie," as Montaigne repeatedly spins wonder away from knowledge in order to create doubt. In the process of elaborating his skepticism, Montaigne consistently refers to Latin pronouncements on

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admiratio in such a way as to short--circuit the conversion into firm belief or disbelief that they originally advocated. Montaigne proceeds in the essay to argue explicitly for the extension of wonder implied by his treatment of Horace: [A] Si nous appellons monstres ou miracles ce ou nostre raison ne peut aller, combien s'en presente il continuellement a nostre veue? Considerons au travers de quels nuages et commant a tastons on nous meine a la connoissance de la pluspart des chases qui nous sont entre mains: certes nous trouverons que c'est plustost accoustu-­ mance que science qui nous en oste 1' estrangete. ( I 79) [If we call prodigies or miracles whatever our reason cannot reach, how many of these appear continually to our eyes! Let us consider through what clouds and how gropingly we are led to the knowledge of most of the things that are right in our hands; assuredly we shall find that it is rather familiarity than knowledge that takes away their strangeness.] (I 32) Montaigne traces the premature demise of admiratio: if we realized that familiarity stems not from knowledge but from habit, we would recover our wonder ("miracle"). Montaigne adds to this statement a series of lines from Lucretius: [B] jam nemo, fessus satiate videndi, I Suspicere in cceli dignatur lucida templa.... [A] si nunc primum mortalibus adsint I Ex impro-­ viso, ceu sint objecta repente, IN il magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici, I Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes. ( I 79) [But no one now, so tired of seeing are our eyes, I Deigns to look up at the bright temples of the skies. . . . If they were here for the first time for men to see, I If they were set before us unexpectedly, I Nothing more mar ... velous than these things could be told, I Nothing more unbelievable for men of old.] (I 32-33) By saying that what one now takes for granted was wonderful when first witnessed, Lucretius appears to support Montaigne's case for protracting wonder ("mirabile"). But a return to De rerum natura reveals that the lines originally formed part of the opposite argument. By noting that what was once marvelous now makes sense, Lucretius actually prepares to announce the existence of other worlds; reminded that wonders cease, his readers

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will not be too astonished and accept the news reasonably. 19 Montaigne has again altered the trajectory of admiratio set by a Latin author. Montaigne tampers with admiratio a third time in a way that recalls his dissatisfaction with wonder in his meditation on Roman ruins in the Jour--­

nal de voyage. Sometime before his death in 1592 Montaigne added to his copy of the 1588 edition of the Essais a citation of Cicero's De natura deo--­

rum: "[C] Consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi, neque admirantur, neque requirunt rationes earum rerum quas semper vident. La nouvellete des chases nous incite plus que leur grandeur a en rechercher les causes [The mind

becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them, and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for the things it sees all the time. The novelty of things incites us more than their greatness to seek their causes]" ( I8o/133). Originally Cicero complains that habit prevents wonder and the inquiry into causes that wonder inspires only so that he may allay doubts about the rational order of the universe. If it were not for habit, wonder would lead to research, which would in turn lead to the acknowledgment of a univer-­ sal structure.20 Montaigne, however, uses Cicero's words to extend doubt, not knowledge. Montaigne uproots Cicero's admiratio from the process of acquiring knowledge and makes wonder lead to ignorance instead. Mon-­ taigne's paraphrase then adjusts the terms and changes the idea excerpted from Cicero: inquiry follows a sensation of novelty and not a sense of true grandeur. The notion that grandeur evokes more than the research incited by wonder suggests that Montaigne's essay shares the concern of his medi-­ tation in the Journal de voyage. Like the meditation, "C'est folie" critiques

admiratio as inadequate and uses skepticism to expand it to the point of sublimity, beyond the limits imposed by Latin authors such as Horace, Lucretius, and Cicero. This reading of "C'est folie" shows that the skeptical reform of wonder into sublimity that occurs in the Journal occurs also in the Essais. "C'est folie" also begins to suggest that the fragmentation associated with this process characterizes Montaigne's practice of fracturing the Latin he inserts into his French. The revision of wonder in "C'est folie" is ruinous. Ruin also describes how this revision occurs, the method used by Mon-­ taigne to operate on wonder: citation. Montaigne does not merely modify wonder in French. Rather, he reworks wonder as he fragments the authors he cites. Montaigne's fragmentation of admiratio is indistinguishable from his ruin of the Latin texts in which he finds admiratio expressed. Citation, as I remarked above, is basic to the Essais. The intimate, complex, and much studied relation between Montaignian writing and citing is beyond the scope of this discussion. 21 Instead, I want to suggest

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that the fragmentation evident in "C'est folie" not only describes Mon-­ taigne's practice of invoking Latin authorities, but also defines his literary enterprise. The dynamic of skepticism and sublimity that ruins grandeur also conceives the Essais. The pursuit of this hypothesis leads to the famous neighbors of "C'est folie." "De !'institution des enfans [On the Education of Children]" (I .26) and "De l'amitie [Of Friendship]" (I .28) are key statements of Montaigne's thought and art in the first book. The intermediate position of "C'est folie" allows it to play the pivotal role in the sequence of essays that generates Montaigne's major early conception of what the Essais are all about. In "C'est folie," Montaigne cites ruinously. In "De !'institution," he lays the groundwork for this practice by attributing the way he cites to the frag-­ mentary natures of his work and of his mind: 22

[C] OJe ne luitte point en gros ces vieux champions la, et corps a corps: c'est par reprinses, menues et legieres attaintes. Je ne m'y ahurte pas; je ne fay que les taster; et ne vay point tant comme je marchande d'aller. Si je leur pouvoy tenir palot, je serois honneste homme, car je ne les entreprens que par ou ils sont les plus roides. ( I47-48) [I do not wrestle with those old champions wholesale and body against body; I do so by snatches, by little light attacks. I don't go at them stub--­ bornly; I only feel them out; and I don't go nearly as much as I think about going. If I were a match for them I would be a good man, for I take them on only at their stiffest points.] (roB)

Montaigne imagines citation as a form of combat and himself as a combat-­ ant overmatched by the ancient authors whom he cites. He avoids full body contact ("corps a corps") in favor of an indirect approach that allows him to engage only parts of their bodies of work. Montaigne resorts to guerrilla tactics ("par reprinses, menues et legieres attaintes") because he lacks the heft to carry a straightforward encounter. Montaigne explains why he weighs so little in the very first sentences of the essay: [A] Je ne vis jamais pere, pour teigneux ou bosse que fut son fils, qui laissast de l'avoiier. Non pourtant, s'il n'est du tout enyvre de cet' affection, qu'il ne s'apen;oive de sa defaillance; mais tant y a qu'il est sien. Aussi moy, je voy, mieux que tout autre, que ce ne sont icy que resveries d'homme qui n'a gouste des sciences que la crouste

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premiere, en son enfance, et n'en a retenu qu'un general et informe visage: un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, a la Fran<;oise. (145-46)

[I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or

hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact remains that the boy is his. And so I myself see better than anyone else that these are nothing but reveries of a man who has tasted only the outer crust of sciences in his childhood, and has retained only a vague general picture of them: a little of everything and nothing thoroughly, French style.] ( ro6) The Essais are so light because their author digested little of an education that undernourished him in the first place by providing only the "crouste premiere" of the sciences. (When Montaigne describes his miseducation as "ala Fran<;oise," he alludes to a stereotype popular earlier in the sixteenth century of the French as uncultivated compared to some of their European neighbors.)23 This pedagogical malnourishment naturally resulted in an intellectual deformity: Montaigne possesses only the "informe visage" of knowledge. Montaigne's awareness of gaps in his education paradoxically informs his ideas about how to teach a child. (Montaigne frequently uses the verb

former to express the act of educating; the use of the noun formation in this sense did not emerge until the twentieth century.) The possession of informed judgment requires a proper estimation of the grandeur of the world and of one's insignificance relative to it:

[A] Mais qui se presente, comme dans un tableau, cette grande image de nostre mere nature en son entiere mageste; qui lit en son visage une si generale et constante variete; qui se remarque la dedans, et non soy, mais tout un royaume, comme un traict d'une pointe tres delicate: celuy --la seul estime les choses selon leur juste grandeur. Ce grand monde, que les uns multiplient encore comme especes soubs un genre, c'est le mirouer ou il nous faut regarder pour nous connoistre de bon biais. Somme, je veux que ce soit le livre de mon escholier. Tant d'humeurs, de sectes, de jugemens, d'opinions, de loix et de coustumes nous apprennent ajuger sainement des nos-­ tres, et apprennent nostre jugement a reconnoistre son imperfec-­ tion et sa naturelle foiblesse: qui n'est pas un legier apprentissage. (157-sS)

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[But whoever considers as in a painting the great picture of our mother Nature in her full majesty; whoever reads such universal and constant variety in her face; whoever finds himself there, and not merely himself, but a whole kingdom, as a dot made with a very fine brush; that man also estimates things according to their true proportions. This great world, which some multiply further as being only a species under one genus, is the mirror in which we must look at ourselves to recognize ourselves from the proper angle. In short, I want it to be the book of my student. So many humors, sects, judgments, opinions, laws, and customs teach us to judge sanely on our own, and teach our judgment to recognize its own imperfection and natural weakness, which is no small lesson.] (I I 6) Here, about a third of the way into the essay, Montaigne recalls the open-­ ing idea that truth has a "visage" that the mind reflects incompletely. (The terms have slightly shifted: whereas earlier knowledge was informe, now judgment is imparfait.) One cultivates one's judgment by recognizing how imperfect that judgment is. Judging well means judging things according to their "juste grandeur," which can only happen after taking into account the partiality of one's mind and the entirety of the world. This symbiosis between grandeur and fragment in "De !'institution" has an effect on "C'est folie." In "De !'institution" Montaigne characterizes education as the development of suffisance (capacities). (When, for exam-­ ple, Montaigne recommends modesty in conversation, he says that a child should be raised "[A] a estre espargnant et mesnagier de sa suffisance [to be sparing and thrifty with his ability]" [154/1 13].) As an essay with suffisance in its title, "C'est folie de rapporter le vray et le faux a nostre suffisance" evidently perpetuates the concerns of its predecessor. The definition of good judgment in "C'est folie" summarizes what Montaigne said in "De !'institution" about how to esteem: "[A] Il faut juger avec plus de reverence de cette infinie puissance de nature et plus de reconnaissance de nostre ignorance et foiblesse [We must judge with more reverence the infinite power of nature, and with more consciousness of our ignorance and weak-­ ness]" (180/133). In "C'est folie" Montaigne does not just repeat but applies the theory of suffisance that he proposed in "De !'institution." In the former essay Montaigne suggests that becoming suffisant requires recogniz .. ing how out of shape one's mind is. In the latter essay, he reforms suffisance by deforming wonder, the feeling that conventionally motivates educa-­ tion. Broken by this operation, wonder may be open to the great unknown. The ruinous energy that runs through "De !'institution" and "C'est folie" generates the sublimity of "De l'amitie," where Montaigne writes

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about his friendship with Etienne de la Boetie and invents a key structure of the Essais project.They met as fellow magistrates at the Bordeaux par-­ liament in 1557, when Montaigne was twenty--four and La Boetie twenty-­ seven. La Boetie died in 1663; Montaigne was permanently devastated. Eighteen years after La Boetie's death, as Montaigne traveled through Italy in search of cures for his kidney stones, he wrote in his]ournal, "Ce mesme matin ...je tombay en un pensement si penible de M.de La Boetie, et y fus si longtemps sans me raviser, que cela me fit grand mal [This morning I was overcome by such painful thoughts about Monsieur de La Boetie, and I was in this mood so long, without recovering, that it did me much harm]" (162/125). The impact of the absence of La Boetie on the Essais is well known. "De l'amitie" is the twenty--eighth of fifty--seven essays in the first book. Originally, Montaigne intended "De l'amitie" to introduce La Boetie's Discours de la servitude volontaire (Discourse on Voluntary Servi--­ tude), which would have occupied the central twenty--ninth position. When Montaigne learned that others had published the Discours, he replaced it with twenty--nine sonnets that La Boetie had written. When the sonnets also appeared elsewhere, Montaigne eliminated them as well, so that he gradually reduced his monument to his friend to nothing. Like the two previous essays, "De l'amitie" concerns suffisance. Mon-­ taigne begins by finding his capacities fragmentary compared to what La Boetie could do: [A] Considerant la conduite de la besongne d'un peintre que j'ay, il m'a pris envie de l'ensuivre.Il choisit le plus bel endroit et milieu de chaque paroy, pour y loger un tableau elaboure de toute sa suffisance; et, le vuide au tour, il le remplit de crotesques, qui sont peintures fantasques, n'ayant grace qu'en la variete et estrangete. Que sont--ce icy aussi, a la verite, que crotesques et corps mon-­ strueux, rappiecez de divers membres, sans certaine figure, n'ayants ordre, suite ny proportion que fortuite? Desinit in piscem mulier for--­ mosa superne. Je vay bien jusques ace second point avec mon pein-­ tre, mais je demeure court en l'autre et meilleure partie: car rna suffisance ne va pas si avant que d'oser entreprendre un tableau riche, poly et forme selon l'art.Je me suis advise d'en emprunter un d'Estienne de la Boitie, qui honorera tout le reste de cette besongne. (183) [As I was considering the way a painter I employ went about his work, I had a mind to imitate him. He chooses the best spot, the middle of each

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wall, to put a picture labored over with all his skill, and the empty space all around it he fills with grotesques, which are fantastic paintings whose only charm lies in their variety and strangeness. And what are these things of mine, in truth, but grotesques and monstrous bodies, pieced together of divers members, without definite shape, having no order, sequence, or proportion other than accidental? A lovely woman tapers off into a fish [Horace]. I do indeed go along with my painter in this sec-­

ond point, but I fall short in the first and better part; for my ability does not go far enough for me to dare to undertake a rich, polished picture, formed according to art. It has occurred to me to borrow one from Eti-­ enne de la Boetie, which will do honor to all the rest of this work.] ( 135) Montaigne compares La Boetie's work to a painting and his own essays to grotesques scribbled around it: pleasing but aimless designs that before completing one form initiate another. While La Boetie could produce something "forme," Montaigne's "suffisance" permits him only to create a work "rappiecez de divers metnbres." Montaigne's pieces-the Essais that he likens to grotesques-decorate the masterpiece of La Boetie. As "divers membres" arranged first around La Boetie's "corps forme" and then (after 1588) around its absence, the Essais represent the ruins of an antique coherence. Montaigne saw in his friend the last and best shot of the Renaissance to recover ancient virtue. In the Discours, which inspired Montaigne to meet its author, La Boetie boldly hoped that over French poetry "bientot les Grecs ni les Latins n'auront guere ... le droit d'a1nesse [soon the Greeks and Romans will hardly have . .. rights of seniority]" (I6o).24 After they met, Montaigne and La Boetie sought to have their friendship rival ancient examples of amicitia. Montaigne makes this ambition clear in the letter he wrote to his father describing La Boetie's death. According to Montaigne, the bedridden La Boetie willed his books to his friend with these words:

Mon frere, dit--il, que j'ayme si cherement, & que j'avois choisy parmy tant d'hommes, pour renouveller avec vous ceste vertueuse

& sincere amitie, de laquelle l'usage est par les vices des si long temps esloigne d'entre nous, qu'il n'en reste que quelques vieilles traces en la memoire de l'antiquite: Je vous supplie pour signal de mon affection envers vous, vouloir estre successeur de rna Biblio-­ thecque & de mes livres, que je vous donne: present bien petit, mais qui part de bon cueur: & que vous est convenable pour l'affection

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que vous avez aux lettres. Ce vous sera mnemosunon tui sodalis. (1352 )25 [My brother, whom I love so dearly and whom I chose out of so many men in order to renew with you that virtuous and sincere friendship, the practice of which has for so long been driven from among us by our vices that there remain of it only a few old traces in the memory of antiquity, I entreat you to accept as a legacy my library and my books, which I give you as a sign of my affection toward you: a very small present, but one which comes from a willing heart and which is appropriate for you because of your fondness for letters. It will be a remembrance of your friend.]

(rosa) Alive, La Boetie inspired Montaigne to join him in his pursuit of ancient grandeur. Dead, La Boetie provided Montaigne with the field of ruins where he could cultivate his Essais. Back in the Essais, Montaigne remembers his friend as a man "[A]

a

la

vieille marque [of the old stamp]," who would have produced, given a longer life, "grands effects [great results]" (659/soo). This description (in "De la pre£sumption [Of Presumption]" [2.17]) of La Boetie's potential effect recalls another passage in "De l'amitie" where Montaigne implies that his feelings for La Boetie empower and shape the Essais. The intensity of this passion surpasses even what the ancient theories of friendship could account for: [A] Tout ainsi que cil qui fut rencontre a chevauchons sur un baton, se jouant avec ses enfants, pria l'homme qui l'y surprint, de n'en rien dire, jusques a ce qu'il fut pere luy--mesme, estimant que la passion qui luy naistroit lors en l'ame le rendroit juge equitable d'une telle action: je souhaiterois aussi parler

a

des gens qui eussent essaye ce

que je dis. Mais, s<;achant combien c'est chose eslongnee du com-­ mun usage qu'une telle amitie, et combien elle est rare, je ne m'at-­ tens pas d'en trouver aucun bon juge. Car les discours mesmes que l'antiquite nous a laisse sur ce subject, me semblent laches au pris du sentiment que j'en ay. Et, en ce poinct, les effects surpassent les pre-­ ceptes mesmes de la philosophie. ( I 92) []ust as the man who was found astride a stick, playing with his children, asked the man who surprised him thus to say nothing about it until he was a father himself, in the belief that the passion which would then be born in

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his soul would make him an equitable judge of such an act, so I should like to talk to people who have experienced what I tell. But knowing how far from common usage and how rare such a friendship is, I do not expect to find any good judge of it. For the very discourses that antiquity has left us on this subject seem to me weak compared with the feeling I have. And in this particular the facts surpass even the precepts of philosophy.] ( 142-43) In the typography of the Essais published during Montaigne's lifetime, fs closely resembles's. The word "effects," therefore, looks as well as sounds a lot like "essais." This visual similarity suggests that the Essais are the effects of friendship and are thus written to express the sensation of having known La Boetie. Furthermore, the typographical relation between effects and essais identifies the latter as ruins of the former. Because the long s constitutes the stem of the f without the crosspiece, the "ss" of "essais" are fragments of the "ff' of "effects."26 Montaigne defines his work as the art of deconstruction. The negative archaeology of the Essais also surfaces through Mon-­ taigne's most famous and direct attempt to explain his feelings for La Boetie: "[A] Si on me presse de dire pourquoy je l'aymois, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer, [C] qu'en respondant: Par ce que c'estoit luy; par ce que c'estoit moy [If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I]" (I.28.I88/139). "Par ce que c'estoit luy; par ce que c'estoit moy" is an instance of parataxis. Montaigne juxtaposes two dependent clauses while omitting any connective that would clarify their relation. Such disjunctive writing occurs rarely in the Renaissance, but even in Montaigne "par ce que c'estoit luy; par ce que c'estoit moy" is extraordinarily incoherent. Montaigne wrote it as a marginal addition to the 1588 Essais, one of the hundreds of allongeails that signal the unfinished nature of his work. Fur-­ thermore, the actual emendation is written in two different inks and thus likely at two different times. Even what editors print as a period (after "moy") in fact looks more like what the curator of the Bordeaux manu-­ script described to me as a "point baveux" (drooling end--stop) or a comma. Perhaps Montaigne intended to continue, so that what he says represents only part of what he could or wanted to say about his great friend. One commentator has read this statement as sublime by comparing it to the trend--setting translation of Longinus made by Boileau in the seventeenth century.27 According to this reading, Montaigne anticipates Boileau's

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interest in a discourse that conveys the force of the real by disjoining it from all real attributes. A stronger and more native connection to sublimity exists here than

such an analysis suggests, however. Like the ruins of Rome in the Journal, the fragments of syntax in "De l'amitie" say more by saying less. Montaigne represents a wealth of emotion by impoverishing his prose. We have traced through the two previous essays the development of a theory and practice of sublimity to suit skepticism (and vice versa). From this perspective, the stylistic experiment of "De l'amitie" looks less like the anticipation of an Enlightenment vogue than the culmination of the work on the idea of

suffisance that "De !'institution," "C'est folie," and "De l'amitie" collec-­ tively undertake. The climactic ruin of the third essay takes shape under the pressure of the skepticism of the previous two, a skepticism itself forged by Montaigne's critique of wonder as an inadequate response to grandeur. Our effort to uncover the basis of the skepticism of the Essais has exposed their sublimity. The skepticism of "C'est folie" tears open the end of wonder. This rupture, in turn, is both prepared by the discussion of vio-­ lent citation in "De !'institution" and developed into the practice of frag-­ mentary writing in "De l'amitie." The Essais are the effects of Montaigne's love for La Boetie, and the more completely they attempt to express this sensation, the more completely they fall apart. Their most sensational moment is the moment when their characteristic fragmentation reaches its most intense pitch on every level down to punctuation and ink. Through their skepticism, the Essais ruin great things in order to express and appropriate their power. My first line of inquiry into the Essais began with "C'est folie" and its skepticism. I now want to start again, but with the sublimity of "Du jeune Caton" instead. Critics have identified this essay as sublime primarily by connecting it to Longinus.28 Montaigne's essay about the great Roman leads him into a discussion of great poetry that resembles its discussion in

Peri hypsous. This similarity indicates, according to these critics, that Montaigne knew and was influenced by the Hellenistic treatise. Despite such analyses, there is much more, or rather, as I will argue, less to say about this essay. My reading considers not so much the matter of whether or to what extent Longinus may have influenced Montaigne as the matter of why and how the appeal to a certain register of grandeur occurs in the essay. Sublimity for Montaigne does not depend on any references to Longinus, which may or may not exist-the efforts to identify such refer-­ ences remain, in my opinion, inconclusive. Rather, sublimity is the func-­ tion of the shortcomings of all references to the grandeur that paradoxi--

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cally constitutes the subject of an essay unable to refer to it. The sublime emerges through a series of detachments from grandeur, detachments that are the effects of a skepticism itself caused by a relentlessly demanding notion of eminence. Interpretations of "Du jeune Caton" as sublime focus tightly on the ecstatic allongeail that dominates the end of the essay. I will widen the focus to the entire text and beyond in order to argue that the climactic sublimities of the allongeail form part of a pattern that develops throughout "Du jeune Caton" and the series of essays to which it belongs. In doing so, I will suggest that a Catonian notion of sublimity develops in the first book of the Essais. Of course, Montaigne has heroes other than Cato-Alexander the Great, Epaminondas (the Theban general), Julian the Apostate, and especially Socrates, whom Montaigne seems to prefer to Cato in "De la phisionomie" (1037-38B).29 However, my argument con-­ cerns not Montaigne's respect for ancient figures as moral exemplars but rather his use of one such figure to conceive the style of his prose. While I treat the Catonian sublime, a treatment of the Socratic sublime is also pos-­ sible, since Socrates represents for Montaigne a way to write as well as live: [B] Socrates faict mouvoir son arne d'un mouvement naturel et commun. Ainsi diet un paysan, ainsi diet une femme. [C] Il n'a jamais en la bouche que cochers, menuisiers, savetiers et ma<;ons. [B] Ce sont inductions et similitudes tirees des plus vulgaires et cogneues actions des hommes; chacun 1' entend. ( I 037)

[Socrates makes his soul move with a natural and common motion. So says a peasant, so says a woman. His mouth is full of nothing but carters, joiners, cobblers, and masons. His are inductions and similes drawn from the commonest and best---known actions of men; everyone understands him.] (793) Socrates' language fascinates Montaigne insofar as it expresses grandeur paradoxically through simple and even crude forms of expression. Mon-­ taigne's juxtaposition of Cato and Socrates, therefore, signals not only a moral difference between them but also an aesthetic continuity from one to the other. Montaigne's interest in Cato prepares his investment in Socrates. It is this kind of interrelation that eludes, in my opinion, the teleological view of the Essais originally proposed by Villey and still held by some critics today. If Montaigne's thought and art go through stages, these do not necessarily preclude one another, and insofar as Montaigne

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retains and elaborates his Catonian essays through I592, he never aban-­ dons Cato as a figure of grandeur. Montaigne's first substantial reference to Cato occurs in "De l'institu-­ tion," where earlier we found Montaigne's description of his combative approach to citation. In fact, Montaigne discusses fragmentary writing as well as citing in "De !'institution." Toward the end of the essay, Mon-­ taigne criticizes the polished, well--rounded eloquence classically advo-­ cated by Cicero and opposes to it a discourse characterized by ruggedness, difficulty, and even incoherence. Citing Horace, Montaigne recommends dismemberment as the test of good poetry: even the scattered pieces ("dis--­ jecti membra") of a good poem will be beautiful: "[A] les pieces mesmes en seront belles" (I 70). "Le parler que j 'ayme," continues Montaigne, [A] c'est un parler simple et naif, tel sur le papier qu'a la bouche; un parler succulent et nerveux, court et serre, [C] non tant delicat et peigne comme vehement et brusque: HC£c demum sapiet dictio, que£ feriet, [A] plustost difficile qu'ennuieux, esloingne d'affectation, desregle, descousu et hardy: chaque lopin y face son corps. (I 7I-72) [The speech I love is a simple, natural speech, the same on paper as in the mouth; a speech succulent and sinewy, brief and compressed, not so much dainty and well---combed as vehement and brusque: The speech that strikes the mind will have most taste; rather difficult than boring, remote from affectation, irregular, disconnected and bold; each bit mak--­ ing a body in itself.] (I 2 7)

A certain lack of articulation strengthens speech. It is according to this logic that speech that is "descousu" ("disjointed"; literally "torn" or "unsewn") can also be "nerveux" ("solid"; literally "possessing strong liga-­ ments or tendons"). Just before Montaigne discusses this preference for a broken style, he mentions Cato for the last time in the Essais prior to "Du jeune Caton": "[A] Au fort de l'eloquence de Cicero, plusieurs en entroient en admiration; mais Caton, n'en faisant que rire: Nous avons, disoit--il, un plaisant consul [When Cicero's eloquence was at its height, many were struck with admiration; but Cato only laughed and said: 'We have an amusing consul']" (I 70/I 26). This confrontation between Cato and Cicero introduces the issue of fragmentary writing in several ways. First, whereas Cicero was famous for the copiousness of his compositions,3° Cato was famous for cutting himself into pieces: as Montaigne puts it in "Du dormir [Of Sleep]" (I.44), Cato lit--

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erally undid himself ("[A] se deffaire" [271]) when he tore into his own bowels rather than live under Julius Caesar in the aftermath of the Roman republic. Cato's suicide appealed to Montaigne aesthetically as well as politically.31 As a hero admired for autodismemberment, Cato's special style of dying suggested a special style of writing, an alternative to the grand style of Cicero. Second, because Cato built his reputation by demolishing himself, he also represented the problem of Renaissance grandeur. In the

Life of Phocion (the companion to the Life of Cato in the edition of the Par--­ allel Lives read by Montaigne), Plutarch compares Phocion to Cato, whose l'innocence ancienne, etant deja de si longtemps sortie hors d'usage, et venant lors apres si long intervalle a se montrer parmi les vies corrompues et les mceurs gatees de ce temps--la, lui acquit une grande gloire et grande renommee; mais, au demeurant, elle ne se trouva pas sortable a mettre en ceuvre, ni propre a employer aux affaires, parce que la gravite et perfection de sa vertu etait dispro-­ portionnee a la corruption de ce siecle--la. (2.490 )32

[old---fashioned character . . . which, after a long lapse of time, made its appearance among lives that were corrupted and customs that were debased, enjoyed great repute and fame, but was not suited to the needs of men because of the weight and grandeur of its virtue, which were out of all proportion to the immediate times.] ( 8. I 5 I) 33 Even in antiquity, Cato was too great for the times. Montaigne found in Plutarch a portrait of Cato that raised the problem of grandeur in a small age and suggested a ruinous solution.34 Third, Cato offers-or rather, Montaigne makes Cato offer-the possibility of surpassing Ciceronian wonder through sublimity. Montaigne takes the anecdote about Cato and Cicero in "De !'institution" from Plutarch's Life of Cicero. Plutarch describes Cicero as particularly good at mockery and cites his public ridicule of Cato's Stoicism as an example of this talent. According to Plutarch, Cicero's joke made everyone laugh except Cato himself, who quipped, "Que nous avons un grand rieur et un grand moqueur de consul seigneurs [what a great laugher and joker of a consul we have, gentle-­ men]!" (2.795). Montaigne's revision of Plutarch anticipates the sublimity of "Du jeune Caton." According to Plutarch, the public laughs in response to Cicero's deft mockery of Cato; in Montaigne's version, the public admires Cicero's eloquence and it is Cato who has the last laugh. Mon-­ taigne makes Cicero stand for an admiration that Cato reveals as incom--

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plete. In doing so, Montaigne implies that since Cato laughs at what nor-­ mally induces wonder, he may have more than wonder to offer. In light of Cato's associations in Plutarch and Montaigne with dis-­ memberment, grandeur, anti--Ciceronianism, and superwonderful elo-­ quence, it makes sense that "Du jeune Caton" would concern sublimity. The critical consensus about the essay, therefore, is generally right. How-­ ever, "Du jeune Caton" is not sublime because it adheres to a Longinian notion of grandeur. Rather, it is sublime because in it Montaigne estab-­ lishes the Essais as an alternative testimony of grandeur by adhering to no notion of grandeur whatsoever. "Du jeune Caton" belongs to a line of essays, including "De la coustume et de ne changer aisement une loy receue [Of Custom, and Not Easily Changing an Accepted Law]" (1.23), "Des cannibales [Of Cannibals]" (1.31), and "De l'usage de se vestir [Of the Custom of Wearing Clothes]"

( I. 36), in which Montaigne cultivates an anthropology of skeptical detachment. In the latter essay, for example, Montaigne establishes the diversity of forms assumed by human beings by observing the variety of their sartorial customs. In doing so, Montaigne nourishes an anthropology made possible by skepticism. Montaigne's observation of diversity casts doubt on the existence of any trait essential to humans that would distin-­ guish them from animals. The erosion of this distinction transforms man into another object of science to be studied on equal terms with animals, plants, and minerals. "De l'usage de se vestir," like "De la coustume" and "Des cannibales," merges the categories of human being and creature and thus creates a basis for what would eventually become the modern study of mankind.35 The first two sentences of "Du jeune Caton"-"[A] Je n'ay point cette erreur commune de juger d'un autre selon que je suis. J'en croy aysement des chases diverses

a

moy [I do not share that common error of judging

another by myself. I easily believe that another man may have qualities different from mine]" (229/169)-sustain the concern of "Du l'usage de se vestir" with the diversity of forms assumed by human beings. Montaigne declares the absence of a common standard to apply in one's judgments of others. Basic to "Du jeune Caton" is thus a skepticism that involves the admission of diversity and the practice of detachment. As an essay about an eminent Roman, one would expect "Du jeune Caton" to bring the skepticism inherited from "De l'usage de se vestir" to bear on the issue of grandeur. And in fact Montaigne quickly juxtaposes his refusal to judge with his capacity to honor what is great:

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[C] Pour n'estre continent, je ne laisse d'advouer sincerement la continence des Feuillans et des Capuchins, et de bien trouver l'air de leur train: je m'insinue, par imagination, fort bien en leur place. Et si les ayme et les honore d'autant plus qu'il sont autres que moy. Je desire singulierement qu'on nous juge chascun a part soy, et qu'on ne me tire en consequence des communs exemples. [A] Ma foiblesse n'altere aucunement les opinions que je dois avoir de la force et vigueur de ceux qui le meri tent. [C] Sunt qui nihil laudent, nisi quod

se imitari posse confidunt. [A] Rampant au limon de la terre, je ne laisse pas de remerquer, jusques dans les nues, la hauteur inimitable d'aucunes ames heroi:ques. (229) [I do not fail, just because I am not continent, to acknowledge sincerely the continence of the Feuillants and the Capuchins, and to admire the manner of their life. I can very well insinuate myself by imagination into their place, and I love and honor them all the more because they are dif-­ ferent from me. I have a singular desire that we should each be judged in ourselves apart, and that I may not be measured in conformity with the common patterns. My weakness in no way alters my necessarily high regard for the strength and vigor of those who deserve it. There are men who praise nothing except what they are confident they can imi-­ tate. Crawling in the slime of the earth, I do not fail to observe, even in the clouds, the inimitable loftiness of certain heroic souls.] (I 6g) However limited Montaigne's own capacities, they do not prevent him from appreciating the capacities of others. The fact that Montaigne insists on his skeptical appreciation of grandeur repeatedly-four times in the passage just cited-indicates the extent to which such appreciation resists conventional wisdoms of the Renaissance. The restriction of judgment by skepticism prevents the con-­ tact that appraisals of grandeur usually require. In my first chapter, we saw that Montaignian doubt releases the grasp of eminence supposed by admir-­ ing meditations on Roman ruins. Because skepticism undoes adherence to all beliefs and theories, it prevents the apprehensions assumed by them. This is why in "Du jeune Caton" Montaigne mentions standard ways to recuperate grandeur only to reject them as dead ends. He avoids judgments according to the "communs exemples"; the "hauteur" he notices in others is "inimitable." The systems of exemplarity and imitation belonged to a group of strategies developed in the Renaissance to make ancient grandeur

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reappear in a modern setting. Montaigne's doubt undermines the emi-­ nence that such strategies were devised to recover. However, Montaigne's skepticism does not simply eliminate Renais-­ sance procedures of representation; it also replaces them. More than deny that his skeptical detachment implies insensitivity, Montaigne claims that the opposite is true. "D'autant plus" suggests that skepticism actually gen-­ erates honor. Montaigne's incapacity to judge others augments his capac-­ ity to respect them. It is precisely the corrosive action of Montaigne's skep-­ ticism that constitutes his testimony of Cato's eminence. How this can be so is what "Du jeune Caton" is about. "Du jeune Caton" concerns how skepticism provides superior access to grandeur than do the routes so far established by Renaissance culture. Montaigne's reference to Cicero on competing forms of eloquence confirms this concern. The citation, from the Tusculan Disputations, has Cicero saying that some men only respect what they can reproduce. Such men presume their own genus dicendi to be the highest of high styles. In the context of the Disputations, Cicero defends his style against Attic elo-­ quence. In doing so, he unhesitatingly refers to his style as the most emi-­ nent ("bene dicendi finis" [2. I. 3]) .36 Montaigne, however, in appropriat-­ ing Cicero's depiction of his rhetorical enemies, interrupts Cicero's self--satisfied references to his own style. By humbling Ciceronian arro-­ gance, Montaigne argues not only that praise and the failure of imitation are compatible (as does Cicero), but also that they are interdependent. For Cicero, praise may succeed when imitation fails; for Montaigne, imitation must fail for praise to succeed. This interest in relating doubt and grandeur despite Renaissance con-­ vention shapes the entire essay. Montaigne writes about Cato by resisting the knowledge of him supposed by representations of eminence. Through-­ out "Du jeune Caton" Montaigne dismantles a series of standard construc-­ tions of grandeur as he tests the power of skeptical detachment. By refus-­ ing to understand Cato, Montaigne intensifies his connection to him. We have already noticed the collapses of imitation and exemplarity. The rest of the essay is strewn with more debris of reconstructions of ancient virtue, the chief quality of Catonian grandeur. Each attempt to reconstruct comes up short, and yet these shortcomings collectively yield a sense of how great Cato was. Another instance of detachment follows Montaigne's lament that "[A] il ne se recognoit plus d'action vertueuse [there are no more virtuous actions to be seen]" (230/1 70 ). This pessimism about present virtue never--

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theless implies its existence in the past, and so leads Montaigne to con-­ sider an example of ancient virtue:

[C] En cette grande bataille de Potidee que les Grecs sous Pausanias gaignerent contre Mardonius et les Perses, les victorieux, suivant leur coustume, venants a partir entre eux la gloire de 1' exploit, attribuerent a la nation Spartiate la precellence de valeur en ce combat. Les Spartiates, excellens juges de la vertu, quand il vin-­ drent a decider a quel particulier debvoit demeurer l'honneur d'avoir le mieux faict en cette journee, trouverent qu'Aristodeme s'estoit le plus courageusement hazarde; mais pourtant ils ne luy en donnerent point le prix, par ce que sa vertu avoit este incitee du desir de se purger du reproche qu'il avoit encouru au faict des Ther-­ mopyles, et d'un appetit de mourir courageusement pour garantir sa honte passee. (230)

[In that great battle of Potidaea that the Greeks under Pausanias won against Mardonius and the Persians, the victors, according to their cus--­ tom, when they came to divide among themselves the glory of the exploit, attributed to the Spartan nation the preeminence of valor in this combat. The Spartans, excellent judges of valor, when they came to decide to what particular man should go the honor of having done best on that day, found that Aristodemus had hazarded his life the most courageously; but they did not give him the prize, because his valor had been incited by the desire to purge himself of the reproach he had incurred in the Thermopylae action, and by a craving to die courageously in order to make up for his past shame.] (I 70) After winning the battle of Potidaea, the Spartans-"excellens juges de la vertu"-sought to decide whom to honor most highly. They had observed the singular courage of Aristodemus, but still withheld the prize from him. Montaigne's story suggests that the ancients had as much trouble judging virtue as do the moderns. However, in Herodotus, Montaigne's source for this story, the Spartans' uncertainty about the virtue of Aristodemus is momentary and succeeded immediately by the honors conferred by them instead.37 By suppressing these successful judgments, Montaigne erases antiquity as the site of grandeur that he just implied it to be. In Montaigne's version of the Spartan attempt to judge virtue, the word "mais [but]" represents the breaking point, where skeptical detach--

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ment undoes the apprehension of grandeur. Mais occurs six more times in "Du jeune Caton" (about a page and a half in the Villey edition), includ-­ ing four appearances in the allongeail. The fact that the allongeail culmi-­ nates a pattern introduced earlier in the essay means that its sublimity is not the isolated event that commentators have taken it to be. At the end of "Du jeune Caton," the fragments wrought by skepticism throughout the essay amount to a sublime ruin. Mais continues to fragment grandeur in its further appearances before

the allongeail. Montaigne condemns the "mesdisances [calumny]" of those who attribute vicious intentions to noble acts and denigrate their agents, whom he vows to "[C] recharger d'honneur, autant que mon invention pourroit en interpretation et favorable circonstance [restore to their places of honor, as far as my ingenuity allows me to interpret them in a favorable light]" (23I/I7o). This optimism about his restorative capaci-­ ties immediately buckles, however: "[C] Mais il faut croire que les efforts de nostre conception sont loing au--dessous de leur merite [But we are forced to believe that our powers of conception are far beneath their merit]" (23I/I7o). This fall, in turn, gives way to another rise, as Mon-­ taigne proceeds to suggest that worthy people can movingly represent virtue: "[C] C'est l'office des gens de bien de peindre la vertu la plus belle qui se puisse; et ne nous messieroit pas, quand la passion nous trans-­ porteroit a la faveur de si sainctes formes [It is the duty of good men to portray virtue as being as beautiful as possible; and it would not be unbe-­ coming to us if passion carried us away in favor of such sacred models]" (I 70/23I). Montaigne then upholds the integrity of Cato's "belle action" despite the blinkered perception of those who fail to see it, "[A] pour n'avoir pas la veue assez forte et assez nette pour concevoir la splendeur de la vertu en sa purete naifve [from not having their sight strong enough and clear enough, or properly trained, to conceive of the splendor of virtue in its native purity]" (23I/I7o). But this bridge to Catonian grandeur also collapses with a third mais: "[A] Mais je ne suis pas icy a mesmes pour traicter ce riche argument [But I am not equipped to treat this rich subject here]" (23I/I 7I). As earlier in the essay, the ties to grandeur successively made and undone by Montaigne consist of notions important to the poetic and rhetorical culture of Renaissance France. Earlier, Montaigne implied the limitations of imitation and exemplarity as paths to glory. Here "inven-­ tion" and "naivete" fall short. Like the former pair, these concepts were deployed by theorists to claim and explain the power of new literature to

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re--create the contact with grandeur that the ancients enjoyed. They were used particularly to explain the inspired and inspirational status of the Renaissance poet in touch with the Muses.38 The third mais appears on the verge of the famous allongeail. In the first

(I s8o) version of the essay, Montaigne would then have said that he only wants to "[A] faire luiter ensemble les traits de cinq poetes Latins sur la louange de Caton [put into contention the lines of five Latin poets in praise of Cato]" (2 3 I/I 7 I), and then he would have offered the "traits" themselves. Montaigne substitutes Latin "traits" for what would have been his "traitement" if he had felt himself capable of it. The allongeail itself is confusing. It describes how five "traits" should be found, while also describing three ways in which Montaigne has been diversely moved by poetry, corresponding to three poets. It also describes, on the one hand, the feeling of the properly nurtured, and, on the other hand, Montaigne's own natural feeling. In the allongeail, the one kind of elevation certainly recognizable to French Renaissance readers is not Longinian but Platonic:

[C] Elle ne pratique point nostre jugement: elle le ravit et ravage. La fureur qui espoin<;onne celuy qui la s<;ait penetrer, fiert encores un tiers ala luy ouyr traitter et reciter: comme l'aymant, non seulement attire un' aiguille, mais infond encores en icelle sa faculte d'en attirer d'autres. Et il se void plus clairement aux theatres, que l'in-­ spiration sacree des muses, ayant premierement agite le poete a la cholere, au deuil, a la hayne, et hors de soy ou elles veulent, frappe encore tout un peuple. C'est 1' enfileure de noz aiguilles, suspendues l'une de l'autre. Des rna prerniere enfance, la poesie a eu cela, de rne transpercer et transporter. (2 3 2)

[It does not persuade our judgment, it ravishes and overwhelms it. The frenzy that goads the man who can penetrate it also strikes a third person on hearing him discuss it and recite it, as a magnet not only attracts a nee-­ dle but infuses into it its own faculty of attracting others. And it is seen more clearly in the theater that the sacred inspiration of the muses, after first stirring the poet to anger, sorrow, and hatred and transporting him out of himself wherever they will, then through the poet strikes the actor, and through the actor consecutively a whole crowd. It is the chain of our needles, hanging one from the other. From my earliest childhood poetry has had that power to transpierce and transport me.] (I 7 I)

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Montaigne's use of the figure of magnetism to suggest how poetry is both inspired and inspiring stems ultimately from Plato's Ion and more locally from Marsilio Ficino's Platonic translations and commentaries and from the Pleiade. In Plato's dialogue, Socrates attributes poetry to a "divine force," whose effect he compares to that of a magnet, which not only pulls [iron rings], it also puts power in the rings, so that they in turn can do just what the [magnet] does-pull other rings­ so that there's sometimes a very long chain of iron pieces and rings hanging from one another. And the power in all of them depends on this [magnet]. In the same way, the Muse makes some people inspired herself, and then through those who are inspired a chain of other enthusiasts is suspended. (533D-E)39 Just as a magnet magnetizes a ring, which in turn magnetizes a second ring, which in turn magnetizes a third, and so forth, so the Muse inspires the poet, who in turn inspires the readers of his poetry. Ficino, particularly in his letter on divino furore and in his commen-­ taries on the Ion, the Symposium, and the Phaedrus (which he also trans-­ lated into Latin as part of his Platonis Opera omnia), developed this account of poetic inspiration into a theory of knowledge. This theory per-­ mitted movement from the bottom to the top of the Platonic hierarchy­ from matter to idea, from particular to universal, from man to God. Ficino plotted these trajectories along a series of "furies" or degrees of spiritual elevation. The human soul, once fallen into the body, must ascend through four such "furies" (poetry, mystery, prophecy, and love) in order to reunite with God and thereby achieve enlightenment.4° Ficino's Neopla-­ tonic theory of inspiration, along with the figure of the magnet that he also borrowed from Plato, spread widely in sixteenth--century France.41 Among its most important purveyors was the group of poets known as the Plei-­ ade.42 Its leader Pierre de Ronsard sought to elevate his own status as well as that of poetry itself by publishing his Quatre premiers livres des odes in 1550. On the one hand, as he makes obvious in the "Ode au Roy Henry II," Ronsard jockeys for position-and money-at court.43 Ronsard implies that the king will get a bigger bang for his buck by supporting a poet who writes long poems (i.e., odes, and eventually an epic) than by supporting a poet who writes short ones (i.e., sonnets). On the other hand, by supplementing his imitation of the Pindaric ode with Ficinian fury, Ronsard confers on poetry a special independence. In the "Ode a Michel de l'Hospital," Jupiter proclaims to the Muses:

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Vostre mestier, race gentille, Les autres mestiers passera, D'autant qu'esclave il ne sera De l'art aux Muses inutile. Par art le navigateur Dans la mer manie et vire La bride de son navire: Par art plaide l'Orateur, Par art les Rois sont guerriers, Par art se font les ouvriers: Mais si vaine experience Vous n'aurez de tel erreur, Sans plus rna sainte fureur Polira vostre science. Comme l'Aimant sa force inspire Au fer qui le touche de pres, Puis soudain ce fer tire tire Un autre qui en tire apres: Ainsi du bon fils de Latonne Je raviray l'esprit a moy, Luy, du pouvoir que je luy donne, Ravira les vostres a soy: Vous par la force Apollinee Ravirez les Poetes saints, Eux de vostre puissance attaints Raviront la tourbe estonnee.

[Your craft, 0 noble breed, will surpass other crafts, inasmuch as it will not be the slave of technical skill, which is of no use to the Muses. Through technical skill the navigator at sea controls and pulls the reins of his ship; through technical skill the Orator pleads his case, through technical skill Kings becomes warriors, through technical skill artisans learn their trade; but you will not have the sterile experience of such an aberration, because my divine fury will suffice to perfect your erudition. Just as the Magnet communicates its force to a piece of iron that comes into close contact with it, and then instantly this iron, which is attracted, attracts another, which attracts others after it, just so shall I ravish the spirit of Latona's noble son, while he in turn, with the power that I give him, will ravish your spirits; you, by the might of Apollo, will ravish the saintly Poets, while they, under the influence of your potency, will ravish the awestruck multitude. }44

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Ronsard recruits the notion of fury, and its comparison to a magnet, in order to claim that poetic creation and reception depend on nothing but God. In this Neoplatonic light, poetry has an eminence impervious to values based in other domains, even royal ones. Divine fury thus pro-­ vides poetic activity with the ultimate authority, protecting poetry against the attempts of its artistic, intellectual, and political rivals to degrade its status. 45 Once Montaigne displays the Neoplatonic chain of transports, stretch-­ ing from the aesthetic experience of readers to the divinity that inspired the ancient poets, he breaks the sequence with another mais: [C] Mais ce ressentiment bien vif qui est naturellement en moy, a este diversement manie par diversite de formes, non tant plus hautes et plus basses (car c'estoient toujours des plus hautes en chaque espece) comme differentes en couleur: premieretnent une fluidite gaye et ingenieuse; depuis une subtilite aigue et relevee; enfin une force meure et constante. (232)

[But this very lively feeling that is natural in me has been variously affected by a variety of forms, not so much higher or lower (for they were always of the highest in each kind) as different in color: first a gay and ingenious fluency; then a keen and lofty subtlety; finally a mature and constant power.] (I 7 I) By introducing the diverse ways that poetry moves him, Montaigne inter-­ rupts the soul's contact with divinity that poetry enables for Renaissance Neoplatonism. Montaigne refuses to ascend the Neoplatonic ladder that leads to human recollection of originary grandeur. Montaigne's abandon-­ ment of the Neoplatonic scale signals its insufficiency as a measure of the sublimity that interests him. On the whole, "Du jeune Caton" (especially the allongeail) experiments with a series of responses or strategies or notions that all concern grandeur, how to represent it, imitate it, honor it: invention, imitation, admiration, education, naivete, fury. Each of these notions Montaigne brings up and cuts down, so that "Du jeune Caton" represents their failures. Montaigne makes a wreck out of these notions by variously depriving them of their theoretical support systems or by adding reservations about their adequacy. Having undercut perhaps the most extravagant Renaissance theory of how poetry communicates grandeur (furor poeticus), Montaigne moves to

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poetry itself, the "traits" he originally promised, five Latin, poetic descrip-­ tions of Cato: [A] Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel CC£sare major, diet l'un. Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem, diet l'autre. Et l'autre, parlant des guerres civiles d'entre CC£sar et Pompeius, Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. Et le quatriesme, sur les louanges de CC£sar: Et cuncta ter--­ rarum subacta, / PrC£ter atrocem animum Catonis. Et le maistre du chceur, apres avoir etale les noms des plus grands Romains en sa peinture, finit en cette maniere: his dantem jura Catonem. (232) [Let Cato outdo even Caesar, while he lives, says one. Cato unvan-­ quished, having vanquished death, says another. And another, speak--­ ing of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, The gods chose the victorious case, Cato the vanquished. And the fourth, in praise of Caesar: This earth of ours he subjugated whole, /Excepting Cato's unrelenting soul. And the master of the choir, after displaying in his painting the names of the greatest Romans, ends in this wise: And Cato, giving them their laws.] (I 7 I -72) Here in the final exertion of the essay detachment becomes ruin. Mon-­ taigne takes assorted fragments of Roman verse and scatters the field of his French with their Latin. He gives Virgil the last word but permits only the hemistich left over from tearing the original verse apart at the caesura. (The entire line reads, "secretosque pios, his dantem iura Catonem [and far apart, the good, with Cato giving them laws].")46 As Montaigne does in the Journal, he creates through skeptical detachments a Roman ruin that pre-­ sents grandeur by preventing its conception. "Du jeune Caton" does not adhere to the Longinian sublime or to any one notion of elevation so much as it presents and prevents a series of attempts to testify to the ancient grandeur that Cato embodies. Each of these efforts falls short, as an implicit skepticism perpetually insists on the inconceivability of Catonian emi-­ nence. The result, however fragmentary, is sublime: these shortcomings collectively attest to the "hauteur inimitable" that is the basic concern of the essay. Montaigne's skeptical refusal to embrace any one testimony of grandeur signals the sublimity of the grandeur in question. The explosion that punctuates "Du jeune Caton" does not exhaust the ruinous energy that Montaigne conducts through his Roman hero. The following essays harness it. In "Comme nous pleurons et rions d'une

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mesme chose [How We Cry and Laugh for the Same Thing]" (1.38), "De la solitude [Of Solitude]" (1.39), and "Consideration sur Ciceron [A Con-­ sideration upon Cicero]" ( I .40) Montaigne uses the power of ruin to drive and orient his discourse over a series of key issues: the soul, language, free-­ dom, and the style of the Essais. In "Comme nous pleurons et rions" Montaigne uses Catonian dismem-­ berment to craft notions of a mercurial soul and its language. The essay begins by recounting the reactions of four victors to the defeats of their enemies:

[A] Quand nous rencontrons dans les histoires, qu'Antigonus sceut tres--mauvais gre a son fils de luy avoir presente la teste du Roy Pyrrhus, son ennemy, qui venoit sur l'heure mesme d'estre tue com-­ batant contre luy, et que, l'ayant veue, il se print bien fort a pleurer; et que le Due Rene de Lorraine pleignit aussi la mort du Due Charles de Bourgoigne qu'il venoit de deffaire, et en porta le deuil en son enterrement; et que, en la bataille d'Auroy que le Comte de Montfort gaigna contre Charles de Blois, sa partie pour le Duche de Bretaigne, le victorieux, rencontrant le corps de son ennemy tres-­ passe, en mena grand deuil, il ne faut pas s'escrier soudain: Et cosi

aven che l' animo ciascuna I Sua passion sotto el contrario manto I Rico--­ pre con la vista hor' chiara hor bruna. Quand on presenta a c�sar la ' teste de Pompeius, les histoires disent qu'il en destourna sa veue

comme d'un vilain et mal plaisant spectacle. (233)

[We read in the history books that Antigonus was very angry with his son for having presented him with the head of his enemy King Pyrrhus, who that very moment had been killed fighting against him, and that upon see--­ ing it he began to weep very hard; and that Duke Rene of Lorraine also lamented the death of Duke Charles of Burgundy, whom he had just defeated, and wore mourning at his burial; and that in the battle of Auray, which the count of Montfort won against Charles of Blois, his rival for the duchy of Brittany, the victor, coming upon the body of his dead enemy, showed great sorrow over it. But in reading of these events we should not immediately exclaim: And thus it happens that each soul conceals, I Showing the opposite, now gay, now sad, I The pas-­ sion that it genuinely feels. When they presented Caesar with the head

of Pompey, the histories say, he turned his eyes away as from an ugly and unpleasant sight.] (I 72)

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Although Montaigne's primary interest here is the variety of human responses to the same event, the event that he chooses recalls the previous essay. Defeat in these cases has the literal sense of an undoing. The first and last examples involve decapitation, and to describe the second Mon-­ taigne employs "deffaire," the same verb he uses in "Du dormir" to describe Cato's self--evisceration. Montaigne characteristically concludes from his examples that human souls are "[A] agites de diverses passions [agitated by diverse passions]" (234/173). He then just as characteristically introduces himself as evi-­ dence of such inconsistency: [B] Quand je tance avec mon valet, je tance du meilleur courage que j'aye, ce sont vrayes et non feintes imprecations; mais, cette fumee passee, qu'il ayt besoing de moy, je luy bien feray volontiers: je tourne a l'instant le fueillet. [C] Quand je l'appelle un badin, un veau, je n'entrepren pas de luy coudre a jamais ces tiltres; ny ne pense me desdire pour le nommer tantost honeste homme. (234) [When I scold my valet, I scold him with all my heart; my imprecations are real, not feigned. But when the smoke has blown away, let him need my help, and I am glad to do him a service; I instantly turn over the leaf. When I call him a clown or a calf, I do not undertake to sew those labels on him forever; nor do I think I contradict myself when I presently call him a fine fellow.] (I 73) The mercurial soul requires mercurial equipment. In particular, language must consist of detachable units: its words are non cousus (unsewn), so that they may quit one object and be attached to another.47 Such modular lan-­ guage allows the soul to express its essentially incoherent nature: "[A] voulans de toute cette suite continuer un corps nous nous trompons [we are wrong to try to compose a continuous body out of all this succession of feelings]" (236/174). One may fashion a body from human existence only by ignoring the fact that its members do not fit together. In "Comme nous pleurons et rions" the dismemberment inherited from "Du jeune Caton" informs notions of a soul and a language whose basic feature is discontinuity. Dismemberment also defines the independence of the self that "De la solitude" proposes. According to Montaigne, the estab-­ lishment of selfhood involves the discipline of undoing one's connections to the world. The essay is studded with terms of separation: "a part,"

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"defaire" (four times),"demesler,""descharger,""desprendre,""despetrer," and"desnouer" (twice).As models of constructive detachment Montaigne mentions men-Stilpo and Paulinus-who thrived on fragmentation: [A] Stilpon, estant eschappe de l'embrasement de sa ville, ou il avoit perdu femme, enfans et chevance, Demetrius Poliorcetes, le voyant en une si grande ruine de sa patrie le visage non effraye, luy demanda s'il n'avoit pas eu du dommage. Il respondit que non, et qu'il n'y avoit, Dieu mercy, rien perdu de sien.... Quand la ville de Nole fut ruinee par les Barbares, Paulinus, qui en estoit Evesque, y ayant tout perdu, et leur prisonnier, prioit ainsi Dieu: Seigneur, garde moy de sentir cette perte, car tu s<;ais qu'ils n'ont encore rien touche de Ce qui est a moy. (240-4 I ) [After S tilpo escaped the burning of his city, in which he had lost wife, children, and property, Demetrius Poliorcetes, seeing him unperturbed in expression amid the great ruin of his country, asked him if he had not suf-­ fered loss. No, he replied; thanks to God he had lost nothing of his own. . . . When the city of Nola was ruined by the barbarians, Paulinus, the bishop of the city, who had lost everything and had been taken prisoner, prayed God thus: "Lord, keep me from feeling this loss; for Thou know--­ est that they have yet touched nothing of what is mine."] (I 77)

The disasters that strike Stilpo and Paulinus make rather than break them. In their cases, ruin presents an opportunity to indicate what is inalienably theirs and thus to build a definition of who they essentially are.Their sto-­ ries inspire Montaigne to suggest, in a celebrated passage, the construction of an" [A] arriereboutique [back shop]" (241/1 77), where one is free to be oneself. Toward the end of "De la solitude" the Catonian foundation of this sheltered self becomes obvious.Montaigne refines his notion of solitude by contrasting the views of Pliny and Cicero to those of Epicurus and Seneca on the subject of retirement. He rejects the retirement recommended by the first two as surreptitious engagement: "[A] A ce que je voy, ceux--cy n'ont que les bras et les jambes hors de la presse; leur arne, leur intention y demeure engagee plus que jamais [As far as I can see, these men have only their arms and legs outside the crowd; their souls, their intentions, are more than ever in the thick of it]" (246/182). Montaigne prefers solitude as conceived by the latter pair, who advise,"[A] defaites--vous de tout soing

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de nom et de gloire [rid yourself of all care for reputation and glory]" and "[A] presentez vous toujours en !'imagination Caton, Phocion et Aristides [keep ever in your mind Cato, Phocion, and Aristides]" (247/182-83). The example of Cato encourages the effort to remove the self from worldly concerns. For those who seek models of self-detachment, Cato should come first to mind. In "Consideration sur Ciceron" Montaigne builds Catonian undoing into a theory of what makes the Essais great. He begins by deriding the let-­ ters of Pliny and Cicero, whose retirements he critiqued in "De la soli-­ tude," as "[A] infinis tesmoignages de nature outre mesure ambitieuse [numberless proofs of their immeasurably ambitious nature]" (249/183). Montaigne then justifies this verdict by noting that Pliny and Cicero sought glory from their words rather than from their actions. Tuming once again to himself, he states that he does not like to hear someone praise the language of the Essais. This is for two reasons. To dwell on the style of writing slights its substance. And in the case of the Essais it is their sub-­ stance that deserves attention, because it surpasses the materials of other discourses: "[C] Si suis je trompe, si guere d'autres donnent plus a prendre en la matiere, et comment que ce soit, mal ou bien, si nul escrivain l'a semee ny guere plus materielle ny au mains plus drue en son papier [Yet I am much mistaken if many other writers offer more to take hold of in their material than I do, and, whether for better or for worse, if any writer has sown his materials more substantially or at least more thickly on his paper]" (251/185). Montaigne claims that the Essais are uniquely dense. They function, he suggests, as an optimum facility for intellectual storage, whose form holds a maximum of material. The Essais have more to them per unit of paper and ink than any other book. Montaigne immediately explains how he makes his writing transcendently substantial: [C] Pour en ranger davantage, je n'en entasse que les testes. Que j'y attache leur suitte, je muliplieray plusieurs fois ce volume. Et com-­ bien y ay--je espandu d'histoires qui ne disent mot, lesquelles qui voudra esplucher un peu ingenieusement, en produira infinis Essais. Ny elles, ny mes allegations ne servent pas toujous simplement d'ex-­ emple, d'authorite ou d'ornement. Je ne les regarde pas seulement par l'usage que j'en tire. Elles portent souvent, hors de mon propos, la semence d'une matiere plus riche et plus hardie et sonnent a gauche un ton plus delicat, et pour moy qui n'en veux exprimer d'avantage, et pour ceux qui rencontreront mon air. (251)

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[In order to get more in, I pile up only the headings of subjects. Were I to add on their consequences, I would multiply this volume many times over. And how many stories have I spread around which say nothing of themselves, but from which anyone who troubles to pluck them with a lit--­ tle ingenuity will produce numberless essays. Neither these stories nor my quotations serve always simply for example, authority, or ornament. I do not esteem them solely for the use I derive from them. They often bear, outside of my subject, the seeds of a rich and bolder material, and sound obliquely a subtler note, both for myself, who do not wish to express any--­ thing more, and for those who get my drift.] ( 185) Essay writing involves a process of fragmentation. Before Montaigne inserts material into an essay, he decapitates it, keeping the capital points ("testes") and discarding the rest ("suitte"). This subtraction paradoxically adds to the Essais. As a result of being cut from their bodies, the headings that make it into the text acquire a capacity to communicate excessively, to convey more-more delicacy, more boldness, more richness-than they actually contain. This production of meaning is both positive and nega-­ tive, since the Essais say both more and less: they create another dimen-­ sion by undoing what others have done. What the Essais can do by undoing is sublime. Montaigne sees in his work the potential for "infinis Essais," which echoes his assessment of Cicero's letters as "infinis tesmoignages" of vanity. Montaigne thus claims for his writing the grandeur that he denies to Cicero's. By attributing to his

Essais the fulfillment of Cicero's empty boasting, Montaigne theorizes the inadequacy of the greatness credited traditionally to classical copia and particularly to Ciceronian copia as an ideal of epistolary rhetoric. Like admiratio and furor, copia proves too small to hold the grandeur that Mon-­ taigne feels he must convey. To this point I have investigated ways in which the Essais realize the conception of a ruinous testimony of grandeur suggested in Montaigne's meditation on the ruins of Rome in the Journal de voyage. My hunch was that a moment as charged as the meditation may offer a key to the master-­ work. Testing this hypothesis has led through a stretch of essays in book

I

from "De !'institution des enfants" to "Consideration sur Ciceron." Any such test, however, must confront "De la vanite [Of Vanity]" (3.9). Whereas the essays discussed so far mostly predate the meditation and thus anticipate it, "De la vanite" postdates and reflects on the meditation. "De la vanite" concerns travel and especially Montaigne's visit to Rome. This essay thus promises to extend his meditation and its theory of the Essais.

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"De la vanite" is renowned for the range of its issues and the abruptness of the transitions between the passages that treat them. Five centuries of readers have attempted either to discover its coherence or come to terms with its incoherence. Recent critics have argued that "De la vanite" indeed holds together, albeit by unorthodox means. Notions such as "ecri-­ ture excrementale," "deflexion," and "montage" have emerged as defi .. nitions of a "new poetics" that allows this special integrity.48 The follow-­ ing interpretation of "De la vanite" accepts the idea of a new poetics but defines it as sublimity. The force of this redefinition draws not only on "De la vanite" itself but also on the previous essais analyzed. Montaigne's essays may be modular units, as they are often treated, but they are also parts of a whole. In "De la vanite" the embryonic theory of sublimity evident in "Consideration sur Ciceron" receives its most extensive expression, justification, and mise en ceuvre. When Montaigne writes about "vanite," he writes about writing. He uses the words "vanite" and "vain" to describe the humanity that his Essais express. "Au Lecteur [To the Reader]" concludes, "[A] Ainsi, lecteur, je suis moy--mesmes la matiere de mon livre: ce n'est pas raison que tu employes ton loisir en un subject si frivole et si vain [Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject]" (3/2). In the first essay of the first book ("Par divers moyens on arrive a pareille fin [By Diverse Means We Arrive at the Same End]"), Montaigne applies this judgment of him-­ self to all of humanity: "[C] Certes, c'est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme [Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, undulating object]" (9/5). Ironically, this is one verdict of Mon-­ taigne's judgment that holds steady throughout the Essais. In the last essay of the third book ("De !'experience [Of Experience]"), Montaigne remarks about human laws, "[C] Elles sont souvent faictes par des sots, plus souvent par des gens qui, en haine d'equalite, ont faute d'equite, mais tousjours par des hommes, autheurs vains et irresolus [They are often made by fools, more often by people who, in their hatred of equality, are wanting in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors]" ( 1072/821 ). The vanity of what Montaigne writes implies the vanity of how he writes. An anxiety about style that runs throughout the Essais reaches a crisis at the very start of "De la vanite."49 Referring to this title, Montaigne says, "[B] Il n'en est a l'avanture aucune plus expresse que d'en escrire si vainement [There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly]" (845/721). Montaigne suggests that writing vainly about vanity is an extreme instance of the transgression. He raises the prospect that the

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Essais, like their subject, lead nowhere and amount to nothing. This pos-­ sibility leads Montaigne to wonder whether the "babble" of his age has any point ("[B] Que doit produire le babil [What must prattle produce]?" [946/721]) and whether such longiloquence is a sign of troubled times: "[B] L' escrivaillerie semble estre quelque simptome d'un siecle desborde. Quand escrivismes nous tant que depuis que nous sommes en trouble? quand les Romains tant que lors de leur ruyne? [Scribbling seems to be a sort of symptom of an unruly age. When did we write so much as since our dissensions began? When did the Romans write so much as in the time of their downfall?]" (946/72 I -22). The style of the Essais thus arises immediately as an issue in "De la van-­ ite" and rapidly gets associated with Roman ruin. This association resur-­ faces toward the end of the essay, as we will see. In the interim, Montaigne puts the ruins on a tour of various problems related to travel. This peregri-­ nation of the ruins allows Montaigne to test and develop their construc-­ tive capacity. As a result of these experiments-or essais, as Montaigne would call them-the ruins return to the issue of essayistic style prepared to support its sublimity. Despite his love of travel, Montaigne portrays it as a potentially disrup-­ tive separation from family, friends, and home. This threat inspires Mon-­ taigne to entertain skeptically the possibility that the opposite is true: per-­ haps voyaging promotes not ruin but wholeness. For example, while at home small problems distract Montaigne, on the road they are out of sight and he can see the big picture:

[B] Quand je considere mes affaires de loing et en gros, je trouve, soit pour n'en avoir la memoire guere exacte, qu'ils sont allez jusques a cette heure en prosperant outre mes contes et mes raisons. ]'en retire, ce me semble, plus qu'il n'y en a; leur bon heur me trahit. Mais suis--je au dedans de la besongne, voy--je marcher toutes ces parcelles, Tum ver6 in curas animum diducimur omnes, mille chases m'y donnent a desirer et craindre. (951) [When I consider my affairs from a distance and as a whole, I find, pos--­ sibly because my memory of them is scarcely exact, that they have gotten along until now, and prospered beyond my expectations and calculations. It seems to me that I get more out of them than is in them; their success fools me. But when I am in the midst of the job, and see all these parts in operation, Then is our soul distraught with countless cares, a thou--­ sand things give me reason to desire and fear.] (725)

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Montaigne's absence anesthetizes him to the sensation that things fall apart: "[B] Absent, je me despouille de tous tels pensmens; et sentirois mains lors la ruyne d'une tour que je ne faicts present la cheute d'une ardoyse [Absent from home, I strip off all such thoughts; and I should then feel less the ruin of a tower than I feel, when present, the fall of a tile]" (954/728). In response to the argument that a married traveler impairs the health of his household, Montaigne insists that by strategi-­ cally wedding an efficient housekeeper a man can leave home without destroying it: "[B] La plus utile et honnorable science et occupation a une femme, c'est la science du mesnage....C'est sa maistresse qualite, et qu'on doibt chercher avant tout autre, comme le seul doire qui sert a ruyner ou sauver nos maisons [The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping ....This is her ruling quality, which a man should seek out before any other, as the sole dowry on which the ruin or salvation of our households depends]" (975/745). To the objection that the voyager risks dying alone, Mon-­ taigne counters that death among loved ones has a ruinous effect: "[B] Nous avons loy de nous appuyer, non pas de nous coucher si lourdement sur autruy et nous estayer en leur ruyne [We have a right to lean, but not to lie down so heavily, on others, or to find our support in their ruin]" (981/750). At this point in the essay-nearly two--thirds of the way through-the question of ruin begins to leave the subject of travel and rejoin the matter of writing.The specter of death recalls to Montaigne the impermanence of the Essais. He remarks that the instability of his book obliges him to com-­ pose it not in Latin but in French, a language inclined to volatility: [B] J'escris mon livre a peu d'hommes et a peu d'annees. Si <;'eust este une matiere de duree, il l'eust fallu commettre a un langage plus ferme.Selon la variation continuelle qui a suivy le nostre jusques a cette heure, qui peut esperer que sa forme presente soit en usage, d'icy a cinquante ans? (982)

[I write my book for few men and for few years. If it had been durable matter, it would have had to be committed to a more stable language. In view of the continual variation that has prevailed in ours up to now, who can hope that its present form will be in use fifty years from now?] ( 7 5 I) The civil wars that threaten to tear France apart, furthermore, require a defective form of writing:

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[B] J'apen;ois ...ces desmambremens de la France et divisions ou nous sommes tombez: chacun se travaille a deffendre sa cause, mais, jusques aux meilleurs, avec desguisement et mensonge. Qui en escriroit rondement en escriroit temererement et vitieusement. (993)

[I perceive in the strife that is tearing France to pieces and dividing us into factions, each man labors to defend his cause-but even the best of them resort to dissimulation and lying. Whoever would write about them roundly would write about them rashly and harmfully.] (76o) By "rondement" Montaigne means "forthrightly" or "bluntly" but he also irnplies the Ciceronian well--roundedness that his Essais eschew. As a result of the experimentation I have traced, ruin returns to writing from its tour of travel--related problems charged with senses of wholeness and thus prepared to express and generate the sublimity of a fragmented style.As Montaigne's discussion of potentially ruinous travel increasingly becomes a discussion of potentially ruinous writing, Rome in particular emerges as an authority for how the Essais are written. Montaigne's discussion of his style in "De la vanite" is the most exten-­ sive of the Essais. He addresses in general the disorderly conduct of his dis-­ course and in particular the absence of transitions that would connect firmly his diverse subjects.He does not admit that these disjunctions nec-­ essarily lose the reader; on the contrary, they have the potential to excite and fix attention.Montaigne himself loves "[B] l'alleure poetique, a sauts et a gambades [the poetic gait, by leaps and gambols]" (994/761 ). Such style does not distract Montaigne but rather captivates him: "[B] Je vois au change, indiscrettement et tumultuairement [I seek out change indiscrim-­ inately and tumultuously]" (994/761 ).If attention to the Essais dissipates, it is the fault of the reader, not the writer, who dutifully fulfills "[C] quelque obligation particuliere a ne dire qu'a demy, a dire confusement, a dire discordamment [some personal obligation to speak only by halves, to speak confusedly, to speak discordantly]" (995-96/762 ). The climactic justification of the capacity of the Essais to establish attention on the basis of fragmentation involves Rome and its ruins: [B] J'ay veu ailleurs des maisons ruynees, et des statues, et du ciel, et de la terre: ce sont tousjours des hommes. Tout cela est vray; et si pourtant ne s<;auroy revoir si souvant le tombeau de cette ville, si grande et si puissante, que je ne l'admire et revere. (996)

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8I

[I have seen elsewhere ruined houses, and statues both divine and human: it is always man we are dealing with. All that is true; and yet I could not revisit the tomb of that great and mighty city so often that I would not marvel at it and revere it.] ( 762) Here Montaigne himself finally compares the Essais to ruins and credits them with an open--ended admiratio. In doing so, he makes explicit the implications of the Journal de voyage. And yet, this reference to Rome is implicit. As a result, it has a double impact. First, Montaigne's personal experience substantiates the theory that the brittleness of his work consol-­ idates its integrity. The permanent appeal of the ruins of Rome corrobo-­ rates the effect that Montaigne claims for the Essais. Second, the implicit-­ ness of Montaigne's reference puts his theory into practice. Even for the notoriously elliptical Essais, the transition from the vanity of Montaigne's style to the ruins of Rome is especially abrupt and oblique. The omission of anything that would join these matters more securely has led editors to supply explanatory footnotes. Donald Frame, for example, in the transla-­ tion I have been citing, comments, "Montaigne's mind is already so full of Rome as he starts this paragraph that he seems to forget he has not yet mentioned it in this connection" ( 762). But such annotation ignores the fact that Montaigne is in the process of explaining the powerful fragility of the Essais exemplified by their precarious transitions. Montaigne has just made the transition to the subject of his style by declaring, "[B] Cette far-­ cisseure est un peu hors de mon theme. Je m'esgare, mais plustot par licence que par mesgarde. Mes fantaisies se suyvent, mais par fois c'est de loing, et se regardent, mais d'une veue oblique [This stuffing is a little out of my subject. I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness. My ideas follow one another, but sometimes it is from a distance, and look at each other, but with a sidelong glance]" (994/761 ). The inarticulateness at the climax of a passage about the power of the absence of articulation is not Montaigne's accident but rather his attempt to have his writing per-­ form what it proposes. Such an attempt has the force of what we call a speech act and what Montaigne calls an essai. Nor is it by accident that the ruins of Rome occupy this crack in the monumental structure of "De la vanite," this make--or--break moment, where the capacity of the Essais to hold together through divisive pressure is most urgently tested. The ruins emerge here, because Montaigne has invested in them as a way to represent and realize the sublimity of his work, the power of the Essais to hold together by virtue of the pressure to fall apart.

CHAPTER THREE

Comus and the Invention of Milton's Grand Style

MILTON HAS LONG

been celebrated as the supreme instance of the En-­

glish sublime. In the same year that Boileau's translation of Longinus appeared (1674), Andrew Marvell introduced a "sublime" Paradise Lost to readers of its second edition. Ever since, Milton has served as a whetstone on which theorists have defined and refined their notions of sublimity.

1

The inclusion of Milton as a complement to Montaigne in this study should, therefore, feel familiar. But not entirely, for Milton has rarely been considered as skeptical. There are several reasons for this lack of attention. Among the most important is the fact that Milton consistently assumes postures of firm belief in religious and political matters. Milton's Puritan and republican views would apparently leave little room for what in the seventh Prolusion he calls "the Sceptics' timid suspension of judgment" (1.302).2 Such an explicit disapproval, corroborating what Milton's strong beliefs imply, has kept the case for his skepticism closed. There is now cause, however, to reopen it. For one thing, the new his-­ toriography of skepticism recognizes what I have called its "stealth," the impact that skepticism can have despite one's reticence about or even rejection of it.3 As I shall show, even the very disavowal of skepticism just mentioned lacks conviction. Recent scholarship on Milton's relation to

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the new, skepticism--infused science of the seventeenth century provides another impetus to reexamine Milton's statement in Prolusion 7· A series of articles and books have revised the notion of Milton (accepted through-­ out most of the twentieth century) as scientifically retrograde or out of touch.4 Critics have begun to see that Milton's political and theological commitments do not preclude engagements with empirical and experi-­ mental modes of epistemology. One of Milton's major connections to the new scientific scene was the work of Francis Bacon. As a student from 1625 to 1632 at Cambridge­ Bacon's alma mater-Milton supported a Baconian reform of the curricu-­ lum.s Although Bacon did not call himself a skeptic, skepticism clearly had a massive influence on Bacon's thought. He read Montaigne's work and adopted its title for his own Essayes. In the Advancement of Learning and the Novum organum Bacon's effort to loosen the hold of Scholastic philosophy on the academy inspired him to deploy skeptical arguments. This skepticism proved difficult to dislodge once introduced, so that Bacon's readers were often left with as strong an impression of skepticism as of the science that the former was supposed to make possible. Thus Ben Jonson remarks that the Novum organum "openeth all defects of learning whatsoever" (8.592), whereas Bacon would have preferred to hear that it

advances learning.6 Marin Mersenne, who followed developments in English science closely from Paris, saw Bacon as essentially a skeptic. Bacon classified var-­ ious obstacles encountered by an inquiring mind. These obstacles, called "Idols of the Mind" in the Novum organum, impede the advancement of learning and include the tendency of the senses and emotions to distort perceptions ("Idols of the Tribe"), the aberrations instilled by one's partic-­ ular nature, education, and environment ("Idols of the Cave"), and the imprecise application of words to objects ("Idols of the Marketplace").? Bacon's Idols reformulated skeptical explanations of how appearances fail to report reality and in the process helped introduce skepticism into the mainstream of English thought.8 Bacon proposes the circumvention of the Idols through "helps" such as scientific instruments ( 79). According to Mersenne, however, Bacon's Idols reproduce old skeptical problems that such aids cannot resolve. In La verite des sciences contre les Sceptiques ou

Pyrrhoniens (The Truth of Knowledge against Skeptics or Pyrrhonians) (1625), Mersenne says that when Bacon formulated the Idols he in part "eut du imiter les Sceptiques [must have imitated the Skeptics]" (289-90).9 And the experiments that Bacon describes still leave one "dans une si grande disette de sciences, et dans les tenebres de l'ignorance [in such a great

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shortage of knowledge, and in the shadows of ignorance]" (295). The Idols are made out of skepticism, and so they make one skeptical. That Mersenne (and Jonson) could take Bacon as an instigator of skep-­ ticism makes sense in light of how Bacon frames his account of the Idols in the Novum organum. As he introduces them, he admits some similarity between his and skeptical thinking: My way and the reasoning of those who maintained Acatalepsy are rather alike in their beginnings but end up being very far apart and opposite to each other. For the latter insist simply that nothing can be known, whereas I say that not much in nature can be known by the way now in use. But thereafter they destroy the authority of the sense and intellect, whereas I think up and furnish helps for them.

(79) Bacon's "helps" make the crucial difference between his method and that of the skeptics ("those who maintained Acatalepsy"). When he concludes his account of the Idols, he again distinguishes them carefully from skepticism: Now the intellect should also be on guard against the recklessness with which philosophies grant and withhold assent, for recklessness of this sort seems to fix and in a way perpetuate the Idols, and stop us approaching and removing them. Now this excess is of two kinds: the one of those who are too quick to pontificate, and render the sciences arbitrary and doctrinaire; the other of those who have brought in Acatalepsy, and inquiry vague and endless; and the for-­ mer sinks the intellect, while the latter saps it. ( I 07) In adopting a stance toward epistemological difficulty, one must take care not to fall into skepticism or its opposite, dogmatism. Both of these state-­ ments about the Idols register a concern that they may unleash doubt rather than control it. Bacon attempts to determine the Idols' interpreta-­ tion and in doing so registers a fear that they could be read as Jonson and Mersenne in fact read them. Milton's Baconianism manifests some of the same skepticism that pre-­ occupied Bacon himself. Prolusion 7 is Milton's first major work in prose. He probably wrote it in the summer of 1632, toward the end of his time at Cambridge; in it he sets himself intellectual and artistic trajectories that he would follow for decades to come. The Oratio pro arte is inspired by Bacon's Advancement. Mounting a defense of learning against ignorance

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(the topic of the exercise), Milton expresses a series of Baconian view-­ points: learning extends man's dominion over nature ( I.296 ); learning dis-­ tinguishes man from beast (I.299); the elimination of the "monkish dis-­ ease" of Scholastic science will enable learning (I.30I). About skepticism, Milton admonishes, Let the idle now cease to upbraid us with the uncertainties and per-­ plexities of learning, which are indeed the fault not so much of learning as of the frailty of man. It is this consideration, gentlemen, which disproves or mitigates or compensates for Socrates' famous ignorance and the Sceptics' timid suspension of judgment. (I.302) Milton's thought here reflects Bacon's on several levels. Like Bacon, Mil-­ ton sees skepticism as an issue. (An important difference between Bacon-­ ian and Scholastic thinking is the engagement of skepticism by the for-­ mer.) And like Bacon, Milton blames the uncertainties of learning on man's cognitive shortcomings (although he does not mention the "helps" that Bacon sought as remedies). Like other readers of Bacon, however, Mil-­ ton seems to be unsure about the effect on skepticism of attributing uncer-­ tainty to man's misperceptions. What happens to skepticism in the Bacon-­ ian scheme is unclear to Milton: is skepticism "disproven," "mitigated," or

I "compensated for" ["aut resellit, aut consolatum, aut compenset"] ? o

Milton's Baconianism, and the skeptical influence that accompanies it, stretches far into his careers in prose and poetry. One could point to Mil-­ ton's call for the liberty to make-and the necessity of making-errors on the road to truth in Areopagitica.

II

Raphael's "doubtful" answer of Adam's

question about "celestial motions," which amounts to a careful balancing act between Ptolemaic and Copernican hypotheses, also manifests Bacon-­ I2

ian skepticism.

In this chapter, however, I focus on Comus, Milton's

next major work after the seventh Prolusion and the longest piece of poetry that he wrote before Paradise Lost. In order to get at the roots of Milton's skepticism-and his sublimity­ ! will consider

Comus as an early instance of his well--known and career-­

long habit of breaking and recasting literary forms. I will show how in the masque this process of aesthetic reformation involves skepticism and how it produces sublimity. The most obvious place to look for the Miltonic sub-­ lime is Paradise Lost (the subject of the next chapter). Comus, however, displays several elements of the epic in their formative stages. Most impor-­ tant, in Comus Milton dramatizes the story of how he invented the grand style that he became famous for.

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This argument will most likely feel unfamiliar to those who more read-­ ily see in the masque preoccupations that its recent critics have remarked, such as the controversy over holiday pastimes and the Castlehaven scan-­ dal. r3 My reading does not exclude these interpretations of Comus as an expression of political, religious, or sexual ideologies. I do want to say, though, that Comus is also about aesthetics and epistemology, and that such an understanding can help account for certain features of the masque that ideological readings do not explain adequately-as well as the fea-­ tures that they do explain. The main feature that I have in mind is echo in its various forms: the close and distant repetitions and doublings that saturate Milton's poetry, the pairs of characters and episodes, and above all the Lady's song to Echo. These echoes carry a skeptical charge that generates sublimity. Stephen Orgel, in a fresh and provocative article, has also noticed echo as a missing link in ideological readings, and he uses it to call into question how radi-­ cal Comus really is. r4 I want to argue that Comus is aesthetically radical through its unique employment of echo and the skepticism implicit in it. The skeptical value of echo comes into focus through the Baconian perspective on Milton that I have begun to develop. As Penelope Gouk has shown, in the seventeenth century music was considered a science and was crucial to the process whereby the new science absorbed what was known as "natural magic" or the exploration and production of effects by hidden causes that occurred in the usual course of natural events. rs Bacon in particular proposed a science of acoustics dedicated to the production and study of natural and artificial sounds. According to Aristotle, hearing is the most important sense in the acquisition of knowledge. 16 In Sylva syl--­ varum, Bacon envisions a series of experiments designed to capitalize on

the heuristic potential of sounds. Bacon focuses especially on what he termed the "majoration" of sounds, their prolongation, augmentation, and propagation, which reflected his interest in extending human mastery over nature. r7 Echo, as a major example of natural majoration, thus fascinates Bacon. "Saloman's House," the college of natural philosophy imagined by Bacon in the New Atlantis and whose purpose involves "enlarging the bounds of Human Empire" (48o), has what he calls "sound--houses" (485). rS These structures are spaces for experimenting with acoustical phenomena, including "divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came; some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some ren-­ dering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they

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receive" (485). As this passage indicates, Bacon's concern with echo coin-­ cides with his acknowledgment of the complexity of its permutations. The depth of this concern comes across in Bacon's interpretation of the fabled marriage of Echo and Pan as part of his "First Example of Philoso-­ phy according to the Fables of the Ancients" in the De augmentis (8.444). r9 According to Bacon, "Pan (as the name itself imports) repre-­ sents and denotes the Universe, or the All of Things" (8.446). Echo, on the other hand, insofar as it simply reflects the natural world symbolized by Pan, represents philosophy: "It is no marvel," says Bacon, ...if no loves are attributed to Pan, besides his marriage with Echo. For the world enjoys itself, and in itself all things that are.Now he who is in love wants something; and where there is plenty of every-­ thing there is no room for want. The world therefore can have no loves, nor any want (being content with itself), unless it be of dis--­ course. Such is the nymph Echo, a thing not substantial but only a voice .... it is well devised that of all words and voices Echo alone should be chosen for the world's wife; for that is the true philosophy which echoes most faithfully the voices of the world itself, and is written as it were at the world's own dictation; being nothing else than the image and reflexion thereof, to which it adds nothing of its own, but only iterates and gives it back. (8.456) Bacon has Echo stand for the perfect harmony between human thought and the natural world that he aspired to achieve through his philosophy. However, when Bacon considers how to experiment with echo, he recog-­ nizes how unpredictable it truly is. The echoes in the utopian "sound-­ houses" of the New Atlantis happen variably: echoes may report a sound not just once but "many times," they may be "louder," "shriller," or "deeper" than their sources, or they may even be something altogether dif .. ferent. In other words, despite Bacon's idealistic version of the myth of Echo, as an actual phenomenon echo seems to have a mind of its own. As a result, echo is not absorbed into the empire of natural elements under human control envisioned by Baconian epistemology but rather remains a stubborn pocket of resistance.Thus in Sylva sylvarum Bacon dif .. ferentiates between the reflections of light and sound in terms of control: "The reflexion of species visible, by mirrors, you may command; because passing in right lines, they may be guided to any point: but the reflexion of sounds is hard to master; because the sound filling great spaces in arched

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lines, cannot be so guided" (283). Whereas one may "command" visual reflection, echo is recalcitrant.The refusal of echo to submit to the very domination that his entire program of natural philosophy is intended to realize fascinates Bacon: There are certain letters that an echo will hardly express: as S for one, especially being principal in a word. I remember well, that when I went to the echo at Pont--Charenton, there was an old Parisian, who took it to be the work of spirits, and of good spirits. For (said he) call Satan and the echo will not deliver back the devil's name; but will say, va t'en; which is as much in French as

apage or avoid. (286) Here Bacon seems drawn to echo precisely for its resistance to natural explanation and scientific manipulation. Perhaps Bacon identifies echo with philosophy because a knowledge of how to guide such a slippery phe-­ nomenon as echo would indeed be the kind of know--how that he idealizes. As long as that knowledge remains unattained, however, echo must mean ignorance as well as knowledge, skepticism as well as science.20 The epistemological stakes of sound and echo for Baconian science apply also to the masque. Gouk has suggested that Bacon modeled the sound--houses of the New Atlantis on masques.An examination of his essay "Of Masques and Triumphs" confirms that she is right and, furthermore, that Bacon found the scientific value of masques specifically in their echoic characteristics.This text, which first appeared in the I 62 5 edition of the Essayes, reflects its author's perspective as the producer of two Jacobean masques (The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn [I6I3] and The Masque of Flowers [I6I4]). Bacon is most meticulous about how masques sound.For example, he does not like boy sopranos, and he insists that the machinery required to change scenes operate noiselessly. He is especially preoccupied with the placement of musicians and singers in a performance space:

Severall Quires, placed one over against another, and taking the Voice by Catches, Antheme wise, give great pleasure....Let the Songs be Loud, and Cheerefull, and not Chirpings, or Pulings. Let the Musicke likewise, be Sharpe, and Loud, and Well Placed. (II7-I8)21 By "Quires" Bacon means groups of voices or instruments, by "Catches" fragments or separate phrases, and by "Antheme wise" in the manner of an

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anthem, that is, a text sung by multiple choirs. Bacon has in mind anti-­ phonic music performed by an ensemble distributed throughout a cham-­ ber. Such an arrangement favored the production of echoic effects, which created the illusion of a greater volume or sonority than the output of a conventional ensemble.22 The preceding points about Bacon, echo, and the masque support the viability of reading Comus as a work of art engaged with contemporary sci-­ ence. The genre of the masque came to Milton loaded with epistemologi-­ cal risks and opportunities that the young man who had recently written the seventh Prolusion would not ignore.My Baconian remarks also suggest the possibility of reading Comus as a version of Bacon's sound--house. Such a reading would have some critical precedent in Angus Fletcher's sugges-­ tive remark (without, however, reference to Bacon) that "Milton uses the night scene of his fable to create a resonant acoustical vault....The Maske at Ludlow is a study in listening" ( 166). But by relating Milton's masque to

Bacon's sound--houses I do not mean that Comus realizes the utopian sci-­ ence of the New Atlantis. Rather, Baconian acoustics makes audible the significance of the behavior of echo in Comus. Comus itself, moreover, helps us hear why echo behaves as it does: to

advance the search of a poet for style. I will now argue that echo operates in Comus in ways that Bacon feared it would, in ways that entrenched skepticism against the empire of human science. This operation contra-­ dicted the usual function of echo in masques, which served to further an advancement of learning about the grandeur of royalty. In Comus echo functions in such a way as not to overcome doubt about grandeur but rather to incorporate doubt into grandeur. This doubtful-as opposed to doubtless-grandeur constitutes Milton's grand style. I will argue, in other words, that Comus is about a poet looking for style in an age of confusion, when skepticism is acquiring a foothold in English culture. Milton finds this style not by getting around skepticism but by getting into it. Masques, Elizabeth, Jacobean, and Caroline, were about power and knowledge. There were of course variations among masques, and some criticized as well as complimented their benefactors.23 Nevertheless, the point of any masque was essentially to make known the authority of the person who had commanded its composition and performance.24 It thus makes sense that the genre would interest Bacon, who saw science as the key to transforming the natural world into a human empire. It also stands to reason that echo would interest the practitioners of the genre: just as control over echo heralds the rise of Baconian empire, so masques deployed echoes to symbolize their ideal union of knowledge and power.

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On the one hand, therefore, masques involved the elimination of doubt about royal or noble power. On the other hand, this elimination was often represented by a successful manipulation of echo. The echoes of masques reflected the importance of wonder to them. The audience of a masque expected to admire wonderful things. For won-­ der made magnificence known. Aristotle, the authority whose notions Jonson used to articulate the power and function of his masques, had described wonder as what induced people to philosophize and thereby to know things. By wondering about enigmatic effects, one came to know their causes. This is the same admiratio critiqued by Montaigne. (We shall see shortly a similar critique by Milton.) The educational orientation of wonder served the complimentary purpose of the masque by allowing it to draw attention away from its own spectacular effects and toward their royal cause. The admiration generated by the spectacle triggered a deduc-­ tion that led to the acknowledgment of royalty as the origin of wonder.25 In Jonson's crucial prefatory remarks to his documentation of The Masque

of Blacknesse (I 6os) , he considers why such an ephemeral event deserves to be recorded in the first place. His words indicate the importance that he attributes to the genre: The honor, and splendor of these spectacles was such in the perfor-­ mance, as could those houres have lasted, this of mine, now, had been a most unprofitable worke. But (when it is the fate, even of the greatest, and most absolute births, to need, and borrow a life of pos-­ teritie) little had beene done to the studie of magnificence in these, if presently with the rage of the people, who (as a part of greatnesse) are priviledged by custome, to deface their carkasses, the spirits had also perished. ( 7. I 69, I I. I-9) Jonson justifies his report of the sights and sounds of a masque as a contri-­ bution to the "studie of magnificence." By specifying magnificence as the quality of a masque that requires study, Jonson appeals to a popular Renaissance notion of aesthetic experience inherited from Aristotle.26 In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines "magnificence" as the way that a great man (such as a monarch) manifests his greatness. More precisely, magnificence reveals greatness by virtue of the response it produces: [The magnificent man] will consider how the result can be made most beautiful and most becoming rather than for how much it can

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be produced and how it can be produced most cheaply. It is neces-­ sary, then, that the magnificent man be also liberal. For the liberal man also will spend what he ought and as he ought; and it is in these matters that the greatness implied in the name of the magnificent man-his bigness, as it were-is manifested, since liberality is con-­ cerned with these matters; and at an equal expense he will produce a more magnificent result. For a possession and a result have not the same excellence. The most valuable possession is that which is worth most, e.g. gold, but the most valuable result is that which is great and beautiful (for the contemplation of such a thing inspires admiration, and so does magnificence). (1122b8-17) Unlike a valuable possession, a magnificent work of art is not just appraised but admired. Magnificence calls attention to a man's greatness because it arouses admiration. Admiration performs this function because according to Aristotle the admirer seeks to know the cause of his won-­ der.27 Jonson adopts Aristotle's theory of magnificence-and the knowl-­ edge--oriented conception of wonder on which it rests-in order to explain how the masque works as a testimony of grandeur. By designating his masques as exercises in "magnificence," Jonson implies that they enlighten an otherwise skeptical audience. Jonson's masques in fact follow scientific trajectories oriented by won-­ der. In The Masque of Blacknesse, the one prefaced by Janson's description of his masques as "magnificent," progress transpires via admiration toward epistemological-as well as, obviously, epidermic-enlightenment. A "miracle" motivated the voyage undertaken by the daughters of the Niger (7:174, 1.18o): a face appeared to them, wherein they read that "they a Land must forthwith seeke, I Whose termination (of the Greeke) I Sounds TANIA,

"

a land ruled by "a greater Light [King James], I Who formes all

beauty, with his sight" (7.175, lines 188-90, 194-95). Having started the daughters' quest for enlightenment ("miracle" stems from the same Latin root-miror-as "admire"), admiration surfaces again when they receive further instructions. .!Ethiopia, the Ethiopian moon, pinpoints their desti-­ nation by rounding out

"

TANIA

"

to

"

BRITANIA,

which the triple world

admires" (7.176, line 241). Wonder occurs at both ends of the process of learning to recognize the greatness of British royalty, registering both the mystery that spurs curiosity and the knowledge that satisfies it.28 These examples illustrate how the educational bias of admiratio served the goal of the masque to make power known. Thus in Jonson's Vision of Delight it is Wonder whose admiring questions reveal King James as the

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driving force of the show (7.469). This is only, moreover, the tip of an ice-­ berg: many masques relied on wonder to describe and motivate an episte-­ mological drama whose happy ending was knowledge.29 In other words, to function properly as a sign of magnificence, a masque depended on a cate-­ gory of attention defined by the exclusion of skepticism. Inherent in the notion of wonder to which the masque form subscribed was the assump-­ tion that any doubt about the source of masque wonders, marvels, and mir-­ acles was only temporary and in the end not to be tolerated. Just as masques connect generally to the scientific empire--building that Bacon pursued, so the role of echo in masques relates specifically to its role in building the union of power and knowledge that constitutes Baconian science. Bacon, in his interpretation of Pan and Echo, idealized echo as the perfect guide to the world that he took philosophy to be. In masques, echo frequently performs this function by leading the audience out of doubt, through wonder, and into knowledge. Key masques prior to Comus introduced the figure of Echo or an echo song as a kind of homing device, as a way to direct admiration toward its educational end. In George Gascoigne's Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth

Castle, for example, the Queen-Elizabeth, present at the performance­ is approached by a "Savage man," who has come from the "Forest" to the "stately Court" (96).3° "Seeming to woonder at such a presence," he pro-­ ceeds to inquire into the "cause unknowen" of the assemblage of "Lords and Peeres" he sees around him (96). In hopes of discovering the cause ("what sunne shal lend me light?"), he calls to Echo and asks her, "What is the cause, I that all the people joy?" (97). When, after a lengthy dia-­ logue, Echo responds "The Queene," the savage man falls to his knees and proclaims, "0 Queene I must confesse, I it is not without cause I These civile people so rejoyce" ( Ioo ) . Echo educates the savage man. The savage man's encounter with Echo puts an end to his wonder by specifying Eliza .. beth as the raison d'etre of the wonderful court into which he has stum-­ bled. Jonson also deployed echo as an epistemological guide. Although Jon-­ son's Cynthia's Revels ( I6oo) is not a masque, it contains one and antici-­ pates the single most important career of English masque--making.31 The play satirizes court vices, which are represented by appropriately named characters ("Hedon the voluptuous," etc.) who, having drunk from the fountain of self--love, disguise themselves as virtues and put on a masque at Cynthia's court. They are subsequently exposed as the vices they truly are, chastised, and sent by Mercury to drink from "the well of knowledge" (4. I 82, line 36). Once the vices do so, they will be "purged" and may "with refined

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voice, report/ The grace of CYNTHIA, and her court" (4.I 82, lines 37, 39-40). Like Jonson's masques, Cynthia's Revels directs attention to royalty by ban-­ ishing the false appearances that obscure the court. This illumination is made possible by Mercury, whom Jove orders to clear the court of vices. In order to fulfill his assignment, Mercury invokes Echo. Heeding Mercury's call, Echo locates and curses the spring where her love Narcissus saw his reflection. This act springs the entire action of the play, for "the fountain of self--love" (the subtitle of Cynthia's Revels) inspires the vices to devise their masque, which in turn permits their unmasking and the acknowledg-­ ment of true courtly virtue.32 In The Masque of Blacknesse and its sequel, The Masque of Beautie

(I6o8), echo occurs at pivotal moments, serving in each case to turn won-­ der into knowledge. In Blacknesse, when the enlightenment--seeking daughters of the Niger set foot on English soil, a song accompanied by a double echo recalls them to sea, where their skin may gradually whiten in preparation for the final achievement of beauty. In Beautie, echo rein-­ forces the illumination of blackness by beauty anticipated in the earlier masque: It was for Beauty, that the World was made, And where she raignes, Loves lights admit no shade.

Ecch. Loves lights admit no shade. Eccho. Admit no shade.

(7.I90, lines 288-9I)

Finally, echo also occupies the last two lines of Beautie: So all that see your beauties sph<£re, May know the'Elysian fields are here.

Ecch. Th'Elysian fields are here. Ecch. Elysian fields are here.

Here, the repetitions of echo provide a formal strategy to emphasize the cumulative point of both Blacknesse and Beautie: that the court of England-"the most magnificent of Queenes Anne Queene of great Britain, etc. with her honorable Ladyes" (7.I67 )-be acknowledged, if even for a moment, as heaven on earth. In these masques, which set the tone and agenda for Jonson's career of masque--making, echo both induces and celebrates the political, racial, and epistemological enlightenment of the court.33

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In masques prior to Comus echo largely behaves as Bacon would want it to, as a reliable guide to powerful knowing and knowing power. This is not, however, how echo performs in Milton's masque. In light of its ideal Baconian behavior, echo malfunctions. Rather than acting predictably, echo acts in strange and unforeseeable ways. For example, in the prologue the Spirit boasts that he will tell "what never yet was heard in Tale or Song" (44). Yet these very words have been heard before, in similar claims made by Ariosto and Horace.34 Milton's verse simultaneously and per-­ plexingly echoes and denies that it echoes. The introduction of echo does not assume the guiding nature that it has in other masques but rather rad-­ ically questions what its nature is. Another example of how disorienting echo can be in Comus occurs in the Lady's soliloquy. Alone and lost in the woods, she momentarily loses and then regains her composure: What might this be? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes and beck'ning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On Sands and Shores and desert Wildernesses. These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion Conscience.0 welcome pure--ey'd Faith, white--handed Hope, Thou hov'ring Angel girt with golden wings, And thou unblemish't form of Chastity, I see ye visibly, and now believe That he, the Supreme good, t' whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeaunce, Would send a glist'ring Guardian, if need were, To keep my life and honor unassail'd.

In the next scene of the masque it turns out that this verse paragraph par-­ ticipates in an echoic relationship. Lost elsewhere in the woods, the Lady's brothers speculate about their sister's chances of making it through the night a virgin. After the younger brother expresses pessimism, the elder brother reminds him that the Lady possesses a "hidden strength" (4 I 8): 'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: She that has that, is clad in complete steel,

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and the Invention of Milton's Grand Style

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And like a quiver'd Nymph with Arrows keen May trace huge Forests and unharbor'd heaths, Infamous Hills and sandy perilous wilds, Where through the sacred rays of Chastity, No savage fierce, Bandit or mountaineer Will dare to soil her Virgin purity: Yea there, where very desolation dwells, By grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblench't majesty, Be it not done in pride or presumption.

The elder brother's discourse obviously shares elements with the Lady's vtston of "Chasttty . . . " among "shapes ... Sands ... and desert W 1'ldernesses." But while one can say with certainty that an echo occurs between the two passages, it is impossible to say which passage does the echoing. Although the Lady's soliloquy occurs before the brothers' dialogue in Milton's text, their chronological order in terms of the plot of the masque is indeter-­ minable. All one knows is that the Lady and her brothers are lost in dif .. ferent places in the woods at roughly the same point in time. This is not the case of a self--denying echo (as above), but the case of an echo whose structure remains a mystery. It takes two to echo, a sound and its repeti-­ tion. Echo can serve as a guide only insofar as one knows which is which. Here echo leads its reader, or hearer, nowhere. The most egregious instance of echoic delinquency (relative to Bacon-­ ian standards) happens after the Lady's famous song, which culminates her soliloquy. She addresses the song to Echo, asking for help in the location of her brothers. The song ends with the hope that Echo may "be translated

to the skies, I And give resounding grace to all Heav' n' s Harmonies" (242-43). This last line, an alexandrine, is the longest in the masque; it thus begs in both content ("resounding") and form for an extension. Such a hope accords with what a masque--goer would expect to hear in response to an echo--song: echoes. Yet none occur. This absence disappoints, especially in light of the fact that the Lady tries the song as an experiment in broad-­ casting. She sings in order to make "such noise as I can make to be heard farthest" (22 7). In Baconian terms, as if in a sound--house, she attempts the "majoration" of her voice. For the moment, it seems, echo fails to cooper-­ ate and the experiment is a failure.

How echo behaves (or misbehaves) is one thing; the question of why is another. In the masque genre, echo conventionally functions as an episte--

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mological pivot on which the plot turns toward knowledge. In Milton's masque, however, echo frustrates enlightenment and perpetuates skepti-­ cism instead. A Baconian framework has helped identify the skepticism that echo can represent in the early seventeenth century. Now Milton and his masque must help us understand what motivates his interest in skepticism. Skepticism both attracts Bacon as a tool to deconstruct Scholasticism in favor of empiricism and preoccupies him as an obstacle to the total appre-­ hension of nature by man. To Milton (in Comus), skepticism has aesthetic value in accord with his poetic ambitions. This is not just speculation based on a sense of what a young poet is likely to be up to: as we shall see, Milton says so himself. In Comus Milton relates how he discovered the sublime. By the time Milton undertook Comus in the early 163os to help cele-­ brate the Earl of Bridgewater's nomination by King Charles to the Lord Presidency of Wales, it was rather late in the masque tradition. Most of the major masques had been written, and Milton recycled several of their ele-­ ments. Milton invokes the forces at play within the genre he enters, as

Comus abounds with terms that describe effects typically attributed to masques, such as "awe" (32), "astonishment" (157), "startle" (210), "astound" (2 I o), "enchanting" (245), "ravishment" (245), "raptures" (247), "wonder" (265), "amazement" (356), "fit" (546), "enthrall'd" (590), "surprisal" (618), "ecstasy" (625), "charm" (728), and "rapt" (794). This profusion of references to extreme modes of attention corresponds to the fact that nearly every character in Comus experiences, almost experiences, discusses, proposes, or induces them. The Spirit recalls his amazement upon hearing the Lady's song and the ecstasy that his own singing pro-­ voked in the Shepherd Lad (565, 625); after disguising himself as a villager in order not to astonish the Lady, Comus is ravished by the Lady's song (157, 245); the Lady insists that her thoughts in the woods may startle but not astound her, and later hypothesizes that if she were to pronounce the doctrine of Virginity, it would enrapture her spirits and overwhelm the rhetoric of Comus (210, 794); the brothers debate whether alone in the woods the Lady is susceptible to amazement (356). All these occurrences of and references to extreme attention arise from the drama of Comus, which involves the transition from one form of attention to another. The Spirit previews this drama in the prologue of the masque, which establishes the occasion of Comus and the trajectory of its action. The Earl, the Spirit proclaims, power Has in his charge, with temper'd awe to guide

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An old and haughty nation proud in Arms; Where his fair offspring nurs't in Princely lore, Are coming to attend their Father's state And new.-entrusted Scepter. But their way Lies through the perplex't paths of this drear Wood, The nodding horror of whose shady brows Threats the forlorn and wand'ring Passenger[.]

(31_39)

The plot of Comus involves the discovery by children of a passage through sylvan "horror" in order to "attend" the "state" of their father, that is, both to heed his government as president of Wales and to observe the festivities that inaugurate and magnify his rule. The object of filial attendance is thus also a spectacular object, insofar as "state" refers to the Earl's presidency or its seat at Ludlow as well as to a ceremony or display such as the masque itself.35 The ambiguity of "state" thus exposes a line of plot parallel to that of family reunion. As its happy ending, Comus proposes not only obedi .. ence to parents, but also the experience of artistic authority. The Lady and the brothers will attempt to arrive at the "temper'd awe" that distinguishes their father's "state," both his government and his masque. But between the children and the "awe" intervenes another form of attention com.­ manded not by their father but by Comus, the "horror" of the woods. The children thus pass from "horror" to "temper'd awe," and Comus thus con.­ cerns the passage from one aesthetic category to another.36 By recounting an adventure that culminates in the attendance of a masque, Comus addresses how its genre (and literature in general) calls attention to itself. Throughout Comus, the issue of attention surfaces often, especially as the Lady and Comus propose competing theories of attention to themselves and to each other. They both seek company, the Lady of her brothers, Comus of a growing band of revelers. Upon hearing the Lady's song to Echo, Comus compares it to the songs his mother, Circe, and the Sirens used to sing, songs that would inspire Scylla to chide "her barking waves into attention" (258). His desire to make the Lady his "Queen" (265) is thus a desire to appropriate an attention.- getting device. But when Comus addresses her as a "wonder" (265), the Lady responds that her ears are "unattending" (272) to such praise. The Lady's rebuff, however, does not prevent Comus from offering to locate her "stray atten.­ dance" (315). This running discourse of attention confirms the Spirit's original description of the drama as a sequence of aesthetic responses. Like previous masques, therefore, Comus features an education that leads to an act of attention. As in several masques, moreover, this educa.-

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tion hinges on echo. Comus is about a Lady who with her two brothers was on her way through the woods to her father's house when a series of events-she got tired, her brothers left her to seek refreshment, evening fell-made the Lady lose her way and now expose her to the lascivious temptations of Comus. Another series of events then allows the Lady to surmount these obstacles: the Lady sings a song to Echo, which alerts the attendant Spirit of her plight, who alerts the brothers; when their efforts to rescue their sister do not succeed entirely, the Spirit invokes Sabrina the nymph, who finally releases the Lady and enables the three children to "attend" their father's "state." Although the Lady's song does not by itself redeem her, it starts the process that eventually enables her to transcend the horrible distractions that haunt the woods and that result from the charms of Comus. The powerful effect of hearing the song contrasted so closely to the uncouth noise of Comus and his rout sets the Spirit into action. He tells the brothers, Amaz'd I stood, harrow'd with grief and fear, And "0 poor hapless Nightingale," thought I, "How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!" Then down the Lawns I ran with headlong haste. (s6s-68) A good deal of trial and error follows, but the Spirit is on his way, and the Lady is thus on hers. The song to Echo thus arouses the "state" of attention that eventually constitutes the happy ending of the masque. The elements that Comus shares with its precursors signal Milton's engagement with the tradition that preceded his masque. The contact that the similarities suggest, however, is not so much imitative as explosive: whereas other masques promote sensations circumscribed by knowledge, Comus ruptures such categories and creates a form of attention structured

by ignorance. This process erupts at the point where Comus recalls the conventional inclination of the genre most urgently: the Lady's song to Echo. Because the aesthetic category upheld by masques often took shape during echoic moments, the Lady's song plays a reformative role.37 Gauging the pressure applied by the song requires an analysis of the Lady's first speech (lines

I

70-243), which precedes the song and in which,

I will argue, the Lady learns how to sing. The nickname that Milton

acquired at Cambridge in the 162os for his fair skin, auburn hair, and meticulous habits-"the Lady of Christ's"-invites one to consider the Lady of Comus as Milton's spokeswoman. Even if she did not share Mil--

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ton's sobriquet, however, the Lady would share the concerns of a poet in search of inspiration. Already lost and alone, the Lady walks onstage hav-­ ing just heard a noise; as she looks for what made it, she wonders what to do. She says, This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, My best guide now; methought it was the sound Of Riot and ill--rnanag'd Merrirnent, Such as the jocund Flute or gamesome Pipe Stirs up among the loose unletter'd Hinds, When for their teeming Flocks and granges full In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence Of such late Wassailers; yet 0 where else Shall I inform my unacquainted feet In the blind mazes of this tangl'd Wood? When the Lady asks how she shall "inform" her "feet," she is of course ask-­ ing the direction she should take in order to find her brothers, get out of the woods, and go home. But "feet" can also refer to poetic feet, and "tan-­ gl'd Wood" recalls the woods of past poetry, such as those of Dante's

Inferno and Spenser's Faerie Queene. "Inform," in addition to "provide £ . " . tntormatton, can mean

"

£ . . . torm "38 gtve to," "compose," or "tnsptre.

"Swill'd," Milton's coinage for "filled with drink," also suggests inspiration, albeit the wrong kind.39 As the Lady pursues a way to the end of the masque she looks for a way to inform feet, to compose poetry, a style. This is why she ends up singing a song: "I cannot hallow to my Brothers," she says, "but I Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest I I'll venture"

(226-28). The Lady tries the song as an alternative broadcasting device when the standard ways of getting attention-such as yelling at the top of her lungs-would malfunction, or be unLadylike. The song is an answer to the question of how to inform feet, of what style will provide a way from the confusion and distraction of the woods to the attention and atten-­ dance of a family. The solution to the problem of style involves skepticism. When the Lady asks whether her "ear be true," she questions whether her senses tell the truth, whether what appears really exists. The next thirty or so lines of her soliloquy portray a mind perplexed by the dilemma of obtaining infor-­ mation from false or hidden sources. The Lady worries that her only guides

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may be the uncouth roisterers she has heard from afar (I7I-8I); she recounts how she lost the guidance of her brothers (I 82-90); she com-­ plains that the night has withheld the starlight that customarily guides travelers (I 9I-200). When she arrives at the spot from where the noise of the revelers was "perfect" in her "list'ning ear," she finds only "single dark-­ ness" (203-4). The Lady's failure to locate an object (the revelers) to complement her sensation (the sound of revels) confirms her suspicion that her ear may not be true. The Lady's difficulties in the woods offer a whirlwind introduction to skepticism. The unreliability of the senses, the trouble deriving consistent information from fickle sources, the absence of any correlation between perceptions and objects, the failure to determine the significance of a sign-all these are standard features of the skeptical attitude. Of course, other woods have confused before: those of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (I6oo) and Thomas Nashe's Terrors of the Night (I594) come to mind. The confusion caused by the woods of Comus, how-­ ever, has characteristics particular to skepticism. In act 5 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus dismisses what has transpired during the previous acts as "more strange than true" and then justifies his disbelief by saying that a fearful imagination may mistake a "bush" for a "bear" (5.I.2, 22).4o Nashe attributes the terrors of dark woods to such contingent factors as melancholy, a guilty conscience, witches, Satan, and the fables of false religion.41 Neither of these portraits of perplexity has the acoustical fea-­ tures so fraught with skepticism for the early modern period. More impor-­ tant, the woody issues of Shakespeare and Nashe are explained and resolved. In Comus, there is not even the pretension of a quick fix. The confusion of Milton's Lady has the intractability that makes skepticism inevitable for so much early modern thought and culture. She cannot put aside her disorientation. Rather, she must make use of it paradoxically to reorient herself. This process begins almost imperceptibly as the Lady reflects on how she got lost while looking for the source of the noise she has heard. Hav-­ ing formulated her dilemma as the problem of informing her feet amid entanglement, the Lady now reviews how the woods got so "tangl'd," and as a result how she became so skeptical: My Brothers, when they saw me wearied out With this long way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favor of these Pines,

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Stept as they said to the next Thicket side To bring me Berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable Woods provide.

(182-87)

As the Lady tells the story of her skepticism, she echoes herself for the first time: the "hospitable Woods" that once eased her way recall the "tangl'd Wood" (mentioned six lines before) now in her way. As the Lady continues to trace the origin of her confusion, a subtle pat-­ tern of echo gradually informs her speech. She has recounted the departure of her brothers. Now she elaborates the moment when she actually got lost, when an innocuous digression became a dangerous distraction: They left me then, when the gray--hooded Ev'n Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phcrbus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labor of my thoughts; 'tis likeliest They had engag'd their wand'ring steps too far, And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me.

Since Evening makes the difference between day and night and thus between knowing the way and losing it, Evening is responsible for the Lady's skepticism. The descriptions at either end of this narrative are clear--cut: things begin well and turn worse. The turning point, however, occupied by the description of Evening, is curiously indistinct. As a "sad Votarist," Evening is a serious figure who has taken a vow of pilgrimage and voyages to the Holy Land; however, Evening is clad "in Palmer's weed," that is, as a pilgrim who is most likely returning from the trip.42 The Lady thus envisions Evening as both approaching the Holy Land and leav-­ ing it, as both bound by a vow and having fulfilled one. The Lady also imagines Evening as risen "from the hindmost wheels of Phcrbus' wain." Here it seems that Evening is the evening star that ascends in the west and on its way up passes the descending chariot of Apollo (the sun). Evening does not come out of nowhere, but rather arrives by way of the sun. The contact between these stars suggests that they exchange energy: the torque of the sun's wheels spins Evening back up and into the darkening sky. This charged encounter creates an echo: Evening both extinguishes the solar

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flame and keeps it alive. Although most readily associated with the night that Evening introduces, the Lady's description forces Evening back into contact with, and thus to echo, the day that precedes it. Patricia Parker has observed that the evenings in Paradise Lost lack pre-­ cision, which she attributes to the vexed relation between human figures and divine truth in Christian theology.43 The wobble of evening in Comus, however, stems most directly from the Lady's effort to examine her

confusion. The Lady echoes herself as she waxes skeptical because skepti-­ cism has an echoic structure. Skepticism happens when something exclu-­ sive gets shared, when one thing-here, the "Woods"-frequents two camps-the "tangl'd" and the "hospitable." The evenhandedness of skep-­ ticism, its assignment of the truth to two places, leaves a mark on the verses that describe it. The description of Evening also mirrors the echoic pattern introduced by the experience of confusion: whereas earlier one thing appeared in two camps, here two camps appear in one thing. Having witnessed the woods change from helpful to perplexing, the Lady assigns to Evening divergent tendencies: just as the "woods" may refer either to something "hospitable" or to something "tangl'd," so Evening points both to the night it precedes and to the day it follows. Like an echo, Evening lengthens the trace of its antecedent: as the evening star rising from where the sun sets, Evening shares ground with its precursor as well as with its successor. Evening provokes an effect, and at the same time evokes the presence of its own cause. Because the Lady's perplexity has the strength of skepticism, it shakes her very examination of it. While this may at first be an accident, she soon makes the best of necessity by putting it to use. Skepticism confers a pat-­ tern on the Lady's speech, and she conforms her speech to her skepticism. The Lady is looking for a way to "inform" her "feet," and she finds it in the very bewilderment that abuses her. What one hears in the soliloquy, there-­ fore, is the accidental and then purposeful invention of a way to speak, a style structured by ignorance. One hears the Lady finally draw out the style embedded in her confusion just before she sings. (We noted earlier that the verse paragraph of lines 205-20 has an echoic relation to parts of the brothers' dialogue. The sixteen verses also echo, incidentally, themselves: even halves of eight lines reflect each other across the long dash at line 212 and three groups of three elements each appear successively-the

"shapes," "shadows," and "tongues," which inhabit "Sands," "Shores," and "Wildernesses" and give way to "Faith," "Hope," and "Chastity.") Here echo saturates her speech to such an extent that she literally repeats her-­ self. Perceiving a light from above, she exclaims,

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Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night? I did not err, there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted Grove.

(221_25)

In these lines, among the most mysterious and beautiful that Milton wrote, the echoes accumulating throughout the soliloquy finally emerge. Not only does the text repeat its own previous words, but it echoes them exactly; not only does the text recall itself, but it recalls the recollections of another text. In the Fasti, as Mars arrives Ovid poses and answers a question: "fallor, an arma sonant? non fallimur, arma sonabant" [Do I err, or was there a clash of arms? I err not, there was a clash of arms] (5.549).44 The Lady's acoustical experiment seems to achieve its optimum result. In fact, however, the following song deepens still further the absorption of echo-and skepticism-into Milton's poetry:

Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet---embroider'd vale Where the love---lorn Nightingale Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well. Canst thou not tell me of a gentle Pair That likest thy Narcissus are? 0 if thou have

Hid them in some flow'ry Cave, Tell me but where, Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere, So mayst thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all Heav'n' s Harmonies. As G. Wilson Knight once observed, the Lady's song matches her "labyrinthine distress with labyrinthine harmony."45 In doing so, the song displays characteristically Miltonic features and effects.46 Like the river it mentions, the song meanders. Milton's verse indicates trajectories only to swerve away from them. These deviations inspire various processes of error and revision. One such process occurs at the enjambment across the third and fourth lines of the second stanza, where after "0 if thou have" one

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looks for "seen" and instead finds "hid."47 Like his enjambments, Milton's compound words spur divergent trains of thought. The vale is not just a violet vale nor even an embroidered vale, but a "violet--embroider'd vale." The nightingale is not just in love nor simply lorn but a "love--lorn nightingale."48 Such details suggest subtle ways that the song creates detours for the reader or listener attempting to follow its sense. The entire song, in fact, consists of a network of fore-- and after--thoughts that make it difficult to know who is there and where "there" is. Just as the Lady has had difficulty orienting herself in the woods, the song has difficulty situating Echo. The point of the song is to ask Echo about the location of the Lady's brothers, and yet it mostly concerns the location of Echo herself. The attempt to pinpoint Echo occupies the first sentence, which consists of an extended apposition. The very profusion of Echo's haunts-she lives "within" a shell, "by" a margent green, "in" the vale, "where" mourns the nightin-­ gale-removes her from any one place. The indeterminacy of Echo's whereabouts accompanies a proliferation of Echo's rhetorical circum-­ stances, of the modes in which the song addresses her: in the first stanza, she is apostrophized ("Sweet Echo"), within the apostrophe is described

("sweetest Nymph that liv' st unseen"), and within the description is made audience to the nightingale's mourning; in the second stanza, she is inter-­ rogated ("Canst thou not tell me"), entreated ("Tell me but where"), extolled

("Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere"), and made a deal ("So mayst thou be translated to the skies"). Finally, the multiplication of Echo's possible physical and rhetorical contexts also instills certain formal char-­ acteristics: an elaborate and highly wrought texture, rich diction, and especially, sinuous and elongated periods. These features constitute the elements of Milton's grand style, the style that makes Paradise Lost such a strenuous and exhilarating experience. In the soliloquy, the Lady thus dis-­ covers how to sing as Milton writes. It is no wonder, then, that "the Lady" was another way to say "John Milton."49 The Lady's perplexity in the woods consists of a skeptical crisis, which threatens to scramble any signals that would point the way to her father's state. But the Lady discovers a logic to this confusion. She finds that her skepticism has an echoic structure, which blurs the line between the dis-­ traction she flees and the attention she seeks. This structure allows the Lady to use her perplexity to inform her discourse and thereby to generate the grand style of the song that enables her to reach the end of the masque. The Lady thus acquires from the skepticism she experiences in the woods an aesthetic education, a lesson in the sublimity at once celebrated and

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constituted by Comus as a whole. By having his heroine find in the form of her very confusion the form of the song she sings, Milton indicates the skeptical way by which he came to write sublimely. This argument does not negate other ones that have been made about

Comus. It does, however, help explain some patterns in criticism of the masque. For a very long time critics of Comus focused largely on the issue of whether and where it moves. Samuel Johnson considered Comus "tedious" as drama, and many subsequent critics either agreed or disagreed with his assessment.so In the 1940s A. S. P. Woodhouse recast the issue of progress in theological terms.S

1

Woodhouse argued that Comus moves

from natural to divine realms, and for thirty years readings of the masque tended to take stands with respect to his position.S2 More recently, critics have focused on the frustration of forward movement manifest in the Lady's inertia. Why does she remain stuck on the throne of Comus even after his departure and speechless even after her release? This question, still related to the basic concern shared by Johnson and Woodhouse, became urgent. One important reading, by William Kerrigan, assigns this phenomenon a psychoanalytic value. According to Kerrigan, the Lady's overt and conscious "no" to temptation involves a covert and unconscious "yes" and so she hesitates.S3 Another important reading, by Leah Marcus, considers the hesitation in light of the I 63os controversy over holiday pas-­ times.S4 According to Marcus, the Lady's freedom awaits a balance between the opposed Laudian and Puritan views of the Book of Sports. Both of these readings treat differently what is essentially the same problem. While this likely means that the problem is overdetermined, I propose that my reading accounts for what allows such overdetermination in the first place: the Lady has trouble moving forward simply because she tries to do so while looking backward. The Lady calls for attention by recalling her distraction. Such a tactic has mixed results. By finding her escape within rather than beyond the limits of her captivity, she finds her-­ self in an indeterminate zone, where the boundary between opposite states is fluid and thus perpetually transgressed. Milton's double concern with sublimity and skepticism in Comus produces the fundamental structure that in turn absorbed the meanings that critics have extracted for over two hundred years. The profound skepticism of Comus helps particularly to explain why Marcus and others have had trouble pinpointing its political ideology. As Annabel Patterson remarks, Milton in his masque seems to come out both against and in favor of the ideologies of the country, Caroline re--creation, and the redistribution of goods.ss And as Orgel has concluded, Comus is

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less about a choice of ideology than about the difficulty of choosing one.56 Perhaps, I would suggest, Comus ultimately makes its readers so uncertain because there is so much doubt built into the very way that it moves them. Of course, the Lady eventually does get somewhere. But transcendence sounds echoic to the very end of Comus. The final lines of the Spirit's epi-­ logue offer a recipe for elevation: Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the Sphery chime; Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her. Is eminence the result of climbing higher or staying put, of individual effort or external aid? One explanation for the endurance of this question in the masque invokes Providence, which is supposed to intervene to help the good in need of guidance. The theme of divine intervention surfaces regularly in Comus. Remarkably, however, grace never intervenes imme-­ diately or absolutely. Divine assistance is always indirect and partial; Mil-­ ton consistently disperses the credit for the successes of his protagonists. The Spirit is sent by Jove for the "defense and guard" (42) of the Lady and her brothers; yet, the Lady's song also summons the Spirit (565-68). When the Lady agrees to follow Comus to what will turn out to be his palace, she does not ask Providence to rescue her, but only to "square my trial / To my proportion'd strength" (329-30, italics added). The elder brother insists that if Heaven endows his sister with strength, it neverthe-­ less "may be term'd her own" (419). The last lines of the masque assert that Heaven would aid virtue, but only on the condition that "Virtue feeble were" ( I 022). It is tempting to account for the repeated mitigation of divine agency in Comus by referring it to Milton's Arminianism, his belief that any pre-­ destination established by God is not absolute but contingent upon the free actions of human beings.S7 The chief evidence for Milton's Armini-­ anism, however, lies in the Christian Doctrine,s8 a work composed at least twenty years after Comus. Milton's early verse cannot simply be the aes-­ thetic consequence of his theology. Rather, if the Lady's pursuit of a tran-­ scendent degree of attention has theological implications, it is because Milton's theology answers an aesthetic mandate. This is not to deny the importance of theology to Milton's art; for a poet as deeply Christian as

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Milton, there exists no aesthetic realm apart from religious concerns. Nonetheless, Milton's theology is laced with skepticism, a skepticism that defers absolute theological knowledge and in doing so promotes aesthetic achievement. Without exception, Milton's doctrinal eccentricities depart from the orthodox in such a way as to interrupt human access to divine presence and the certainty enabled by it. I have just indicated how Mil-­ ton's Arminianism hangs predestination on the contingencies of human free will. His Antitrinitarianism, by rejecting the co--eternality of Christ and the Holy Spirit with God, drives a wedge between man and God's incommunicable essence.S9 His belief that the soul dies with the body entails that even man's most spiritual component is more human than divine.60 His theory of biblical composition holds that instead of amanu-­ enses taking dictation from God, the authors of the various books of the Bible were individuals who at one time were told divine truths and at another time wrote them down.61 For Milton, the best, biblical truth avail-­ able is subject to the humanity of its compilers. The closure of all the orthodox intersections between humanity and divinity in the Christian Doctrine and the deferral of divine intercession into the human affairs of Comus share a common origin. The unorthodox-­ ies of Milton's later theology involve the same skepticism that resists a quick deus ex machina to resolve the trials of Comus. There is, after all, another motive for the Lady's immobility: the undertow generated by skepticism makes room for the aesthetic achievement that Comus repre-­ sents. The great lengths required on the parts of the brothers, the Spirit, and Sabrina to reanimate the Lady result in the great length of the masque. At 1,023lines, Comus contains more poetry than any comparable entertainment. Milton surpasses the usual masque wonders to the extent that skepticism protracts the difficulties of his heroine and namesake. In Comus are exposed the aesthetic roots of the suspension of the absolute in Milton's doctrinal writings.

CHAPTER FOUR

Paradise Lost and How

(Not) to Be Sublime

IN

Comus, the Lady operates in an aesthetic laboratory, where she gener-­

ates attention by experimenting with her own confusion. In chapter 3 I made this argument and took it to suggest that Milton invents sublimity by finding that skepticism acquires different senses through repetition. This interplay between skepticism and sublimity evident in Milton's masque occurs in several of his later works. Milton begins Areopagitica, for example, by declaring his motivation in writing it to be "a passion, farre more welcome then incidentall to a Pref .. ace" (2.487 ). This anxiety about whether a passion belongs in a preface establishes a tension between conventional form and unconventional force that runs the length of the pamphlet. Milton commits Areopagitica both to the set form of a classical oration and to the boundless force of a special notion of truth. "Truth," he says, "is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition" (2.543). In other words, truth remains true as long as it continues to develop; once arrested, it turns false. The perpetual motion of truth means that knowledge must always lag behind it. Milton adopts this skeptical view of the relation between knowledge and truth as his central argument against licensing: "To be still searching what we know not . . . this is the golden rule" 108

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(2.S SI).Areopagitica thus combines epistemological and aesthetic senses of excessive motion.Truth is both too moving epistemologically for any control of the press to keep up with it and too moving aesthetically for any rhetorical structure to hold it. The events of Samson Agonistes happen on the day of the Philistine feast in honor of their god, Dagon.The function of Samson is to offer a countertestimony of the grandeur of his god, God.Samson tells Harapha: "thou shalt see ...whose God is strongest, thine or mine" (I I S S).The answer to the question of "whether God be Lord, I Or Dagon" (477-78), however, involves doubt. Samson's final performance obviously over-­ whelms Philistine grandeur. The Chorus nevertheless concludes the tragedy by declaring that this spectacular ruin leaves the intent of God "uncontrollable" (I 7 S4), as unknown as it is absolute. Like Samson and Comus, Paradise Regained concerns a grandeur that surpasses standard magnificence and whose realization incorporates doubt. In response to Satan's offer of world empire, Jesus rejects "this grandeur and majestic show I Of luxury, though call'd magnificence" (4.IIO-II). The realization of true magnificence, however, does not resolve Satan's doubts about the identity of Jesus so much as exacerbates them.Claiming to be "yet in doubt" as to whether Jesus is "The Son of God," a phrase that "bears no single sense" (4.SOI, SI7), Satan finally tries to ascertain Jesus' identity by placing him on the pinnacle of a temple. When the latter stands and says, "Tempt not the Lord thy God," Satan is "smitten with amazement" and falls (4.s6I-62). The grandeur that upsets Satan pre-­ serves the very ambiguity that kept in him doubt before: to whom "Lord thy God" refers is unclear. These brief treatments suggest the extent to which the interaction between sublimity and skepticism may account for some of the principal features of Milton's major works.One case, however, demands a full analy-­ sis here.Paradise Lost is not necessarily a better example for my model than Milton's other works, but it is the most important one historically, as the locus classicus of English sublimity. Within Paradise Lost I focus on the character of Satan as a mistaken but instructive theoretician of the sublime.Satan spends a lot of time trying to create the sensation of grandeur, but in doing so he remains insensitive to true sublimity. I call this callousness on Satan's part his bad taste. By "taste" I mean both the sensation of aesthetic experience and sensitivity to it, since in order to have a sensation one must be sensitive. Satan's bad 1

taste, I will argue, stems from the value that he places on skeptical doubt. Satan deploys doubt as an index of ruin, a policy that makes him unaware

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of the intersections of ignorance and eminence that generate sublimity. Satan's problem, therefore, is not that he is too skeptical, but that he is not skeptical enough: Satan falls because he fails to realize the full, sublime potential of doubting. The following pages, then, pursue three lines of inquiry: Satan's attempt to be sublime, the failure of his attempt, and the reasons for his failure. This reading of Satan changes understandings of Milton's epic, its reception, and its place in the intellectual and literary culture of early modern England. Readers of the epic since Andrew Marvell have used it to define and refine their notions of the sublime. Recent critical attention to the Miltonic sublime has largely constituted readings of this tradition of reading Paradise Lost.

2

Such readings of reading Paradise Lost tend to treat

it as a passive site where critics constructed their aesthetic categories. This approach assumes that self-conscious sublimity was not an English option before Dryden read Boileau's translation of Longinus in 1674. Given what we now know about the Renaissance sublime, however, this assumption is no longer tenable. Attention to the ways in which Paradise Lost constructs its own set of aesthetic categories may help return the epic to its rightful, active role in the history of sublimity: not just along for the ride, Paradise Lost is the ride. A reading of Andrew Marvell's early and influential "On

Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost" will lend support to this hypothesis. Marvell's poem shows how Milton's inspired its subsequent use as an arena for con-­ testing the aesthetic value of perplexity. Finally, the failure of the Satanic sense of doubt reflects the fact that in the seventeenth century doubt was acquiring additional senses. Paradise Lost was informed by and contributed to the ongoing absorption and evaluation of skepticism, a process by which early modern culture became modern) Sublimity is a basic issue in Paradise Lost that is of particular concern to Satan. Milton's epic recounts losses of elevation provoked by Satan's efforts to be sublime. As the descents of Adam, Eve, and Satan along the scale of creation are previewed in the first invocation, Milton connects the Fall to the seduction of Eve, Eve's seduction to the ruin of Satan, and Satan's ruin to his attempt to assume a high style. Milton asks, what cause Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State, Favor'd ofHeav'n so highly, to fall off From thir Creator, and transgress his Will For one restraint, Lords of the World besides? Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?

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The answer, of course, is Satan, who aspired to "set himself in Glory above his Peers," who "trusted to have equall'd the most High," and who as a result was "hurl'd headlong flaming from th'Ethereal Sky I With hideous ruin and combustion down I To bottomless perdition" (I.27-47). The changes in altitude that occur in Paradise Lost have aesthetic as well as spiritual consequences. Milton describes the careers of his characters in terms of the impressions they make. As our "Grand Parents," Adam and Eve had not only seniority or nobility; they possessed high style. As a "hideous ruin," Satan's plummet looked as bad as the first couple had looked good. But Satan's faux pas was not for lack of trying. When Milton pinpoints Satan as the "cause" of the Fall, he does not just mention Satan, but notes that Satan had first fallen himself, and before falling had enter-­ tained a certain notion of grandeur. Satan deceived Eve after he had been kicked out of Heaven, and then only after he had aspired to "set himself in Glory" above the other angels and equal to God. In addition to the respect accorded to God, "Glory" refers to the radiance he emanates, the special effects produced by his appearances.4 The lapses of Satan, Eve, and Adam, therefore, all follow Satan's attempt to appropriate the look and feel of divine eminence. As Milton traces the Fall to this attempt, he implies that its failure stems from a miscalculation. Satan's estimations of preeminence over equals ("above his Peers") and equality to preeminence ("equall'd the most High") clearly do not add up, and they suggest that he uses a kind of bogus math to calculate sublimity. Throughout Paradise Lost, Milton drops many hints that Satan obeys flawed principles of flight. At the end of book I, the devils must shrink to "less than smallest Dwarfs" (I.779) in order to fit into Pandemonium; Satan tellingly reduces his stature again in book 9 when he makes his "foul descent" (9.I36 ) into the sleeping serpent. These omens come to bitter fruition in book Io. Returned to Hell, Satan recounts his exploits in Chaos and Eden, which he supposes will guarantee an ascent into what he describes as "full bliss" (I o. 502-3). Instead, Satan and his auditors collapse and turn into serpents. As they slither out of Pandemo-­ nium, the rest of the devils waiting outside have similar expectations and experience the same letdown: all yet left of that revolted Rout Heav'n .. fall'n, in station stood or just array, Sublime with expectation when to see In Triumph issuing forth thir glorious Chief; They saw, but other sight instead, a crowd

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Of ugly Serpents; horror on them fell, And horrid sympathy; for what they saw, They felt themselves now changing; down thir arms, Down fell both Spear and Shield, down they as fast, And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form Catcht by Contagion, like in punishment, As in thir crime.

The words "like in punishment, I As in thir crime" argue that the penalty suffered by the devils suits their transgression. This argument, while it obviously alludes to the transformation of the devils into snakes, also applies to the sensation that befalls them.I have shown that Milton fingers Satan's pretense of sublimity as the cause of the Fall. It makes sense, then, that the punishment of Satan and his minions involve an aesthetic disap-­ pointment: expecting sublimity ("Sublime ...glorious Chief') the devils get "horror" instead. As the deflation of "sublime" aspirations, the final flop confirms that Satan's tnisjudgment of sublimity is at fault in Paradise Lost.

As a descent into "horror," Satan's punishment also elaborates the bad taste that informs his error: the trajectory from sublimity to horror fol-­ lowed by Satan as he collapses mirrors the course that Satan wants to take in ascending from Hell to Eden and reflects the sensibility that inspires him to make the ascent.The way that Satan's recipe for success fails to rise exposes the palate that selected the ingredients. Specifically, Satan's movement from Hell to Eden obeys a double compulsion, an attraction to delight and an aversion to horror. As the components of Satan's taste, these two impulses are responsible for the contents of the Satanic sublime. They compel Satan to interpret gaining altitude, and thus being sublime, as an exchange of horror for delight. The fallen and unfallen realms of Paradise Lost are sensations as well as locations, so that Satan's venture from one place to the other expresses his taste. The initial description of Eden in book 4 establishes delight as the aesthetic signature of Paradise and its inhabitants.s Just before he arrives in Eden, Satan tells himself to abandon thoughts of repentance and to focus instead on God's "new delight, I Mankind created, and for him this World" (4.106-7 ). The ensuing descriptions of Eden offer a cavalcade of delights. From his perch atop the Tree of Life Satan views "To all delight of human sense expos'd I In narrow room Nature's whole wealth, yea more, I A Heaven on Earth" (4.206-8). As he turns from the geography to the

Paradise Lost and How (Not) to Be Sublime

I

13

creatures of Paradise, Satan sees "undelighted all delight" (4.2 8 6). The descriptions themselves suggest the easy contact and voluptuous immedi-­ acy that by definition characterize delight. The topographical and crea-­ turely components of Eden are in direct and happy touch with one another. The sun "warmly smote I The open field" (4.244-45); the rose does without its postlapsarian defense (4.256).Like the rose, the texture of the verses describing Eden is luxuriously smooth as if caressed into sonic evenness. Assonance and alliteration (particularly of soft consonants) abound: through the shaggy hill Pass'd underneath ingulft, for God had thrown That Mountain as his Garden mould high rais'd Upon the rapid current, which through veins Of porous Earth with kindly thirst up--drawn, Rose a fresh Fountain, and with many a rill Water'd the Garden.

The gentle reception of the river by the rest of the landscape complements these tender sounds: the river does not need to change course to avoid a "shaggy hill," but is "with kindly thirst updrawn" through the "porous" earth. Like Eden, the lower realms of Paradise Lost feature a feeling: as much as Paradise delights, Hell horrifies.6 Milton establishes Satan's first view of Hell by calling it "a Dungeon horrible," and Satan's companions who lie about him are his "horrid crew" (I.6I, 5I)."Horror" and its cognates "hor-­ rible" and "horrid" occur eight times in the first book, three in the prelim-­ inary description of Hell alone.Unlike delight, horror is not soft or agree-­ able to the touch.7 Satan and the devils do all they can to avoid contact between their feet and the rough, burning surface of Hell that Milton repeatedly etnphasizes: "a singed bottom all involv'd I With stench and smoke: Such resting found the sole I Of unblest feet" (I.236-38); "Thir painful steps o'er the burnt soil" (I.56 2). The first and major accomplish-­ ment of the devils in Hell is to lose touch with such surroundings: in build-­ ing Pandemonium, they fashion a "smoothed Plank ...rubb'd with Balm" where they may "expatiate" (I.7 7 2- 74), that is, walk about freely and without pain. The priority the devils place on establishing a smooth, horror--free sur-­ face for movement and thought anticipates and epitomizes their behavior

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over the entire epic. They campaign for elevation by sponsoring Satan's expedition from infernal horror to edenic delight. In his determination that evildoing be "our sole delight" ( I. I 6o), Satan wishes that his ascent will be as delightful as his descent has been horrible. ("Sole" can mean "unalloyed" as well as "only.") Satan's tantalizing description of Eden to Sin also advertises a delightful ascent to Paradise: Thou and Death Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the buxom Air, imbalm'd With odors; there ye shall be fed and fill'd Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey.

Satan envisions Eden as a frictionless ("ease," "buxom") environment free from horrific asperities. Such smooth movement is exactly what Satan claims to have enabled when he returns from his trip: th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep Of horrible confusion, over which By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav'd To expedite your glorious march.

Satan's achievement disentangles the devils from the rough terrain imposed by horror and thus makes them literally footloose. ("Expedite" recalls the original sense of the Latin verb expedio, "to free the feet.") Understood as a passage from horror to delight, the devilish "broad way" concretizes the aesthetic judgment that orients Satan's quest for sublimity. Once one sees what Satan's taste involves, one sees how bad it is: really bad. The extra punishment that the devils incur after their metamorpho-­ sis confirms the absolute perversity of Satan's aesthetics. The devils must encounter fruit fair to sight, like that which grew Near that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd; This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceiv'd; they fondly thinking to allay Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit Chew'd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste With spattering noise rejected: oft they assay'd

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Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as oft, With hatefullest disrelish writh'd thir jaws With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell Into the same illusion. These lines refer to the "vine of Sodom" described in Deuteronomy

(32:32). They also make clear ("taste ...appetite ...gust ...bitter ... hunger ...thirst ...disrelish") that the devils--turned--serpents repeatedly disgust themselves.Their fate tastes horrible because they have such hor-­ rible taste. The failure that this fate represents, therefore, is total. For Satan does not merely fail to get where his appetite for delight and disrel-­ ish for horror aim him; he fails to get anywhere at all and returns exactly to where he started. Satan has only distaste for horror and horror is all Satan tastes. One could say that Satan's destiny in Paradise Lost is to recoil in horror. In fact, this is just how Milton describes what happens to Satan in the pre-­ lude to Satan's first soliloquy in book 4, where his climb out of horror begins to lose traction. Beyond being apt, this description associates Satan's relapse with his skepticism.With Eden in sight, Satan Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth Now rolling, boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a devilish Engine back recoils Upon himself; horror and doubt distract His troubl'd thoughts. The coincidence of "horror and doubt" forms one link in a chain of asso-­ ciations between doubt and horror that span the epic, from the incompre-­ hensible horror of "darkness visible" (1.63) to Satan's excitement about bridging the "horrible confusion" of Chaos ( I 0.4 72). The simile that articulates Satan's inability to clear horror and doubt, moreover, specifies how doubt contributes to his horrendous taste.When Milton compares Satan to an "Engine" that "recoils," he engages key terms and notions of a seventeenth--century debate about skepticism.During the middle decades of the century, skepticism entered the mainstream of En-­ glish culture. In 1642, Thomas Browne can already quip, "The wisest heads prove at last, almost all Skepticks, and stand like]anus in the field of knowledge" (66).8 Twenty years later, the Puritan John Owen in his Ani--­

madversions On A Treatise Intituled Fiat Lux complains of the "skepticism

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which is grown the entertainment of Tables and Taverns" ( 149).9 Owen's complaint registers the emergence of skepticism as a hot button issue in theological controversy. In particular, there was disagreement about the sense that skepticism made, that is, about the nature and the area of the effect of skeptical arguments. Some decades earlier, Catholic theologians in France such as Fran<;ois Veron had adopted skeptical tactics in order to question Protestant principles.

ro

This method, which Veron likened to

"une Machine de guerre de nouvelle invention [a newly invented engine of war]

,"1 1

involved doubting the notion of Scripture as a knowable crite-­

rion of truth. Catholic controversialists such as John Canes and John Sergeant appropriated the method as the "rule of faith" debate flared in England at midcentury.

12

For example, in Sure---Footing In Christianity, Or

Rational Discourses On The Rule of Faith ( 1665), Sergeant defines the char-­ acteristics requisite to such a "rule" and then concludes that "Scripture's letter wants all the forementioned properties" (39). In Fiat Lux, Or A gen--­ eral Conduct to a right understanding and charity in the great Combustions and Broils about Religion here in England ( I 662), Canes argues the obscurity of God, the darkness of nature, and the weakness of reason in order to encourage adherence to church precepts. Employers of skepticism, how-­ ever, were criticized for doubting too much. Protestants contended that Catholics, like bad ballisticians, misjudged the range of the doubts that they cast. The skeptical engine does not surgically strike some doctrines and leave others intact, but recoils: the very doubts leveled at Protes-­ tantism return to demolish Catholicism. Thus John Owen, in his Animad--­ versions writes: Suppose then they come to be perswaded of such an uncertainty, What course shall they take? Apply themselves to the Roman-­ Church and they are safe. But seeing the being of a Church, (much less the Roman--Church) hath no foundation in the light of Nature, and men can never know any thing of it, especially of its Preroga-­ tive, but by and from the Scripture whose Authority you have taught them to question, and made doubtful to them, What remains for rational men but to renounce both Scripture and Church. ( 183-84) Doubts about Scripture inevitably spread to the church as well. Joseph Glanvill estimates similarly the consequences of the use of skepticism in religious matters:

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II7

The Denial of Reason in Religion hath been the principal Engine, that Hereticks, and Enthusiasts have used against the Faith; and that which lays us open to infinite follies ...This is a Method to destroy Hereticks .

in earnest; but the mischief is, all Christians, and all other Religions, and all other reasonings are cut off by the satne Sword. (30, 33) r3 Glanvill's images of weaponry ("Engine," "Sword") express concern about the senses of skepticism, that is, about both the extent and value of its impact. Did doubts, once raised, strike only their intended target or the doubter as well? Did skepticism have constructive uses, or were its effects only ruinous? These questions gathered urgency as Milton composed and published

Paradise Lost in the 165os and 166os, and they form a context for under-­ standing the epic. Disagreement about the sense made by skepticism implied its volatility, the openness of doubt to changes of nature and domain. By describing Satan as a recoiling engine struck by horror and doubt, Milton affiliates the failure to achieve sublimity that is central to

Paradise Lost with the volatile nature of skepticism.Satan's attitude toward skepticism thus promises to account for his losses. Satan insists that doubt have a fixed sense. He consistently tries to direct uncertainty away from himself. The structure of the very first sen-­ tence uttered by Satan signals his intolerance of the confusion incurred by having fallen from Heaven: If he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope, And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise, Join'd with me once, now misery hath join'd In equal ruin.

Satan makes a conditional statement in order to secure the continuity of his and Beelzebub's hellish and heavenly personas: if Beelzebub is the same Beelzebub whom "mutual league" joined with Satan in Heaven,

then "misery" has joined him with Satan in Hell. Satan employs a logical mode of thought to traverse a gap of astonishment that endangers the accord between his and Beelzebub's past and present selves. The first occurrence of the pronoun "I" coincides with an assertion that it does not change:

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yet not for those, Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent or change, Though chang'd in outward luster; that fixt mind And high disdain, from sense of injur'd merit.

Satan insists that his "mind" stay "fixt" on the same "sense"; he refuses to alter the meaning of "injur'd merit" that he makes. r4 By continuing to make the same sense, Satan would give no reason for doubt. As much as Satan resists being the object of doubt, however, he loves being its subject. As he proceeds to explain in his first speech, Satan's attempt to depose God drew its energy from a diet of doubt. Satan enlists skepticism as the original rationale for revolt: "who knew / The force of those dire Arms?" (1.92-93). He fondly remembers the war in Heaven as a "dubious Battle" (I. 104), and having lost it, he now refuses To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee, and deify his power Who from the terror of this Arm so late Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed, That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall.

(I.III-I6) Although editors commonly gloss "Doubted" as "feared for" with God as the subject, Milton's ambiguous syntax also permits "Doubted" a transitive sense, with Satan as the subject who "doubted" (that is, called into ques-­ tion) God's rule. While dodging doubts that would apply to himself, Satan would smear God with uncertainty. Satan so carefully restricts the flow of doubt because he values doubt as an index of ruin. Satan considers it "low indeed" to bow to an object of doubt because doubt degrades its objects. This vision of God belittled by doubt implies assumptions not only about smallness but also about grandeur. The Satanic association between doubt and degradation entails a corollary alliance between eminence and knowledge, which allows Satan to reserve respect exclusively for known quantities. This principle, which plays an important role in Satan's enticement of Eve to violate the Tree of Knowledge in book 9, rs already serves Satan as an excuse for having rebelled. He explains to the devils that God

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I

19

till then as one secure Sat on his Throne, upheld by old repute, Consent or custom, and his Regal State Put forth at full, but still his strength conceal'd, Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.

Satan complains that God fully displayed His "State" but "conceal'd" His "strength." Satan could not ascertain what upheld God in His eminent position: was it "old repute, I Consent or custom"? God's "State," like the Earl of Bridgewater's "state" to be attended by his children in Comus (35), is a ceremony or display, a show of force. The Satanic opposition between doubt and eminence, however, makes it impossible for Satan to appreciate the sublime showmanship of God, which, as the Son knows, makes divin-­ ity unknown: "Fountain of Light, thyself invisible I Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st I Thron'd inaccessible" (3.375-77). Contrary to Jesus, Satan restricts his sense of doubt and so restricts the amount of eminence he can appreciate. Satan's ruinous notion of skepticism surfaces again in his dispute and near altercation with Gabriel. In this episode Satan notices for the first time his "lustre visibly impair'd" (4.850) and then attempts to save face by manipulating doubt. Throughout the encounter Satan insists on Gabriel's knowledge of him and on his own ignorance of Gabriel. When Gabriel does not cooperate and asks Satan to identify himself, Satan's retort thinly veils the umbrage he takes at another not knowing who he is: "Not to know mee argues yourselves unknown, I the lowest of your throng" (4.830-31). Having recovered from Gabriel's slight, Satan attempts to put Gabriel down by waxing skeptical: To whom thus Satan, with contemptuous brow.

Gabriel, thou hadst in Heav'n th' esteem of wise, And such I held thee; but this question askt Puts me in doubt.

Satan responds to Gabriel's various questions and doubts about him with supposed doubts about Gabriel. Satan is so keen to control doubt because he can conceive only of undoubted eminence. He fears that unless he and not another escapes the impact of uncertainty, another and not he will give the impression of grandeur that he wants to give.

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Satan's deployment of skepticism as an agent of destruction reflects a popular conception of doubt frequently associated with Satan or described as Satanic. In seventeenth--century England, an efflorescence of casuistical literature proposed various strategies to relieve spiritual confusion exacer-­ bated by conflicting political and religious obligations. 16 In the process of securing what were considered essential Christian beliefs and conducts from what was perceived to be corrosive doubt, casuists typically portrayed Satan as the purveyor of doubts whose acceptance would bring spiritual ruin. Thomas Wilcox, for example, ranks the "sundrie suggestions of Sathan" as a chief component of what he calls the "Doctrine of Doubting," which he would help his readers to resist by furnishing them with "spiritu-­ all armour and weapons" (232). 17 Obadiah Sedgwick similarly lists "the crediting of Satan's testimony" about one's spiritual condition as one of the "springs of doubting" that beset the weak believer and threaten moral degradation (94). rS Satan, Sedgwick writes, "either tempts us to sinne, and that will cause us to doubt; or else he tempts us to doubt, and that will cause us to sin" (preface). In Satans Fiery Darts Quenched (I64 7), Joseph Hall repels a series of challenges to doctrine set in quotations and attrib-­ uted to Satan. r9 By wielding the kind of ruinous doubt identified by casuists as Satanic, Satan behaves just as he is supposed to. In doing so, however, he remains insensible to the volatility noticed in midcentury debate about skepticism. In light of such debate, Satan keeps his skepticism in a state of arrested development, leaving himself vulnerable to the other senses that doubt may have and in fact was in the process of acquiring. These senses catch Satan off guard and crush him. By recoiling, Satan and the skepticism he embodies take a surprising turn into unforeseen dimensions of both space and significance. Milton's introduction to Satan's first soliloquy posits Satan as an object of skepticism by offering a definition of Satan that fails to define him. The lines of this introduction that I have already cited (4.Is-I9) portray the embryonic stage of Satan's "attempt" and yet yield no origin of his actions: his attempt boils in a breast already "tumultuous"; even before his thoughts get distracted by "horror and doubt," they are "troubl'd." This causelessness on Satan's part reflects the theory of Satanic behavior that Milton offers just a few lines earlier: "Satan, now first inflam'd with rage, came down, / The Tempter ere th' Accuser of man--kind" (4.9-Io). Milton defines his Satan as a tempter by contrasting him to the accusing Satan of Revelation. Milton wishes that Adam and Eve had the benefit of a "warning voice" (4.I) like the one that John heard as he witnessed Satan's second rout:

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And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night....Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the seal for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath. (I2:Io-I2) Here Satan is labeled the "accuser" of mankind. "Accuser" stems from the Latin noun accusator ("accuser")-used at Revelation I2:Io in the Vul-­ gate-which in turn stems from causa ("cause," "reason," "motive"). Mil-­ ton alludes to this etymology when he specifies that his Satan is not an accuser but a "Tempter" without, as Milton emphasizes, "cause to boast" (4.I4). Unlike the Satan of Revelation, the Satan of Paradise Lost cannot accuse mankind because mankind has yet to sin and thus gives Satan no reason to attack. Insofar as Satan's attack is unreasonable, it does not con-­ stitute an object of knowledge. The soliloquy itself bears the impression of the recoil of skepticism. In the soliloquy Satan inquires after causes of his behavior and finds nothing. Asking himself "wherefore" (4.4 2), Satan first rationalizes his rebellion by recalling that he had sought to "quit I The debt immense of endless grati-­ tude" imposed by God (4.5I-52); he quickly corrects himself, however, admitting that not God but his own ingratitude burdened him ("a grateful mind I By owing owes not" [4.54 -55]).Then Satan attributes his fall to the superior rank accorded to hitn by God, which tempted him to rise still higher (4.58 -6I); he retracts this reason too, though, realizing that even as "some inferior Angel" (4.59) he would have followed others tempted in his place and acknowledging that some angels

"as great I Fell not"

(4.63-64). Satan next accuses "Heav'n's free Love" for giving him license to oppose God (4.66-68). Satisfied momentarily with this conclusion, Satan exclaims, "Be then his Love accurst" (4.69).But then he recants and curses himself instead for having freely opposed God's will: "Nay curs'd be thou; since against his thy will I Chose freely what it now so justly rues" (4.7I-72). "Curs'd" (4.7I), like "accurst" (4.69), echoes "accuse" (4.67), underscoring Satan's futile effort throughout his soliloquy to fashion him-­ self into an accuser with a "cause to boast" (4.I4). Desperate to have a cause to accuse, Satan winds up as an accursed parody of an accuser, horrified at his own senseless behavior. After Satan abandons the idea of accusing, he tries repenting. More confusion ensues. A first attempt to repent begins with a suggestion ("Me miserable," echoing a penitential psalm of David), builds to a question ("is

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there no place I Left for repentance, none for pardon left"), and collapses in rejection: "None left but by submission; and that word I Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame I Among the Sprits beneath" (4.73, 79-80, 81-83). Satan tries again by hypothesizing what would follow if he repented: But say I could repent and could obtain By Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd so deep: Which would but lead me to a worse relapse, And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear Short intermission bought with double smart. This knows my punisher; therefore as far From granting hee, as I from begging peace: All hope excluded thus, behold instead Of us out--cast, exil'd, his new delight, Mankind created, and for him this World. So farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear, Farewell Remorse: all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good.

Repentance would malfunction, because any "submission" by Satan would necessarily be "feign'd." Words like "for," "so," "therefore," and "thus" give the sound but not the substance of logic to a speech that essentially says, "I can't repent, and if I could, I couldn't because I can't." A series of half .. baked and abandoned arguments, Satan's soliloquy makes him unknown.20 As Satan fails to explain why he misbehaves, his skepticism switches senses on him. The doubts that Satan tries to cast at others boomerang and strike him instead, so that Satan becomes the incoherent object of skepti-­ cism. The skepticism that changes course also changes significance: the doubts that Satan intends to signify ruin ultimately signify grandeur. In the process of being ruined by doubt, Satan finally attains a measure of sub-­ limity, albeit not entirely his own. His dubious attempts to minimize God and aggrandize himself ultimately minimize himself and aggrandize God.

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However Satan counts on his doubts to reduce God, they spin out of con-­ trol to manifest how great God is. The central episode of the Satanic recoil anticipated in book 4 and cul-­ minated in book Io occurs in book 6, where Satan invents artillery. Throughout this episode Satan conflates technological and rhetorical senses of invention. As he first describes the underground materials needed for gunpowder, he finds words that are appropriate in more ways than one: materials dark and crude, Of spiritous and fiery spume, till toucht With Heav'n's ray, and temper'd they shoot forth So beauteous, op'ning to the ambient light.

One critic has noted that Satan's "cunning choice of touched, tempered,

shoot and opening anticipates what follows; gunpowder is invented in the images before it occurs in the narrative."21 By being so inventive, Satan claims command not only of chemistry but also of inventio, the first, most complex, and fundamental step of rhetorical composition. The combined inventiveness practiced by Satan agrees with his con-­ ception of artillery as a means to sublimity. Satan predicts that his "engines" will make the loyal angels "fear" that the rebels "have disarm'd / The Thunderer of his only dreaded bolt" (6.490-9I). This boast reflects what Michael Murrin has called the "modernist" view that cannons out-­ bang thunder.22 Since lightning is Longinus's leading illustration of sub-­ limity in Peri hypsous, which Milton had read by the time he composed

Paradise Lost, in expressing this view Satan claims the power to generate the sublime. Satan understands this sublimity as the projection of doubt on his ene-­ mies. The artillery sequence starts with Satan's assurance of his council after the first day of fighting that the rebels are "now known in arms not to be overpowered" and that they may deem God "fallible" and thus doubt Him (6.4I8-I9, 428). Observing the good angels overthrown by gunfire, Satan mocks them as having "chang'd thir minds" and expresses mock confusion at their discomfiture (6.6I 3). This taunt mirrors his insistence in book I on having a "fixt mind" (I.97 ). After Belial joins in the fun, Mil-­ ton makes it clear that the devils believe to have made themselves sublime and the angels ridiculous:

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So they among themselves in pleasant vein Stood scoffing, highth'n'd in thir thoughts beyond All doubt of Victory, eternal might To match with thir inventions they presum'd So easy, and of his Thunder made a scorn, And all his Host derided, while they stood A while in trouble.

According to the devils' logic, they are undoubted and therefore sublime, while the angels are "not understood" (as Belial puts it) and thus ridiculous (6.626).23 Of course, no neatly uneven division of doubt results from Satan's gun-­ powder plot, but rather "horrid confusion heapt / Upon confusion" (668-69). As both before and after this episode, devilish horror and doubt recoil. The reversals of the senses of skepticism surprise Satan because he underestimates the dimensions of the impact and meaning that skepticism has. Satan attempts to operate skepticism in only one of its modes, as directed toward and registering the destruction of others. In doing so he ignores the full, sublime potential of skepticism; there is more to skepti-­ cism than Satan thinks. Sublimity eludes Satan because he is not skeptical enough to taste it. To the extent that Satan's skepticism acquires a sublime sense Satan participates in the sublimity of Paradise Lost. 24 Since the ruin of Satan ulti-­ mately points to the grandeur of God, Satan's failure is edifying.2s As he falls he measures the elevation he falls from. Satan's miscalculation of sub-­ limity is the way that sublimity gets calculated in Paradise Lost. The ambiguous status of Satan is a by--product of the skeptical production of Miltonic sublimity. The influence of doubt on both ruin and grandeur leaves any boundary between them porous. Because sublimity, as Satan accidentally demonstrates, does not confine doubt but turns it loose, the indeterminacy that characterizes skepticism also characterizes the parame-­ ters of the aesthetic category skepticism helps to create. Satan has an indefinite relationship to the category of sublimity, because that category has an indefinite purview. It is no wonder that Satan has been taken to be both villain of Paradise Lost and its hero.26 The fuzzy outline of the sublimity traced by Satan accounts for the dis-­ agreement among readers about where grandeur resides in Paradise Lost. 27 To prove this hypothesis, which concerns the reception of Milton's epic and its influence on theories of sublimity, exceeds the scope of these pages.

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The rest of this chapter, however, does conduct a test by examining one early and crucial response. Milton included his friend Andrew Marvell's "On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost" as a preface to the second edition ( 1674) of the epic. In this encomium, Marvell attributes to Paradise Lost the prop-­ erty of being "sublime" (53). An analysis of Marvell's poem strongly sug-­ gests that the sublimity of discussions of Paradise Lost is the sublimity of Paradise Lost itself. "On Paradise Lost" offers a lesson in the Miltonic sub-­ lime, a lesson drawn directly from Satan. Having observed Satan's ruinous doubt grow into a testimony of grandeur, Marvell adopts skepticism as his encomiastic strategy. Beginning as an accuser apparently bent on belit-­ tling Milton's achievement, Marvell deliberately courts the accidental for-­ tune of Satan. Marvell does not, therefore, abandon the Satanic way to sublimity but follows it; Satan's example inspires Marvell not to eschew skepticism but to exploit it as material for his tribute to Milton's uncom-­ mon eminence. When Marvell says that the Miltonic sublime "needs not Rime," he implies that the eminence of Paradise Lost transcends ordinary eminence to such a degree that it ruptures the standard form of Restoration verse. By "sublime" Marvell thus designates an explosive quality of literature and so uses the word in its special, modern sense.28 That said, in the following pages I want to consider how "On Paradise Lost" earns its climactic decla-­ ration. For it is my contention that Marvell takes the challenge of intro-­ ducing and praising Paradise Lost so seriously that he does not just call Par--­ adise Lost "sublime" but shows how Paradise Lost is sublime through his approach to the task of his tribute. The special way that "On Paradise Lost" conveys the greatness of its subject-that is, the way Marvell's poem man-­ ages to be "on" Paradise Lost-demonstrates that greatness. This way to sublimity goes through skepticism. Although at first skepticism threatens to erode rather than uphold grandeur, as "On Paradise Lost" grows in length skepticism grows in value. Marvell invests in skepticism as a cogni-­ tive property and develops it in order to vitalize the sublimity he cele-­ brates.29 Recent readings of Marvell's poem have detected implicit expressions of support for Milton in the context of Restoration politics. Sharon Achinstein, for example, argues that "On Paradise Lost" tolerates the reli-­ gious enthusiasm connoted by Miltonic obscurity and thus affirms a notion of individual liberty.3° My reading does not deny such political implica-­ tions. However, I do want to point out an aspect of this encounter between Milton and Marvell that I believe others have missed: the problem of introducing a sublime poem and the extent and import of doubt in the

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process of doing so. Achinstein is right to suggest that Marvell's text recounts a personal journey that begins in doubt, but that journey does not end in certainty.31 A corrosive uncertainty dominates the first twenty--two lines of "On Paradise Lost" as Marvell casts a series of doubts on Milton and his epic: When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, In slender Book his vast Design unfold, Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree, Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree, Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument Held me a while misdoubting his Intent, That he would ruine (for I saw him strong) The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song (So Sampson grop'd the Temple's Posts in spight) The World o'erwhelming to revenge his sight. Yet as I read, soon growing less severe, I lik'd his Project, the success did fear; Through that wide Field how he his way should find O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind; Lest he perplex'd the things he would explain, And what was easy he should render vain. Or if a Work so infinite he spann'd, Jealous I was that some less skilful hand (Such as disquiet always what is well, And by ill imitating would excel) Might hence presume the whole Creation's day To change in Scenes, and show it in a Play. (I-22 ) In this first phase of his encomium Marvell considers responses that "held" him "misdoubting" and so caused him to suspend his approval.Each of the three doubts involved questions about the grandeur of Paradise Lost. First

( I-Io ) , Milton's ambitious theme ("Argument") suggests that he will "ruin .../The sacred Truths" to revenge his blindness; because the world has wrecked his vision, Milton will ruin the world. Marvell's worry is that by taking on such a vast enterprise Milton will inevitably reduce the truth by constraining it into an inadequate form.A "vast Design" cannot fit into a "slender Book." This initial doubt dissipates and a second one appears

( I 1-16): having grown less "severe" about the virtue of the overall project,

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Marvell now doubts its practicability; he does not know how Milton can navigate the "wide Field" he has chosen with only the guidance systems of faith and understanding.Marvell fears that Milton will cover only a por-­ tion of the territory that he has claimed for his poem. Like the first, this second doubt gives way to another one (17-22).Third, Marvell suspects that even if Milton does achieve his ends, Paradise Lost will have a perni-­ cious influence on literature by inspiring writers with as grand or grander ambition but less skill to undertake the same kind of venture.In attempt-­ ing to excel Milton's work such authors will end up falling short. This prospect in effect reanimates Marvell's first doubt that Milton might ruin the truth, for if Milton does not ruin it himself, then others wilL In retrospect Marvell calls his doubts "surmise[s]" (24).A surmise is an allegation, suspicion, or opinion, which, as the etymology suggests, is imposed on a person or thing.32 Marvell's surmises oppress Paradise Lost and threaten to degrade its eminence.Marvell thus makes an odd start to a poem whose ostensible purpose is to put Milton's achievement on a pedestal; rather than extol the greatness of Paradise Lost, Marvell doubts whether it is great at alL Marvell's doubts seem to violate the standard procedure of an encomium, a procedure followed in exemplary fashion by "S.B." (Samuel Barrow), whose "In Paradisum Amissam Summi Poetae Johannis Miltoni [On the Paradise Lost of John Milton Consummate Poet]" immediately pre-­ cedes Marvell's poem in the second edition of Paradise Lost.33 Barrow's encomium provides a point of reference by which to gauge the eccentricity of Marvell's method. Although the poem is structured around two ques-­ tions, no deep questioning occurs, as Barrow's queries are rhetorical and serve as points of departure for the direct description that constitutes his praise of Paradise Lost, "grandia magni I Carmina Miltoni [great poem of mighty Milton]" (1-2).The first question-"Qui legis Amissam Paradisum

...quid nisi cuncta legis [You who read Paradise Lost ...what do you read but the story of all things]?"-already contains its own answer and immedi-­ ately provokes an approving survey of "all" that Paradise Lost discloses: land, sea, sky, the inhabitants of Earth, Hell, Heaven, Chaos, God, and Christ's love of man (5-14).The second question-"Haec qui speraret quis crederet

esse futurum [Who that hoped for such a poem could have believed that it would come into existence]?" (15)-is also immediately put to rest-"Et

tamen haec hodie terra Britanna legit [And yet this is the poem that the land of Britain reads today]" (16)-and is succeeded by a straightforward and concise summary of the events of Milton's war in Heaven ( I 7-38). Barrow accomplishes his tribute to Paradise Lost by means of enargeia, a

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vivid picture of Milton's "grandia carmina" consisting of details lifted right out of the epic (mostly from book 6). Marvell, to the contrary, begins his testimony of Milton's grandeur not by describing but by doubting it long and hard. This difference in approach, however, does not make "On Par--­

adise Lost" any less of an encomium, but only an encomium that rests on a different basis than Barrow's. While Barrow relies on a rhetoric of presence that assumes that the eminence of Paradise Lost may be apprehended and directly transferred to his own poem, Marvell depends on a skeptical rhetoric of absence, which insists on expressing eminence not beyond but through doubt. A prefatory encomium whose method resembles Marvell's more closely than Barrow's is Ben Jonson's "To My Chosen Friend, The Learned Trans-­ lator of Lucan, Thomas May Esq.," which prefaced May's 1627 translation of Lucan's Pharsalia: When, Rome, I read thee in thy mighty paire, And see both climing up the slippery staire Of Fortune's wheele, by Lucan driv'n about, And the world in it, I begin to doubt, At every line some pinn thereof should slacke At least, if not the generall Engine cracke. But when againe I view the parts so peiz'd And those in number so, and measure rais'd, As neither Pompey's popularitie,

Caesar's ambition, Cato's libertie, Calme Brutus tenor start; but all along Keepe due proportion in the ample song, It makes me ravish'd with just wonder, cry What Muse, or rather God of harmony Taught Lucan these true moodes? Replyes my sence What godds but those of arts, and eloquence?

Phoebus, and Hermes? They whose tongue, or pen Are still th' interpreters twixt godds, and men! But who hath them interpreted, and brought

Lucans whole frame unto us, and so wrought As not the smallest joynt, or gentlest word In the great masse or machine there is stirr'd? The selfe same Genius 1 so the worke will say. The Sunne translated, or the Sonne of May.

(Ben]onson, 8.395)

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Andrew Shifflett has argued that by echoing Jonson's "doubt" Marvell inscribes Milton, politically vulnerable during the Restoration, into a timeless Stoic brotherhood through the identification of Lucan as an exemplar of Stoic resistance to temporal authority.34 The differences between Jonson's and Marvell's doubts outweigh the similarities, however. Marvell is fundamentally at odds with Jonson's poem. Although Jonson doubts, his skepticism rapidly resolves itself: whereas Janson takes only seven lines to get around to praising May's translation, Marvell takes twenty--three to get around to praising Milton's epic-about the length of Jonson's entire encomium. Marvell's skepticism is more developed, more intense, potentially more ruinous, and most important, it never subsides. Janson's doubt quickly gives way to the scientifically oriented admiratio at work in his masques. Jonson's "just wonder" engenders a question but quickly leads to a sure answer; his admiratio thus depends on the decline of the interrogative mood. Just as Milton revises the aesthetic of the Janson-­ ian masque in Comus, Marvell revises Jonson's encomiastic aesthetic in "On Paradise Lost." While Marvell's "misdoubting" may recall Jonson's poem to May and thus praise Milton as a modern Stoic, Marvell's skepticism also creates a different register of praise altogether. In the second movement of "On Par--­

adise Lost" skepticism changes its sense and generates sublimity. Having administered doubt as a reducing agent for twenty--two lines, Marvell sud-­ denly reverses himself: Pardon me, Mighty Poet, nor despise My causeless, yet not impious, surmise. But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare Within thy Labours to pretend a share.

Marvell's doubts have apparently vanished: realizing that his previous accusations were "causeless," he is now "convinced" and presumably free to get on with the business of praise. The relation between Marvell's doubts and his praises, however, is more complicated than that. Indeed, there has been a good deal of criticism spilt over the relation between the two phases of the poem. While some critics have contended that praise entirely supplants doubt, others have variously insisted that doubts persist through to the end.35 I would suggest that "On Paradise Lost" is both praiseful and doubtful because its doubt is what enables its praise. Marvell's skepticism does not stop at line

22

but rather moves in different senses. In

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the first movement of the poem Marvell doubts Milton; in the second movement Milton in effect doubts Marvell: the doubts that Marvell's poem has cast on Paradise Lost recoil and have an impact on the tribute to sublimity that "On Paradise Lost" offers. The discovery of an additional value to skepticism makes this tribute possible. Whereas in phase one doubt serves as an index of ruin, in the second movement it indexes emi-­ nence. Skepticism, therefore, does not fall prey to Marvell's mission of calling attention to Miltonic sublimity, nor does that mission fail because doubts persist. Rather, skepticism grows out of its ruinous role and allows Marvell's poem to achieve its appropriately heterodox testimony to a sub-­ lime work of art. The recoil of skepticism from Paradise Lost to "On Paradise Lost" makes several impressions on Marvell's poem. For example, Marvell quickly reverses his doubts about Milton's competence by admitting that those who write after reading Paradise Lost "detect their Ignorance or Theft"

(3o). Before, Marvell feared that Milton lacked the spiritual equipment to realize his ambition. Now Marvell fears for himself. Paradise Lost makes its doubters doubted. The charge of incompetence that returns to haunt Mar-­ vell also informs the penultimate couplet, which ingeniously compliments Milton's decision not to rhyme his epic: "I too transported by the Mode offend,/ And while I meant to Praise thee must Commend" (51-52). This joke, which arises from the irony of a fashionable tribute to disregarding fashion, is both funny and humble: Marvell purposely shows himself lim-­ ited by rhyme in order to salute the unlimited greatness of Milton. By restricting himself from positive use of the word "Praise," Marvell exposes the fragmentary nature of his encomium. No longer concerned that Par--­

adise Lost may ruin "the sacred truths," Marvell admits that he ruins the truth about Paradise Lost. Grandeur cracks its container. "On Paradise

Lost" cracks because Marvell's doubt has changed course and expanded its meaning: as Paradise Lost goes from being too little for Marvell to too much, doubt becomes a sign of wealth as well as want. The skepticism that reverberates through the second part of the encomium influences how Marvell says it feels to read Paradise Lost. This aesthetic response emerges in the middle of a verse paragraph that describes Miltonic "Majesty": That Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign Draws the devout, deterring the Profane. And things divine thou treat'st of in such state

Paradise Lost and How (Not) to Be Sublime

13 I

As them preserves, and thee, inviolate. At once delight and horror on us seize, Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease; And above human flight dost soar aloft, With Plume so strong, so equal, and so soft. The Bird nam'd from that Paradise you sing So never Flags, but always keeps on Wing.

These lines are the most confusing in the poem. They veer haphazardly through a series of perspectives: on the collective movements and individ-­ ual reactions of Milton's audience, on the elevation of the epic "above human flight" and the qualities ("strong," "equal," "soft") of the "Plume" that sustains that elevation, and-the most complex perspective-on the effect of the "state" in which Milton treats "things divine" on those things and on Milton (both are kept "inviolate"). Finally, Marvell turns from Par--­

adise Lost, its author, and its audience to the bird of paradise (39-40).36 The jumble that results from this effort to grasp the grandeur of Paradise

Lost contrasts sharply with the neat, tripartite exposition of Marvell's doubts in the first part of the poem. This perplexity matches that of other passages that I have analyzed in previous chapters-such as Montaigne's meditation on the ruins of Rome and the Lady's song to Echo in Comus-and the same logic applies: the greater the confusion, the greater the object of confusion. This time, how-­ ever, I want to focus on the complexity of a single element: the experience of Paradise Lost as a combination of "delight and horror." What does such a response entail? As I have said earlier in this chapter, by definition "delight" connotes the pleasant effect of welcome contact; one agrees to the presence of a delightful something or someone and drops one's defenses to receive it. "Delight" thus signals attraction. "Horror" means the opposite, as its Latin roots horreo and horresco ("bristle") indicate; one does not pursue the horrible but only distance from it. "Horror" thus regis-­ ters repulsion. When Marvell says that both delight and horror seize the reader of Paradise Lost, therefore, he implies that the reader finds himself symmetrically torn, both magnetized to and repelled from the epic. The ambivalence of the aesthetic response to Paradise Lost proposed by Marvell corresponds to the growing skepticism of his poem. The expan-­ sion of skepticism in phase two of "On Paradise Lost" calls attention to a grandeur that eludes the mind and senses. As I have shown in earlier chap--

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ters, skepticism paradoxically involves both detachment and sensitivity. By acknowledging the difficulties of knowing, the skeptic admits his irre-­ ducible detachment from objects and in so doing proclaims an anaesthetic sensitivity to the fact that there may exist things unknown to him. The absence of understanding, skeptically recognized, suggests the potential presence of matter that is not understood. Skepticism in one way con-­ strains sensitivity and in another way enlarges it, opening one distance (to what is known) and closing another (to what transcends knowledge). Par--­ adise Lost should taste both delightful and horrible to Marvell's readers

because skepticism informs the right taste in and of the epic that concerns Marvell's poem. Delight and horror respectively match the attention and distraction inherent in skepticism. They reflect the ambivalence of the skepticism that informs Marvell's testimony of the sublimity of Paradise Lost.

More important, "delight and horror" recall Paradise Lost, whose Satan is Marvell's antimodel in "On Paradise Lost." Several elements of Marvell's testimony of the Miltonic sublime invert counterparts in Satan's posturing for sublimity. Whereas Satan stumbles by overestimating his own eleva-­ tion, Marvell rises to the occasion of his tribute by humbly acknowledging the loftiness of another. While Satan wishes to find not horror but delight sublime, Marvell's notion of sublimity embraces both delight and horror. Satan's aesthetic predilections accompany his exclusively ruinous sense of skepticism; Marvell's broader tastes complement the expansion of skepti-­ cism beyond its devilish confines. Satanic doubt limits the range of recog-­ nizable grandeur; Marvellian doubt pushes the acknowledgment of grandeur to a sublime extreme. Satan's mistake becomes Marvell's method. I have shown that Satan's skepticism acquires more senses than Satan anticipated. A would--be accuser brandishing doubts, he winds up a causeless object of skepticism. Having observed Satan's ruinous doubt grow into a testimony of grandeur, Marvell adopts skepticism as his encomiastic strategy. Beginning as an accuser apparently bent on belittling Milton's achievement, he then admits hitnself "causeless" and professes Milton "sublime"-precisely the accidental fortune of Satan. Marvell offers a reader's manual of sublimity, and his method is Satanic. The conjunction of delight and horror that Marvell teaches as the Mil-­ tonic sublime enjoys an important fortune in subsequent conceptions of sublimity. When John Dennis crossed the Alps in 1688, he wrote a letter describing the "unusual heighth" of the experience as a "delightful Hor-­ rour" ( I :380 ) .37 Shortly after returning to England, Dennis began a series

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of critical writings in which he advocated Milton as "one of the most sub-­ lime of our English poets" (1:4), writings that had an important influence on such theorists as Joseph Addison and Samuel Johnson.38 Edmund Burke was another theorist who supported and developed his notion of sublimity through Milton. And like Dennis, Burke described "delightful horror" as "the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime" ( 7 3) )9

Conclusion

THE CHAPTERS OF

this book have examined episodes of the prehistory of

the modern sublime. This relatively tacit phase ended with the appearance of Boileau's translation of Longinus in 1674, which helped trigger a process of overt theorization that culminated in Burke's A Philosophical

Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful ( I 7 57) and Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790). Their seminal analyses constitute the chief subjects of histories of the sublime and set the parameters of its con-­ temporary debate. In my introduction, I asked how the prehistory may relate to the history, and what this relation may indicate about the latter. Here, I will sketch an answer to this question by exploring some ways in which the sublimities of Burke and Kant reflect those of Milton and Mon-­ taigne. This condensed treatment-one could easily devote another book to it-will suggest the extent to which the modern branches of sublimity stem from a skeptical and Renaissance root structure. In chapter 4, I found that Paradise Lost implies that a cotnbination of delight and horror is what being high feels like in a world where skepticism has multiple senses. At the end of the chapter I noted that Burke identifies "delightful horror" as the "most genuine effect, and truest test of the sub-­ lime." Such a coincidence leads me to hypothesize that Milton plays more than the supporting role in Burke's theory suggested merely by his cita-­ tions of Milton. I will now test this hypothesis by exploring how the

Enquiry answers the demand for sublimity made by Paradise Lost. 134

Conclusion

135

According to Burke, the sublime is an unreasonably strong passion.

1

Burkean sublimity is unreasonable because Burke is a deeply skeptical thinker, especially regarding the authority of reason over reality. He belongs to the tradition of skepticism insofar as he sees the ratiocinative capacities of human beings not as the way to truth but rather in the way of it. He believes that the abstract reflection of reason independent of sensa-­ tion has no value and may even prove dangerous to society. Reasoning must occur not apart from the passions, but through them. Burke thus con-­ cludes his preface to the second edition of the Enquiry by insisting on the importance of the latter to the former: [W]hilst we investigate the springs and trace the courses of our pas-­ sions, we may not only communicate to the taste a sort of philo-­ sophical solidity, but we may reflect back on the severer sciences some of the graces and elegancies of taste, without which the great-­ est proficiency in those sciences will always have the appearance of something illiberal. ( 6) "Illiberal" here has the sense of "vulgar," "coarse," or "ungentlemanly." When conducted too dispassionately, science assumes a brutal character. Burke's doubts about the civility of what reason does on its own eventually fuel his criticism of the French Revolution as the barbarous result of ratio-­ nal arrogance.

2

The sublime matters more than any other passion to Burke because it is "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" ( I. 7.39). As such, sublimity has the strength to make one unreasonable: In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it can-­ not entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. (2.1.57) Sublime experiences have such high value because they demonstrate how weak reason in the abstract is and ought to be. In doing so, they reveal the intentions of the divine maker of humanity: Whenever the wisdom of our Creator intended that we should be affected with any thing, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he

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endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understand-­ ing, and even the will, which seizing upon the senses and imagina-­ tion, captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either to join with them or oppose them. (3.7.I07) Sublimity (and to a lesser extent beauty) signifies a divinely ordained skep-­ ticism, which requires that one think in conjunction with how one feels as opposed to how one reasons. Doubtful about reason by design, human beings must be, as Burke puts it, "faithful to their feelings" (4.I 9· I so). The religious skepticism of Burke has many possible sources, but none is more important than Milton. In part 2 of the Enquiry (devoted to the sublime), Burke affirms God's sublimity by arguing that however unmov-­ ing one may find the abstract idea of divinity, because we are bound by the condition of our nature to ascend to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensible images, and to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, it becomes extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by which we are led to know it. (2.5.68) Due to the "condition of our nature," we cannot separate our idea of God from how that idea feels. This condition, which dictates the purchase of the passions over reason, precisely recalls the consequence of the Fall as formulated by Milton in Paradise Lost. Michael tells the fallen Adam: Since thy original lapse, true Liberty Is lost, which always with right Reason dwells Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being: Reason in man obscur'd, or not obey'd, Immediately inordinate desires And upstart Passions catch the Government From Reason, and to servitude reduce Man till then free.

In this postlapsarian world dramatized by Milton of passion confounded with reason, Burke finds that he must enquire reasonably about the passions. The close relation between the sublime and skepticism in the Enquiry manifests Burke's respect for Milton's conception of the fallen state of humanity. By elaborating this relation, Burke implicitly reverses the

Conclusion

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Satanic work of separating doubt from grandeur (see chapter 4). As an exercise in the taste for sublimity that Satan never had, the Enquiry fol-­ lows the lesson of Paradise Lost first discerned by Marvell: one can get high only through doubt, not around it. Burke's sense that his Enquiry serves the Miltonic purpose of establish-­ ing a skeptical approach to the sublime surfaces in the conclusion to part

I. Here Burke discusses what he believes to be the fruits of good enquiry: The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we every where find of his wisdom who made it. If a discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as an hymn to the Creator; the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to him, nor unproductive to our-­ selves of that noble and uncommon union of science and admira-­ tion, which a contemplation of the works of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst referring to him whatever we find of right, or good, or fair in ourselves, discovering his strength and wisdom even in our own weakness and imperfection, honouring them where we discover them clearly, and admiring their profun-­ dity where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the counsels of the Almighty by a consider-­ ation of his works. The elevation of the mind ought to be the prin-­ cipal end of all our studies, which if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little service to us. (I.I9· 52-53) Burke compares his project to a "hymn" in praise of God's creation, whose "profundity" may frustrate knowledge but not wonder. The word "hymn" has a particularly Miltonic resonance. In I 794, Burke's son Richard lay on his deathbed. His final words were a citation by heart of lines from Adam's and Eve's morning hymn (Paradise Lost 5.I53-2o8). According to a family friend and witness (French Laurence), the verses were "favourite lines of his fathers, and were so, as I recollect, of his poor uncle to whom he was then going with those very lines on his tongue" ( 7:564).3 (Burke's brother, also named Richard, had died six months earlier.) In Paradise Lost, the hymn urges praise of a wonderful-and unknowable-God: These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, thine this universal Frame, Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!

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Unspeakable, who sit'st above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine.

Adam and Eve express at this point precisely the sense of elevation that Satan refuses to admit: being admirable without being known. Richard's dying words signal how deeply the Burkes versed themselves in Milton.4 This familial culture was part of what inspired Edmund to conceive of his

Enquiry as a "hymn" realizing the Miltonic union of sublimity and skepti-­ cism. Insofar as Burke avidly read and cited Milton, their connection is obvi-­ ous. The connection between Kant and Montaigne is less obvious, but no less important. It appears most clearly in the writings of Pascal, which form a pivotal passage between Renaissance and Enlightenment versions of the sublime. Kant formulated his theory of sublimity by adapting elements of Pascalian discourse, elements that Pascal had in turn derived from Mon-­ taigne. A consideration of these three authors together offers a second per-­ spective on how the prehistorical and historical sublime relate.s Pascal's texts reproduce the basic features of the sublimity of the Essais. In chapters

I

and 2 I argued that Montaigne creates a testimony of

grandeur infinie through the skeptical disassembly of knowing admiratio and the formation of textual ruins. Infinite grandeur also poses a crucial prob-­ lem for Pascal. As both geometer and theologian, he writes in order to raise consciousness of it. As a geometer, Pascal draws attention to a regis-­ ter of infinity that surrounds the range of finite units that one ordinarily encounters and calculates. In De l' esprit geometrique (The Geometric Mind), his mathematical text that concerns the infinite most directly, he states,

quelque mouvement que ce soit, quelque nombre, quelque espace, quelque temps que ce soit, il y en a toujours un plus grand et un moindre: de sorte qu'ils se soutiennent tous entre le neant et l'infini, etant toujours infiniment eloignes de ces extremes. (402-3)

[however swift the movement, however great the conceivable number, space, or interval of time, there is always another that is yet greater and one still smaller, and all are sustained in the intermediate between the void and the infinite, and are at all times infinitely distant from both extremes.] ( 307) 6

Conclusion

139

All finite things float in a zone infinitely removed from both everything and nothing. Pascal mobilizes this ambient and double infinity theologi-­ cally in the Pensees in order to puncture the inflation of human science: "Manque d'avoir contemple ces infinis, les hommes se sont partes temerairement a la recherche de la nature, comme s'ils avaient quelque proportion avec elle [For lack of having contemplated these infinites we have presumptuously delved into nature as if we had some proportion with it]" (230.249/68).7 In both geometry and theology, Pascal seeks to convert his reader by creating a testimony of an infinite grandeur that should not go unnoticed. Like Montaigne, Pascal construes the proper response to such grandeur as ignorant wonder. He considers the subject of De l' esprit geometrique to be "les deux merveilleuses infinites [que la nature] a proposees aux hommes, non pas a concevoir, mais a admirer [the two marvelous infinites which [nature] offers to men, not that they may be comprehended, but that they may be admired]" (410/313). In the Pensees, Pascal suggests that the con-­ templator of the two infinites "tremblera dans la vue de ses merveilles, et je crois que sa curiosite se changeant en admiration, il sera plus dispose a les contempler en silence qu'a les rechercher avec presomption [will tremble at nature's wonders. I believe that, our curiosity turning to admiration, we will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than arrogantly search them out]" (230.249/67 ). The admiration described here is passionate, ignorant, and unscientific. As it does in Montaigne, in Pascal the impact of infinite grandeur breaks the link between wonder and knowledge. As in Montaigne, in Pascal the realignment of admiratio stems from a general program of fragmentation. The spiritual accommodation of grandeur advocated by Pascal has a paradoxically ruinous effect on human discourse. Geometers may recognize infinity only insofar as they own the incompleteness of their science. According to Pascal, geometry proves neither everything nor nothing. Geometrical order consiste non pas a tout definir ou a tout demontrer, ni aussi a ne rien definir ou a ne rien demontrer, mais a se tenir dans ce milieu de ne point definir les chases claires et entendues de tous les hommes, et de definir toutes les autres; et de ne point prouver toutes les chases connues des hommes, et de prouver toutes les autres. Contre cet ordre pechent egalement ceux qui entrepren-­ nent de tout definir et de tout prouver et ceux qui negligent de le faire dans les chases qui ne sont pas evidentes d'elles--memes. (De l' esprit geometrique, 395)

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[does not consist in defining and demonstrating all things; still less, in defining and demonstrating nothing at all. It consists in keeping to a mid--­ dle way, between those who refuse to define things that are clear, under ... standable by all men, yet proffer definitions of everything else; and those who offer no proofs of the things that all men know, but proceed to prove all the others. They who undertake to define and prove all things, and they who shrink from doing so with regard to things not self---evident, are alike guilty of sinning against this method.] (301-2) The geometer limits himself to proving only what requires proof. Any-­ thing that is evident enough without demonstration, he leaves undefined. This limitation on thought, however, increases its scope. By neglecting to define basic concepts, the geometer gains a capacity to intuit them. Geom-­ etry, says Pascal, ne s'attachant qu'aux chases les plus simples, cette meme qualite qui les rend dignes d'etre ses objets les rend incapables d'etre definies; de sorte que le manque de definition est plutot une perfec-­ tion qu'un defaut, parce qu'il ne vient pas de leur obscurite, mais au contraire de leur extreme evidence, qui est telle qu'encore qu' elle n'ait pas la conviction des demonstrations, elle en a toute la certi-­ tude. Elle suppose done que l'on sait queUe est la chose qu'on entend par ces mots: mouvement, nombre, espace; et, sans s'arreter a les definir inutilement, elle en penetre la nature, et en decouvre les merveilleuses proprietes. (401)

[is concerned only with the most simple ideas, the very quality which makes them suitable for study also makes them incapable of being defined; so that the absence of a definition is a perfection rather than a defect. This absence does not arise from obscurity, but on the contrary from their extreme obviousness, which is of such a nature that while geometry can--­ not carry conviction by demonstration, she has all the certitude that demonstration could produce. She therefore assumes that the inquirer knows what is signified by such words as movement, number, space, and without pausing for superfluous definition, she penetrates into their nature, and discovers their marvelous attributes.] (305-6) The mind discovers the basic properties of nature by curtailing the Scholastic mania for analysis and instead letting those properties be. In the case of geometry, less ("manque") is more ("perfection"). The wealth of its discoveries results from its demonstrative poverty.

Conclusion

141

When Pascal defines the domain of human science as neither all nor nothing, he defines human beings as fragmentary creatures. Pascal consid-­ ers geometry as a quintessentially human mode of thought: "ce qui passe la geometrie nous surpasse [what is beyond the resources of geometry is beyond the reach of man]" (393/299). L' esprit geometrique is l' esprit humain, no more, no less; as partial as geometry is, so is the human being. In the

Pensees Pascal elaborates the implication that man constitutes a ruin. The fragment entitled "Disproportion de l'homme" famously directs the reader to imagine an infinite number of worlds both above and beneath the lim-­ its of human perception. This thought experiment situates man between and separates him from the two forms of infinity: Connaissons done notre portee: nous sommes quelque chose et ne sommes pas tout. Ce que nous avons d'etre nous derobe la connais-­ sance des premiers principes, que naissent du neant. Et le peu que nous avons d'etre, nous cache la vue de l'infini. (230.25 I )

[Let us then acknowledge our range: we are something, and we are not everything. What we have of being hides from us the knowledge of the first principles which emerge from nothingness. The scant being that we have hides from us the sight of infinity.] ( 6g) Pascal deletes from the contents of human thought both everything and nothing. As he makes these cuts, he fashions the human being into a frag-­ ment. As it does for Montaigne, this fragmentation invokes grandeur and inspires Pascal to write ruinously. We have already seen that the Pascalian geometer acquires a sense of the infinite precisely by not trying to define it. The Pensees follow a similar logic. By urging the reader to realize his finitude, "Disproportion" shows that human science is out of proportion with the infinite nature that it pretends to comprehend. There is more to the argument of this fragment, however. It is important to recall what the

Pensees are, or rather, what they were when the executors of Pascal's estate found them shortly after his death: hundreds of texts, from several words to several pages in length, written on pieces of paper that Pascal had cut, punched, and tied into bundles with string. These bundles, or dossiers, thus consist of clusters of fragments and constitute what most scholars consider to be the chapters of an unfinished apology for Christianity.8 The facts about the genesis of the Pensees encourage one to consider a fragment in light of other fragments in the same dossier. "Disproportion"

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belongs to a dossier entitled "Transition de la connaissance de l'homme a Dieu [Transition from Knowledge of Man to Knowledge of God]." Although the internal order of fragments is uncertain, all recent editors place at the end of this dossier the following two texts: Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. Consolez--vous, ce n'est point de vous que vous devez l'attendre, mais au contraire en n'attendant rien de vous que vous devez l'at-­ tendre. (233-34.256)

[The eternal silence of these spaces terrifies me. Take comfort; it is not from yourself that you must expect it, but on the contrary by expecting nothing from yourself that you should expect it.] (73) The penultimate fragment evokes the horror of someone who has con-­ ducted the thought experiment of imagining infinitely small and great worlds ordered earlier in the dossier. One is horrified to discover a lack of communication between what one is and what there is: the individual is deaf to the universal; the infinite is silent to the finite being. The total dis-­ parity between part and whole precludes any contact between them. In the final fragment, however, another voice intervenes to connect these oppo-­ site extremes. Emptiness now inspires fulfillment. This paradox is reflected syntactically by the repeated truncation of the pronoun "le" by its position before the "a" of "attendre." The ellipsis simultaneously strips the pronoun of gender and adds to the grandeur that it represents. The absence of definition here lifts restrictions. Less conveys more; the wounds made by "Disproportion" have power to heal. This shift-or "transition" as Pascal calls it in the title of the dossier­ implies an explanation for why Pascal's writing is so ruined. For centuries critics have remarked that the Pensees abound in discontinuities of logic, syntax, and organization. These ruptures of Pascal's discourse do not result merely from the fact that he died before he could finish his text.9 Rather, Pascal invests in fragmentation as a way to access the divine grandeur that is remote and yet essential to his apologetic enterprise. This is why Pascal writes (in an untitled dossier): J'ecrirai ici mes pensees sans ordre, et non pas peut--etre dans une confusion sans dessein. C'est le veritable ordre, et qui marquera tou--

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jours mon objet par le desordre meme. Je ferais trop d'honneur a mon sujet, si je le traitais avec ordre, puisque je veux montrer qu'il en est incapable. (457.365)

[I will write down my thoughts here in no order, but not perhaps in aim--­ less confusion. It is the true order and will still show my aim by its very disorder. I would be deferring too much to my subject if I treated it in an orderly way, since I want to show that the subject does not admit of order.] (I 12) This fragment indicates that the disorder of the Pensees depends not entirely on the untimely death of their author. Pascal wrote the Pensees the way he did because to him parts may mean more than a whole. Pascal's appreciation for the infinite potential of ruins takes shape through his contact with Montaigne's oeuvre. Pascal declares in De l' art de

persuader (The Art of Persuasion) that he esteems his precursor above all as "!'incomparable auteur de l' Art de conferer [the peerless author of the Art of Speaking]" (423/201 ). Montaigne's "De l'art de conferer" (3.8; "Of the 10

Art of Discussion" in Frame's translation) protnotes discord as a mode of communication. By "conferer" Montaigne means to relate, compare, and exchange ideas through discussion. He begins the essay by describing the culture of Renaissance France as anti--exemplary: in the absence of good examples to adhere to, one may "amend [amender]" oneself only by break-­ ing from bad examples (922B). In such a morally barren situation, "con-­ ference" is "[B] le plus fructueux et naturel exercice de nostre esprit [the most fruitful and natural exercise of our mind]" (922/704), because it thrives on the very conflict that plagues France in the late sixteenth cen-­ tury. Montaigne describes conference as a form of combat whose violence uplifts rather than upsets: [B] L'estude des livres, c'est un mouvement languissant et foible qui n'eschauffe poinct: la ou la conference apprend et exerce en un coup. Si je confere avec une arne forte et un roide jousteur, il me presse les flancs, me pique a gauche et a dextre, ses imaginations eslancent les miennes. La jalousie, la gloire, la contention me poussent et rehaussent au dessus de moy--mesmes. Et l'unisson est qualite du tout ennuyeuse en la conference. (923)

[The study of books is a languishing and feeble activity that gives no heat, whereas discussion teaches and exercises us at the same time. If I discuss with a strong mind and a stiff jouster, he presses on my flanks, prods me

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right and left; his ideas launch mine. Rivalry, glory, competition, push me and lift me above myself. And unison is an altogether boring quality in discussion.] ( 704)

Debate without discord is a bore to its participants and threatens to divide instead of unite them. Montaigne repeatedly insists that disagreement strengthens the bonding action of good discussion: "[B] Les contradictions done des jugemens ne m'offencent ny m'alterent; elles m'esveillent seule-­ ment et m'exercent [So contradictions of opinions neither offend nor affect me; they merely arouse and exercise me]" (924/705); "[B] Quand on me contrarie, on esveille mon attention, non pas rna cholere; je m'avance vers celuy qui me contredit, qui m'instruit [When someone opposes me, he arouses my attention, not my anger. I go to meet a man who contradicts me, who instructs me]" (924/705). Montaigne reserves special respect for the ordinary conversation of shepherds and shopboys, whose "[C] tumulte et impatiance ne les devoye pas de leur theme [turbulence and impatience never sidetrack them from their theme]" (925/7o6). They may not wait to speak in turn ("s'attendre"), but they understand one another ("s'enten-­ dre"). This kind of disorder re--creates the kind of concord that war destroys. Toward the end of the essay, Montaigne puts this notion of discord--dri-­ ven harmony into practice by staging a conference between himself and Tacitus: "[B] J e viens de courre d'un fil l'histoire de Tacitus (ce qui ne m'advient guere: il y a vint ans que je ne mis en livre une heure de suite) [I have just run through Tacitus' History at one reading (which rarely hap-­ pens to me; it has been twenty years since I put one whole hour at a time on a book)]" (941/719). Tacitus has Montaigne's unbroken attention for longer than any text has had (he says) in twenty years. The extraordinary application of Montaigne to Tacitus derives its consistency from cracks in the latter's discourse. Some judgments of Tacitus connect loosely to the evidence he provides: [B] Que ses narrations soient naifves et droictes, il se pourroit a l'avanture argumenter de cecy mesme qu'elles ne s'appliquent pas tousjours exactement aux conclusions de ses jugements, lesquels il suit selon la pente qu'il y a prise, souvent outre la matiere qu'il nous montre, laquelle il n'a daigne incliner d'un seul air. (941) [That his narratives are sincere and straightforward might perhaps be argued from the very fact that they do not always exactly warrant the con--

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elusions of his judgment, which he follows according to the bias he has taken, often going beyond the matter he is presenting to us, which he has not deigned to slant one little bit.] ( 7 I g) If one follows carefully the stories of Tacitus, one sees that they tend to fall short of the morals that he draws from them. According to Montaigne Tacitus's text often lacks coherence. His judgments can lack clarity: "[B] J'ay principalement considere son jugement, et n'en suis pas bien esclarcy par tout [I have chiefly considered his judgment, and I am not very clear about it in every instance]" (941/719). Tacitus also believes considerably fewer stories than he lets into his Annals: "[C] [E]t escrivant en un siecle auquel la creance des prodiges commen<;oit a diminuer, il diet ne vouloir pourtant laisser d'inserer en ses annales et donner pied a chose receue de tant de gens de bien et avec si grande reverence de l'antiquite [And, writ-­ ing in an age in which belief in prodigies was beginning to diminish, he says he does not want for all that to fail to insert in his Annals, and give a footing to, things accepted by so many good people with such reverence for antiquity]" (942-43/720). The inconsistencies noticed by Montaigne, however, ultimately strengthen his bond with Tacitus. The final sentences of the essay present the fragmentary characters of Montaigne's own mind and text: [B] Moy qui suis Roy de la matiere que je traicte, et qui n'en dois conte a personne, ne m'en crois pourtant pas du tout: je hasarde souvent des boutades de mon esprit, desquelles je me deffie, [C] et certaines finesses verbales, dequoy je secoue les oreilles; [B] tnais je les laisse courir a l'avanture. [C] Je voys qu'on s'honore de pareilles chases. Ce n'est pas a moy seul d'en juger. Je me presente debout et couche, le devant et le derriere, a droite et a gauche, et en tous mes naturels plis. [B] Les esprits, voire pareils en force, ne sont pas tous-­ jours pareils en application et en goust. Voila ce que la memoire m'en represente en gros, et assez incertainement. Tous jugements en gros sont laches et imparfaits. (943) [I who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sal--­ lies of my mind which I mistrust, and certain verbal subtleties at which I shake my ears; but I let them run at a venture. I see that some gain honor by such things. It is not for me alone to judge them. I present myself standing and lying down, front and rear, on the right and the left, and in

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all my natural postures. Minds, even those alike in strength, are not always alike in application and taste. That is what my memory ofTaci--­ tus offers me in gross, and rather uncertainly. All judgments in gross are loose and imperfect.] ( 720-2 I)

This stirring self-portrait reflects what Montaigne has just written about Tacitus. Just as the judgments of Tacitus are imperfect, so are those of Montaigne. Just as Tacitus says what he disbelieves, so does Montaigne. Just as Montaigne judges the words of Tacitus differently than their author, so others will judge the words of Montaigne. Tacitus thus func-­ tions as a mirror for self--reflection, whose cracks actually help compose the image it forms. Montaigne cultivates incoherence in order to pull himself (and his text) together. "De l'art de conferer," therefore, belongs to the line of essays that I described in chapter

2,

in which Montaigne ruins

Roman etninence-in this instance Tacitus-in order to construct his own essayistic grandeur. Pascal appropriates and applies the constructive value of ruin developed by Montaigne in "De l'art de conferer" and elsewhere in the Essais. When Pascal calls Montaigne "!'incomparable auteur de l'Art de conferer," he acknowledges the apparent impossibility of comparing oneself to someone beyond compare. (In its Latinate sense still current in seventeenth--century usage conferer meant "compare.") Montaigne can function as a model for Pascal, however, not because De l'art de persuader echoes the title and sev-­ eral passages of "De l'art de conferer" (as annotators have noticed), but because De l'art de persuader adopts the Montaignian art of discussion per se. Pascal can both call Montaigne "incomparable" and confer with Mon-­ taigne insofar as their discrepancies serve as agents of cohesion. Pascal's adoption of Montaigne's practice of using disparity as adhesive material enables him to articulate both the distinction and the relation between natural and divine modes of existence required by his discourse of conversion. In De l'art de persuader Pascal defines "natural" truths as those that enter the mind through human understanding (413/193). "Divine" truths, on the contrary, are placed in the heart by God (413/193). Although this difference pulls these sets of truth apart-divine truths are "infiniment au--dessus [infinitely superior to]" natural ones (413/193)-it also draws them together and thus makes a conversion from one to the other possible. According to Pascal, God has made the supernatural order completely opposite to the natural order for the purpose of humiliating humanity for corrupting the latter:

Conclusion

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[Dieu] a voulu [que les verites divines] entrent du cceur dans l'esprit, et non pas de l'esprit dans le cceur, pour humilier cette superbe puis-­ sance du raisonnement, qui pretend devoir etre juge des chases que la volonte choisit, et pour guerir cette volonte infirme, qui s'est toute corrompue par ses sales attachements. Et de la vient qu'au lieu qu'en parlant des chases humaines on dit qu'il faut les conna1tre avant que de les aimer, ce qui a passe en proverbe, les saints au con-­ traire disent en parlant des chases divines qu'il faut les aimer pour les conna1tre, et qu'on n'entre dans la verite que par la charite, dont ils ont fait une de leurs plus utiles sentences. En quoi il para1t que Dieu a etabli cet ordre surnaturel, et tout contraire a 1' ordre qui devait etre naturel aux hommes dans les chases naturelles. (413-14)

[[God] wanted [divine truths] to enter from the heart into the mind, and not from the mind into the heart, in order to humiliate that proud power of reasoning which claims it ought to be the judge of what is chosen by the will, and to heal that feeble will which is completely corrupted by vile attachments. Hence, instead of speaking about human matters that they have to be known before they can be loved, which has become a proverb, the saints, speaking of divine matters, say that you have to love them in order to know them, and that you enter into truth only by charity, which they have made into one of their most useful pronouncements. From this it appears that God has established this supernatural order, quite the opposite of the order which should have been natural to human minds in natural things.] (I 93)

In human affairs, the way to truth should go first through the mind and then to the heart. The way to God, on the contrary, must go first through the heart and then to the mind. The divine order thus overthrows the human order, so that the establishment of the former is the destruction of the latter. One converts to God by bringing down ("humilier") what is supposed to rule over men ("cette super be puissance du raisonnement"). In this sense, Pascal identifies ruin as a mediutn for the communication between natural and divine orders that conversion necessitates. Mental breakdown makes way for heartfelt elevation. This transcendent humilia-­ tion requires the logic of "De l'art de conferer" traced by De l' art de per--­

suader, a logic whereby collapse erects infinite grandeur. In De l' art de persuader Pascal uses this Montaignian logic in order to coordinate the domain of nature with the divine realm; in his Entretien

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avec Monsieur de Sacy sur Epictete et Montaigne, he uses it to harmonize ten-­ sions between philosophy and theology. The latter text (composed at around the same time as De l'art de persuader) records a dialogue between Pascal and the chief solitaire at the Jansenist center of Port--Royal--des-­ Champs. The Entretien consists for the most part of Pascal's brilliantly manipulative summaries of the philosophies of Epictetus and Montaigne: whereas the former teaches man's duty but not his weakness, the latter teaches man's weakness but not his duty (I25/I9o).11 When Sacy objects that such human wisdom has no relevance to the divine wisdom of Augus-­ tinian theology, Pascal appears to cede the point. But then he goes on to find a connection after all: [I]l semble que, puisque l'un a la verite dont l'autre a l'erreur, on ferait en les alliant une morale parfaite. Mais, au lieu de cette paix, il ne reussirait de leur assemblage qu'une guerre et qu'une destruc-­ tion generale: car l'un etablissant la certitude et l'autre le doute, l'un la grandeur de l'homme et l'autre sa faiblesse, ils ruinent les verites aussi bien que les faussetes l'un de l'autre. ( I25)

[It would seem that, since the two contained both truth and error, you would have a perfect morality by binding them together. But instead of this peace, the alliance would simply end up with war and general destruction: for with one establishing certainty and the other doubt, one man's greatness and the other his weakness, they destroy both the truth and the false position of the other.] ( rgo) The views of Epictetus and Montaigne conflict so sharply that they cut each other into pieces. This philosophical "ruin," however, has infinite value from a theological perspective: "De sorte qu'ils ne peuvent subsister seuls a cause de leurs defauts, ni s'unir a cause de leurs oppositions, et qu'ainsi ils se brisent et s'aneantissent pour faire place a la verite de l'Evangile [Thus they can neither stand alone because of their faults nor unite because of their differences, and in so doing wreck and annihilate each other to leave the way open for the truth of the Gospel]"

(I25-26/I90). Just as the collapse of natural order establishes divine order in De l'art de persuader, the breakup of philosophy triggers a theological breakthrough. I have been arguing that Pascal is occupied simultaneously with mark-­ ing distance and opening relations between the finite and the infinite. This double concern inspires him to adopt Montaignian ruin as a way both to

Conclusion

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divide and to unite these genres of grandeur. In other words, Pascal acquires from Montaigne a tendency to create and employ fragments as a kind of porous material that enjoys a limitless capacity to absorb and convey value. The special, Montaignian value of fragmentation cultivated by Pascal in De l'art de persuader and the Entretien informs the argument about dis-­ proportion in the Pensees (mentioned earlier in this discussion), where Pascal reduces man to a fragment in order ultimately to render him recep-­ tive to God's infinite grandeur. This text, also heavily influenced by Mon-­ taigne, connects firmly to Kant's account of the sublime in the Critique of

Judgment. As in the third Critique, in the Pensees human fragmentation occurs through the imagination: Que l'homme contemple done la nature entiere dans sa haute et pleine majeste, qu'il eloigne sa vue des objets bas qui l'environnent, qu'il regarde cette eclatante lumiere mise comme une lampe eter-­ nelle pour eclairer l'univers, que la terre lui paraisse comme un point au prix du vaste tour que cet astre decrit, et qu'il s'etonne de ce que ce vaste tour lui--meme n'est qu'une pointe tres delicate a 1' egard de celui que ces astres qui roulent dans le firmament

embrassent. Mais si notre vue s'arrete la, que !'imagination passe outre. Elle se lassera plus tot de concevoir que la nature de fournir. Tout ce monde visible n'est qu'un trait imperceptible dans l'ample sein de la nature, nulle idee n'en approche. Nous avons beau enfler nos conceptions au--dela des espaces imaginables, nous n'enfantons que des atomes au prix de la realite des chases. C'est une sphere dont le centre est partout, la circonference nulle part. Enfin c'est le plus grand [des] caracteres sensibles de la toute--puissance de Dieu que notre imagination se perde dans cette pensee. (230.247-48)

[So let us contemplate the whole of nature in its full and mighty majesty, let us disregard the humble objects around us, let us look at this scintillat--­ ing light, placed like an eternal lamp to illuminate the universe. Let the earth appear a pinpoint to us beside the vast arc this star describes, and let us be dumbfounded that this vast arc is itself only a delicate pinpoint in comparison with the arc encompassed by the stars tracing circles in the firmament. But if our vision stops there, let our imagination travel further afield. Our imagination will grow weary of conceiving before nature of producing. The whole of the visible world is merely an imperceptible speck in nature's ample bosom, no idea comes near to it. It is pointless trying to inflate our ideas beyond the imaginable spaces, we generate only atoms at

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the cost of the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and its circumference nowhere. In the end it is the greatest perceivable sign of God's overwhelming power that our imagination loses itself in this thought.] ( 66) Pascal conceives of the imagination as a limited resource that is exhausted by infinity. This exhaustion exposes the fragmentary nature of the mind in its capacity to cognate only part of what it confronts. Pascal interprets this imaginative inadequacy as a sign of divine sufficiency. The fact that one fails to imagine is the strongest possible indication of God's omnipotence. The hermeneutic that allows this reading of the results of the disproportion experiment rehearses once again the logic of constructive fragmentation developed by Pascal through his engagement with Montaigne. For Kant sublimity is the glue that holds his philosophy together. 12 The

Critique of Judgment "fills a gap in the system of our cognitive power, and hence opens up a striking and-I think-most promising prospect [for] a complete system of all the mental powers" (434). 13 Kant charges judg-­ ments of taste with the burden of correlating two other tasks that the mind performs, knowing nature (the subject of the first Critique) and determin-­ ing moral action (treated in the second Critique). Within the third Cri--­

tique the major work of assuring this connection falls upon judgments of the sublime, because they involve the widest range of mental powers. Kant considers it essential to the integrity of his system that the capacity to know nature accord with the freedom to act morally. Sublimity makes this cooperation among the faculties manifest. According to Kant, sublimity consists of two events: mental break-­ down and the enjoyment of it. This unlikely pair of phenomena, more-­ over, occurs in two ways, mathematically and dynamically. Kant's con-­ cepts of both modes of sublimity revolve around key notions of Pascalian discourse. The mathematical sublime exhausts the imagination in its attempt to comprehend everything it apprehends: In order for the imagination to take in a quantum intuitively, so that we can then use it as a measure or unity in estimating magni-­ tude by numbers, the imagination must perform two acts: apprehen--­

sion ( apprehensio), and comprehension ( comprehensio aesthetica). Apprehension involves no problem, for it may progress to infinity. But comprehension becomes more and more difficult the farther apprehension progresses, and it soon reaches its maximum, namely, the aesthetically largest basic measure for an estimation of magni--

Conclusion

IS I

tude. For when apprehension has reached the point where the par-­ tial presentations of sensible intuition that were first apprehended are already beginning to be extinguished in the imagination, as it proceeds to apprehend further ones, the imagination then loses as much on the one side as it gains on the other, and so there is a max-­ imum in comprehension that it cannot exceed. ( Io8 ) The encounter with a great or complex magnitude may render the imagi-­ nation incapable of forming a coherent experience by assembling the par-­ tial images it accumulates into one presentation. The dynamical sublime, on the other hand, presents "the immensity of nature and the inadequacy of our ability to adopt a standard proportionate to estimating aesthetically the magnitude of nature's domain" ( I2o ) . This version of the sublime event involves a disproportion, the mind's failure to measure up to an object without what Kant at one point refers to as "violence" ( I I6 ) . Both modes of sublimity occasion a rupture, as the tnind is torn in its effort to represent an entire object. In either case the mind's equipment for manu-­ facturing experiences-"imagination" or "proportion"-amounts to less than what completion requires. Both forms of psychic trautna involved in the first stage of Kantian sub-­ limity thus retain shapes conferred on fragmentation by Pascalian dis-­ course: a lack of imagination in the mathematical sublime; a sense of dis-­ proportion in the dynamical sublime. In the second stage, these traumas receive a value of grandeur also prepared by Pascal. The pleasure of men-­ tal breakdown arises from its affinity with infinity. The mind's failure to assimilate an object perfectly presupposes the demand for perfect assimila-­ tion.This demand is made by a faculty free of the natural constraints that make the mind's imagination and sense of proportion susceptible to short-­ ages: "to be able even to think the infinite as a whole indicates a mental power that surpasses any standard of sense" ( I I I ) . Kant calls the infinitely demanding power of the mind reason: "the mind listens to the voice of rea-­ son within itself, which demands totality for all given magnitudes ....rea-­ son demands comprehension in one intuition, and exhibition of all the members of a progressively increasing numerical series, and it exempts from this demand not even the infinite" ( I I I ) . The mind depletes a finite resource (its capacity to experience) according to an infinite principle (its power to reason). This act of obedience secures for fragmentation a significance of infinite grandeur, the same significance attached to frag-­ mentation by Pascal, and before Pascal by Montaigne. The communication between finitude and infinity illuminated by the

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sublime addresses the skepticism that occupies Kant's critical philosophy as a whole. Kant reads the obedience of one faculty to another as a har-­ mony between them: Hence the feeling of the sublime is a feeling of displeasure that arises from the imagination's inadequacy, in an aesthetic estimation of magnitude, for an estimation by reason, but is at the same time also a pleasure, aroused by the fact that this very judgment, namely, that even the greatest power of sensibility is inadequate, is [itself] in harmony with rational ideas, insofar as striving toward them is still a law for us. For it is a law (of reason) for us, and part of our voca-­ tion, to estimate any sense object in nature that is large for us as being small when compared with ideas of reason; and whatever arouses in us the feeling of the supersensible vocation is in harmony with that law. ( I 14-15) This harmony is not known but is felt as the pleasure of sublimity. The attunement between parts of the mind indicates an accord between parts of the world: what belongs naturally to experience and what belongs supernaturally to reason. When Kant began his critical project, he found these realms divided by Humean skepticism. In the introduction to the first Critique, Kant states, "If we accept [Hume's] conclusions, then all that we call metaphysics is a mere delusion, whereby we fancy ourselves to have rational insight into what, in actual fact is borrowed solely from experi-­ ence, and under the influence of custom has taken the illusory semblance of necessity" (ss). r4 According to Kant, Hume's doubts threaten to erode any correlation between what the mind reasons to be true and what it experiences to be the case. When Kant makes his argument for a sublime harmony between the power to reason and the power to experience in the third Critique, he is still trying to reunite what skepticism tore asunder. This conclusion has drawn a series of connections between the history and prehistory of the sublime. Those between Milton and Burke are rela-­ tively straightforward. Burke's Enquiry not only uses Paradise Lost as the chief illustration of its theories, but also designs its entire argument as a fulfillment of major tenets of Milton's epic: skepticism about human knowl-­ edge and the sublimity of divine creation. The connections between Mon-­ taigne and Kant are somewhat more complex. The communication fostered by Montaigne between ruin and grandeur helps Pascal forge a discourse of conversion across human and divine orders. Pascal's theological version of this communication is in tum used by Kant to theorize sublimity as a way to

Conclusion

153

restore the bridge between reason and reality destroyed by skeptical thought. These connections suggest an unfashionable point: the endurance of the attraction between sublimity and skepticism, once established, despite differences of geography, time, language, and culture as well as intellectual and artistic orientation in Western Europe.These connections also sug-­ gest, however, the complexity of that attraction.Burke uses the sublime to raise doubts about the claims of reason; he also uses it to construct an understanding of how humans are made by God.Kant appropriates the sublime as support for the claims of reason; he also construes it as an unknowable grandeur accessible only through feeling.The ambivalence about skepticism built into these theories points to the volatility that marks the modern career of sublimity.Since contemporary debate about the sublime proceeds largely along Burkean and Kantian lines, the prehis-­ tory traced through Montaigne and Milton remains formative.What per-­ sists, however, is the insecure intimacy noticed at the beginning of this book.Perhaps sublimity can never detach itself from the uncertain roots that have nourished it, which would explain why theoreticians cannot dis-­ sociate it from skepticism.And yet, the converse is also true, as even the most skeptical critic of sublimity suggests: Philosophy as Architecture is ruined, but a writing of the ruins, micrologies, graffiti can still be done.... It is what survives of thought despite itself when philosophical life has become impossi-­ ble, when there is no longer a beautiful death to hope for, and when heroism has crossed over to the other side.And these micrologies, I would like to point out, are written not to refine a thought of Being in the disaster, of non--Being.They are also Minima Moralia, the faint glimmer that the Law, despite everything, emits in the ruins of ethics.(43-44) rs I began this book by observing a dichotomy among contemporary theories of the sublime: some took it as a way out of skepticism; others took it as a way into skepticism.The recovery of the prehistory of this dichotomy, however, suggests how fallacious and even impossible it is.Why, "despite everything," does Lyotard find ruins more than merely ruinous? Perhaps it is because, as Montaigne and Milton teach us, the story of skepticism, the dominant prob-­ lem of modem philosophy, is also the story of sublimity, the preeminent modem aesthetic category.By recognizing that these stories must be told together, we may begin to move beyond trying to tell them apart.

Notes

INTRODUCTION

I. Samuel H. Monk, The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in Eighteenth--Cen-­

tury England (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, I96o). 2. For a deconstructive example, see Paul de Man, "Phenomenality and Materi-­ ality in Kant," in The Textual Sublime and Its Differences, ed. Hugh J. Silverman and Gary E. Aylesworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, I990), 87-IoS; for a postmodern example, see Jean--Fran<;ois Lyotard, "The Sublime and the Avant-­ Garde," in The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Cambridge: Polity, I99I), 77-I07, and Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the

Sublime, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford: Stanford University Press, I994). Both de Man and Lyotard are discussed later in this introduction. Prominent psychoanalytic treatments include Neil Hertz, The End of the Line: Essays on Psychoanalysis and the Sub-­

lime (New York: Columbia University Press, I985), and Thomas Weiskel, The Roman-­ tic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I976). For feminist interpretations, see Barbara Claire Free-­ man, The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women's Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, I995), and Cornelia Klinger, "The Concepts of the Sublime and the Beautiful in Kant and Lyotard," in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, ed. Robin May Schott (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, I997 ), I9I-2II. 3· For a reading of Kant's Critique of Judgment similar to de Man's see Jacob Rogozinski, "The Gift of the World," in Of the Sublime: Presence in Question, ed. Jean Fran<;ois Courtine et al. and trans. Jeffrey S. Librett (Albany: State University of New York Press, I993), I33-56. Rogozinski regards the work as an attempted "passage" between disparate realms, and contends that it achieves its unities not by argument but by "violence" (I33, I43).

ISS

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NOTES TO PAGES

3-4

4· For Lyotard's notions of "grand" and "little" narratives, see, for example, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans.Geoff Bennington and Brian Mas-­ sumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 6o.

5· Numerous other French thinkers also insist that sublimity generates skepticism and thus compromises Kant's system.Philippe Lacoue--Labarthe, in "Sublime Truth," in Of the Sublime: Presence in Question, ed.Jean Fran<;ois Courtine et al., trans.Jeffrey S. Librett (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 71-Io8, views the Kantian sublime as "a sort of 'pocket of resistance' ... which would have escaped in advance from the imperious and gigantic encirclement of Science" (83). Eliane Escoubas, in her essay in the same volume ("Kant or the Simplicity of the Sublime,"

55-70), argues that the distinction Kant draws between imagination and the other fac-­ ulties is so loose that it ultimately vitiates the analyses in the Critique of Judgment. For Jean--Luc Nancy ("The Sublime Offering," also in Of the Sublime, 25-53), the sublime disrupts the Kantian process whereby natural beauty symbolizes and confirms human freedom; because beauty occupies a liminal position between aesthetics and morality, it can offer neither.

6. Frances Ferguson, Solitude and the Sublime: Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation (New York: Routledge, I992). 7· Christopher Norris, "From the Sublime to the Absurd (Lyotard)," in Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals, and the Gulf War (London: Lawrence, I992), 70-85. 8. For another antiskeptical reading of the sublime, see Laura Quinney's critique of Weiskel in "Weiskel's Sublime and the Impasse of Knowledge," Philosophy and Liter-­

ature I8 (I994): 309-I9. 9· Among many other possible examples, recent treatments of the history of sub-­ limity divide themselves likewise.Marc Fumaroli, primarily in L'age de l'eloquence: Rhe-­

torique et "res literaria" de la Renaissance au seuil de l'epoque classique (Geneva: Droz, I980), sees the rise of sublimity as what allows rhetoric to realize its potential for polit-­ ical or cultural coherence, whereas Francis Goyet, in "Le pseudo--sublime de Longin,"

Etudes litteraires 24.3 (I99I-92): I05-I9, and in Le sublime du "lieu commun": L'inven-­ tion rhetorique dans l'antiquite et a la Renaissance (Paris: Champion, I996) sees rhetoric ' as already an agent of coherence without sublimity, whose apparent enrichment of rhetoric is an illusion.To Fumaroli, sublimity signals a belief in the efficacy of rhetoric; to Goyet, sublimity signals a loss of such belief, which triggers rhetoric's decline.In Per-­

sonification and the Sublime: Milton to Coleridge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I985), Steven Knapp finds the English debate about Milton's personifications divided between those who condemned them as dangerous for undermining the credibility of fiction and others who praised them as sublime for their simultaneous fulfillment of two criteria, identification with and differentiation from an ideal. Similarly, in Beautiful

Sublime: The Making of "Paradise Lost," I70I-I734 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, I990), Leslie Moore discovers that for early eighteenth--century critics of Paradise

Lost, the sublime both questions and reinforces the recognized conventions of epic. Finally, Peter de Bolla, in The Discourse of the Sublime: Readings in History, Aesthetics,

and the Subject (Oxford: Blackwell, I989), studies the tendencies of sublimity toward contagion and explosiveness as he employs sublimity to account for the emergence of the modern notion of a self--determining, and thus aporetic, self.

Io. Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, for example, characterize as sublime

Notes to Pages 5-9

1 57

what they see as the skeptical attempt to transcend obstacles to knowledge. See James Noggle, "The Wittgensteinian Sublime," New Literary History 27 (I996): 6o5-I9. II. Stephen J. Greenblatt, Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture (New York and London: Routledge, I990). I2. "Skepticism" and "skeptical" appear frequently in Greenblatt's and Catherine Gallagher's Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2ooo). I3. See also the anecdotes about Yosemite and Gary Gilmore that Greenblatt appends to his theoretical contentions in "Towards a Poetics of Culture" (Learning to

Curse, I54-57). Greenblatt and Gallagher discuss anecdotes extensively in Practicing New Historicism. I4. The importance of wonder to Greenblatt's critical enterprise is also implied by the fact that he has written a whole book about it. Although Marvelous Possessions: The

Wonder of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I99I) does not use wonder to describe the methodology of New Historicism per se, the study of the mar-­ velous in the Renaissance discourse of travel allows Greenblatt to focus on the encoun-­ ters of foreign bodies in a "zone of intersection" ( 6), where all culturally determined meanings lose their certain status. The malleability of wonder as an aesthetic category thus enables attention to indeterminacy in critical practice as well as in theory, and in

Marvelous Possessions one senses that Greenblatt both studies wonder and refines it for his own uses. IS. Greenblatt also uses this method in "Towards a Poetics of Culture," where he illuminates the complexity of capitalism by opposing the views of two of its critics, Fredric Jameson and Jean--Fran<;ois Lyotard (Learning to Curse, I47-SI). I6. In Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I988), Green-­ blatt also refers to formalism (footnoting Wimsatt) as a dogmatic theory of mystery: "The textual analyses I was trained to do had as their goal the identification and cele-­ bration of a numinous literary authority, whether that authority was ultimately located in the mysterious genius of an artist or in the mysterious perfection of a text whose intuitions and concepts can never be expressed in other terms. The great attraction of this authority is that it appears to bind and fix the energies we prize, to identify a stable and permanent source of literary power, to offer an escape from shared contingency. This project, endlessly repeated, repeatedly fails for one reason: there is no escape from contingency" (3). To "bind and fix" literary energies is to "prize" them incorrectly, to pay them improper tribute. See also Practicing New Historicism, where Greenblatt and Gallagher elaborate on the new historicist interest in skepticism and wonder as an improvement on formalist methods: "When the literary text ceases to be a sacred, self-­ enclosed, and self--justifying miracle, when in the skeptical mood we foster it begins to lose at least some of the special power ascribed to it, its boundaries begin to seem less secure and it loses exclusive rights to the experience of wonder" (I2). I7. Other varieties of aesthetic extremes included the notion of furor developed by Ficino and attractive to poets such as Pontus de Tyard, Tasso, and Sidney, and Christian ecstasy, which appeared prominently in Erasmus's Praise of Folly. On furor see Grahame Castor, Pleiade Poetics: A Study in Sixteenth--Century Thought and Terminology (Cam-­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, I964) and Michael J. B. Allen, "The Soul as Rhap-­ sode: Marsilio Ficino's Interpretation of Plato's Ion," in Humanity and Divinity in Renais-­

sance and Reformation, ed. John W. O'Malley et al. (Leiden: Brill, I993), I25-48. On ecstasy, see M. A. Screech, Ecstasy and "The Praise of Folly" (London: Duckworth, I98o).

ISS

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I8. For the emphasis on wonder by Renaissance critics and writers of tragedy and

epic, see J. V. Cunningham, Tradition and Poetic Structure (Denver: Swallow, I96o), Baxter Hathaway, Marvels and Commonplaces: Renaissance Literary Criticism (New York: Random House, I968), Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I988), and Peter G. Platt, Reason Diminished: Shakespeare and

the Marvelous (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, I997). Studies of the importance of wonder to other early modern domains include Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions (the New World), Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of

Nature, r rso-I750 (New York: Zone Books, I998) (natural science), Mary Baine Campbell, Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cor-­ nell University Press, I999) (anthropology), Philip Fisher, Wonder, the Rainbow, and

the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I998) (physics), and various essays in The Age of the Marvelous, ed. Joy Kenseth (Hanover: Hood Museum of Art, I99I) and Wonders, Marvels, and Monsters in Early Modern Cul-­

ture, ed. Peter G. Platt (Newark: University of Delaware Press, I999). I9. By this phrase W. H. Fyfe and Donald Russell translate the Greek word eksta-­

sis; Longinus, On the Sublime, ed. and trans. W. H. Fyfe, rev. D. A. Russell (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I995), 1.4.I63. 20. Monk opens the first chapter of The Sublime with the statement, "Any histori-­

cal discussion of the sublime must take into account the fountain--head of all ideas on that subject-the pseudo--Longinian treatise, Peri Hupsous. . . . In a sense, the study of the eighteenth--century sublime is the study of the Longinian tradition in England, although, as may be supposed, the student will be led far away from the Greek critic's views" ( Io). James Noggle confirms the currency of Monk's chronology: "Boileau's French translation of Longinus's On the Sublime brings the idea into European criticism in I674" (The Skeptical Sublime: Aesthetic Ideology in Pope and the Tory Satirists [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2ooi], 3). Theoretically advanced discussions of the sublime that do consider authors prior to Boileau (e.g., Milton) still look through the lens of eighteenth--century discussions, thus registering the continued influence of Monk's dic-­ tum. See Knapp's Personification and the Sublime and Victoria Kahn's "Allegory and the Sublime in Paradise Lost," in John Milton, ed. Annabel Patterson (London: Longman, I992), I85-20I. 2I. See Jules Brody's Boileau and Longinus (Geneva: Droz, I958) for a statement of

the traditional interpretation of the reception of Longinus before Boileau as "meager" (9). The major proponents of an expanded history of early modern sublimity are

Fumaroli and Goyet. Bernard Weinberg broke new ground with his "Translations and Commentaries of Longinus, On the Sublime, to I6oo: A Bibliography," Modern Philol-­

ogy 47 (I95o): I45-51. Weinberg's History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I96 I) and Baxter Hathaway's The Age of Criti-­

cism: The Late Renaissance in Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I962) consider the use of Longinus by Francesco Patrizi, most of whose writings were rediscovered by Paul Oskar Kristeller in I949; on Patrizi, see also Platt, Reason Diminished. 22. See, respectively, Fumaroli's L' iige de l' eloquence, Goyet's Le sublime du "lieu

commun," and Debora K. Shuger's Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the En-­ glish Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I988). To this list one could add the suggestion of Marjorie Hope Nicolson's Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory:

The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I959): the search for a terrestrial grandeur that would correspond to the infinity of space. It

Notes to Pages

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159

should be noted that Nicolson, like Monk, uses sublimity to explain the shift from neo-­ classicism to romanticism and thus does not consider the sublime a Renaissance possi-­ bility; she nevertheless paves the way for later scholarship by rejecting Monk's equa-­ tion between the reception of Long inus and the sublime. 23. Recent examples include Anthony Grafton's work and Peter Burke's The

European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), whose "cen-­ tral theme" and "guide through the labyrinth of detail" is "the enthusiasm for antiquity and the revival, reception and transformation of the classical tradition" (2). 24. Cf. Peter N. Miller's account of the "moral economy" of Peiresc's antiquarian-­ ism, which throve on a "confidence in the ability of reason" and stemmed from Cyriac of Ancona's boast that it was possible to "overcome the 'ruins of time'" (Peiresc' s

Europe: Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2ooo], 134). Like Peter Burke, Grafton, and their predecessors, Miller sees such recuperative ambition as "a potent metaphor for the Renaissance as a whole" (134). This portrait of the Renaissance as a revivalist culture is subject to nuancing. See, for example, Leonard Barkan's important study of Renaissance attitudes toward physical fragments of antiquity: Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of

Renaissance Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). Barkan observes that broken remains could sometimes acquire value independent of their potential for restoration. The detachment of such objects from any clear function or representation occurred rarely but had a profound influence, particularly through the sculpture of Michelangelo. Indeed, Barkan identifies this ateleological appreciation of ruins as an origin of modern aesthetics. It will be clear that my argument, especially about Mon-­ taigne, parallels Barkan's on two points: Montaigne's ruinous prose matches Michelan-­ gelo's ruinous sculpture and the sublimity of that prose nourished and protected aes-­ thetics as it developed into an autonomous field. On the second point, cf. note 39 in this introduction. 25. An important exception to this notion of wonder has been documented by Platt in Reason Diminished. In my book, I discuss the dominant, conventional strain, and I trace the transformation of that strain into sublimity by the influx of skepticism. 26. The following precis of skepticism condenses information from several accounts, including A. A. Long's Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (New York: Scribner, 1974); Long and D. N. Sedley's The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Philip P. Hallie's introduction to Sextus Empiricus, Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, and God, ed. Hallie, trans. Sanford G. Etheridge (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985); and V. Brochard's

Les sceptiques grecs, 2nd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1923). 27. As Sextus Empiricus puts it: "Scepticism is an ability, or mental attitude, which opposes appearances to judgments in any way whatsoever, with the result that, owing to the equipollence of the objects and reasons thus opposed, we are brought first to a state of mental suspense and next to a state of 'unperturbedness' or quietude"; Out-­

lines of Pyrrhonism, in Sextus Empiricus ed. and trans. R. G. Bury, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949-57), 1:1.8. 28. Various authors, texts, and movements of the medieval period nevertheless share characteristics of ancient skepticism. The alternative to orthodox Thomism offered by the nominalism of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham separated the faith and reason that Aquinas had insisted were consistent. Nominalists argued that the signs used by humans to refer to reality exist only in the mind, a notion that detached

I60

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reality from intellectual processes in a way reminiscent of skepticism. Nominalists also proposed God's total freedom, so that one could not hold God even to the laws that he had established. God's omnipotence, his power to violate his own habits, reduces human knowledge to shaky predictions. Other high points of medieval dubiety include Peter Abelard's twelfth--century work Sic et Non, which displays conflicting dicta of church fathers on key doctrinal issues, the Averroist doctrine of the "double truth" (falsely attributed to Averroes and later popularized by Pomponazzi), and the negative theology of Nicolas of Cusa, who proposed the admission of ignorance as the only way to know God. The relations among the revival of ancient skepticism and these modes of thought, particularly nominalism and Cusan theology, are intricate (and largely uncharted). One difference, however, is the special modern fortune of the former, which, I suggest, depends in part on its special alliance with the sublime. See my account of skepticism and modernity later in this introduction. On nominalism and Renaissance literature, see Ullrich Langer, Divine and Poetic Freedom in the Renaissance:

Nominalist Theology and Literature in France and Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I990); on Cusa and Renaissance literature, see Ronald Levao, Renaissance Minds

and Their Fictions: Cusanus, Sidney, Shakespeare (Berkeley: University of California Press, I985). 29. The argument of this paragraph, as I make obvious shortly, is Richard Popkin's; see his History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3- I6. In this third edition of the work, Popkin extends his narrative back to Savonarola, whose imprisonment, trial, and execution in I498, however, prevented the full development of his skepticism. The Reformation thus remains for Popkin what "spawned the new problem" (4). For a study of the role of Cicero's Academica in Renaissance skepticism, see Charles B. Schmitt's "Cicero Scepticus": A Study of the

Influence of the "Academica" in the Renaissance (The Hague: Nijhoff, I972). In Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Luciano Floridi reexamines the postclassical circulation of Sextus. 30. Of scholars who accept Popkin's history, I am thinking especially of Schmitt, whose study of the Renaissance influence of Cicero's Academica assumes that the his-­ tory of skepticism consists of the fortuna of certain texts containing (and schools proposing) skeptical ideas and that the important instances of influence are those with "philosophical bite" ("Cicero Scepticus," I-5, Io I). In Brian P. Copenhaver and Schmitt's Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I992), the account of skepticism is still organized according to degrees of absorption of Sextus. Craig B. Brush, in Montaigne and Bayle: Variations on the Theme of Skepticism (The Hague: Nijhoff, I966), sets out to substantiate the connection between Montaigne and Bayle by following the transfer of a "theme" of skepticism from the ancient Greeks to Mon-­ taigne and to Bayle, all the while remaining essentially the same through its "varia-­ tions." Richard Tuck, in Philosophy and Government, 1572-r6s r (Cambridge: Cam-­ bridge University Press, I993), establishes a chain of authors from Montaigne to Hobbes, all of whom share a well--defined set of themes (raison d'etat, self--interest, etc.) associated with "government." Recent evidence of the continued acceptance of Pop-­ kin's account and its assumptions includes Robert Rosin's Reformers, the Preacher, and

Skepticism: Luther, Brenz, Melanchthon, and Ecclesiastes (Mainz: Verlag, I997), which agrees that the discovery of ancient, philosophical sources was the decisive factor in consolidating various protoskeptical tendencies into a potent movement, and Charles Larmore's chapter on skepticism in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth--Century Phi--

Notes to Pages 12-14

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losophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-­ versity Press, I998), which describes modern skepticism as a deepening crisis of doubt engaged with theological issues. Finally, Floridi's Sextus Empiricus and work by Emmanuel N aya continue to expand, nuance, and correct the account of skeptical influence established by Popkin: Naya, "Traduire les Hypotyposes pyrrhoniennes: Henri Etienne entre la fievre quarte et la folie chretienne," in Le scepticisme au XVIe et au

XVIIe siecle, ed. P.--F. Moreau (Paris: Albin Michel, 20oi), 48-Ioi; and Naya, "Le doute liberateur: Preambules a une etude du discours fideiste dans les Essais," in L'ecri-­

ture du scepticisme chez Montaigne, ed. Marie--Luce Demonet and Alain Legros (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 20I-2I. 31. See Sylvia Giocanti, Penser l'irresolution: Montaigne, Pascal, La Mathe le Vayer,

trois itineraires sceptiques (Paris: Champion, 2ooi ), and Naya, "Le doute liberateur" and "Traduire les Hypotyposes pyrrhoniennes." 32. See Terence Cave, Pre--histoires: Textes troubles au seuil de la modernite

(Geneva: Droz, I999), and Andre Tournon, "Images du pyrrhonisme selon quelques ecrivains de la Renaissance,"in Les humanistes et l'antiquite grecque, ed. Mitchiko Ishigami--Iagolnitzer (Paris: Editions du CNRS, I985), 27-37. 33· Floridi's work also registers the inadequacy of a strictly philological approach

to explain the rise of skepticism. In "The Grafted Branches of the Sceptical Tree: 'Noli altum sapere' and Henri Estienne's Latin Edition of Sexti Empirici Pyrrhoniarum Hypo-­

typoseon libri III," Nouvelles de la republique des lettres II (I992): I2 7-66, Floridi ana-­ lyzes the printer's device on the title page of Henri Estienne's Latin translation of Sex-­ tus, whose I562 publication Floridi considers a "turning point in the history of skepticism" (I27). In "The Diffusion of Sextus Empiricus's Works in the Renaissance,"

Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (I995): 63-85, however, Floridi studies Latin manu-­ scripts available before Estienne's translation, which he now admits did not generate philosophical skepticism as much as philological interest. The philosophical impor-­ tance of Sextus did not depend on the publication itself but on what Floridi vaguely terms the "epistemological turn at the end of the Renaissance" (82). Floridi's book

(Sextus Empiricus), although it studies influence, begins with a caveat about it. 34· See Popkin's chapter on "constructive or mitigated" skepticism (History of

Scepticism, II2-27) and Henry G. Van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English Thought, r63o-r6go (The Hague: Nijhoff, I963). 35· Tuck, Philosophy and Government, xviii. 36. Zachary Schiffman, On the Threshold of Modernity: Relativism in the French

Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I99 I). 37· For claims similar to Schiffman's, see Brendan Dooley, The Social History of

Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I999). One could add to my obviously abbreviated survey several his-­ tories of early modern disciplines and interests that recount losses of belief, such as Jean Ceard's account of the decline of divination: La nature et les prodiges: L'insolite au XVIe

siecle (Geneva: Droz, I977 ); David Quint's study of the collapse of pretensions to attribute absolute origins to human texts: Origin and Originality in Renaissance Litera-­

ture: Versions of the Source (New Haven: Yale University Press, I983); Timothy Hamp-­ ton's analysis of the deterioration of exemplarity as a model of action: Writing from His-­

tory: The Rhetoric of Exemplarity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I99o); Michael McKeon's relation of various intellectual and social disenchantments to the rise of the English novel: The Origins of the English Novel, r6oo-r740 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

I62

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University Press, I987 ); and Mary Baine Campbell's claim in Wonder and Science that modern anthropology arises in order to manage the epistemic murk stirred up by accounts of New World cultures. See also Terence Cave's Pre.-- histoires, whose assump-­ tion that literary texts registering "troubled" perceptions sit on the "threshold of moder-­ nity" suggests how ingrained the association between skepticism and modernity has become. Working on the Enlightenment, James Noggle considers the resiliency of skep-­ ticism in Pope's Dunciad as critique of the modern condition: "Skepticism and the Sub-­ lime Advent of Modernity in the I742 Dunciad," Eighteenth Century 37 (I996): 22-41. Finally, the model of modernity proposed by historians of skepticism accords with sev-­ eral philosophers' arguments that sixteenth-- and seventeenth--century culture harbored an open--mindedness that should orient modem thought. See Michel de Certeau's study of early modern mysticism: The Mystic Fable, trans. Michael B. Smith (Chicago: Uni-­ versity of Chicago Press, I992); Charles Taylor's chapters on Montaigne and Descartes in Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I989); and Stephen Toulmin's call for a return to late--Renaissance skepticism in

Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: Free Press, I 990). 38. For an account of Descartes's effort to transcend skepticism and of the doubts of his critics, see Popkin's chapters on Descartes in History of Scepticism. For a recent example of this now standard reading of the double role of Cartesian skepticism, see Larmore, "Scepticism." 39· At stake in this argument is the rise of aesthetics per se, since its very concep-­ tion as a special zone of inquiry and activity is a modern event. On the connections between the rise of aesthetics, the rise of sublimity, and the notion of creative imagi-­ nation, see James Biester, "Fancy's Images: Wit, the Sublime, and the Rise of Aes-­ theticism," in Wonders, Marvels, and Monsters in Early Modern Culture, ed. Peter G. Platt (Newark: University of Delaware Press), 294-327. 40. In The Skeptical Sublime, James Noggle argues that a group of eighteenth--cen-­ tury English satirists invented a skeptical strain of sublimity in order to question Enlightenment assumptions. Although Noggle describes the skeptical sublime as "uniquely Augustan" ( I4), I see our work as complementary. 4I. On the notion of an ateleological and unpunctual threshold of modernity, see Cave's introduction to Pre.-- histoires II: Langues etrangeres et troubles economiques au XVIe

siecle (Geneva: Droz, 200I). 42. See, for example, Ian Maclean's books on law and medicine, which treat text-­ books in these fields: Interpretation and Meaning in the Renaissance: The Case of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I992); Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renais-­

sance: The Case of Learned Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Since Maclean deals with texts interested in the maintenance of professional status quos, his conclusions emphasize stability rather than the changes that can be felt in such seminal texts as those of Montaigne and Milton.

CHAPTER ONE

I. This is my translation of the climax of Montaigne's meditation, which I cite in full later in this chapter along with Frame's English version. 2. For caveats concerning these generalizations about the Renaissance, see my introduction.

Notes to Pages 19-2 r

163

3· I am thinking particularly of the work of G. W. Pigman ("Imitation and the Renaissance Sense of the Past: The Reception of Erasmus' Ciceronianus," ]ournal of

Medieval and Renaissance Studies 9 [1979]: 155-78), Timothy Hampton (Writing from History), Zachary Sayre Schiffman (On the Threshold of Modernity), and Richard Tuck (Philosophy and Government). 4· Thomas Greene, "Du Bellay and the Disinterment of Rome," in The Light in

Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 220-41. 5· In The Voyage to Rome in French Renaissance Literature (Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1990), Eric MacPhail implicitly agrees with Greene's assessment, concluding that Montaigne's various reservations about Rome signal "the passing of a century of aggres-­ sive reverence for antiquity" and "the obsolescence of 'translatio' and kindred ambi-­ tions" (205). 6. Other treatments of Montaigne's role in the history of skepticism, which share Popkin's basic assumptions and extend his work, include those of Craig B. Brush (Mon-­

taigne and Bayle) and articles by Elaine Limbrick: "The Paradox of Faith and Doubt in Montaigne's 'Apologie de Raimond Sebond,"' Wascana Review 9.1 (1974): 75-84; "Le scepticism provisoire de Montaigne: Etude des rapports de la raison et de la foi dans l"Apologie,"' Montaigne et les Essais, rs8o-rg8o, ed. Pierre Michel et al. (Paris: Cham-­ pion, 1983), 168-78; "Was Montaigne Really a Pyrrhonian?," Bibliotheque d'humanisme

et Renaissance 39 ( I 977): 67-8o. 7· See Samuel H. Monk's The Sublime, Jules Brody's Boileau and Longinus, Bernard Weinberg's "Translations and Commentaries of Longinus, On the Sublime," and A History of Literary Criticism, and Baxter Hathaway's The Age of Criticism and

Marvels and Commonplaces. More recently Marc Fumaroli, in "Rhetorique d'ecole et rhetorique adulte: Remarques sur la reception europeenne du traite 'Du Sublime' au XVIe et au XVIle siecle," Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France 86 (1986): 33-51, has speculated on the attractions of Longinus for sixteenth--century Italian critics attempt-­ ing to shore up Italian criticism in the wake of Erasmus's Ciceronianus. Debora K. Shuger (Sacred Rhetoric) discusses the importance of Long inus for theoreticians of the "Protestant Grand Style" in Renaissance England. Francis Goyet (in "Le pseudo--sub-­ lime de Longin") argues that while Peri hypsous was not unavailable in the sixteenth century, it was unattractive or uninteresting to sixteenth--century rhetorical sensibili-­ ties and thus largely ignored. In Le sublime du "lieu commun," Goyet calls the sublime of the sixteenth century (as opposed to the later, more familiar sublimity that supplants it) the "commonplace" sublime, a form of persuasion empowered by the rehearsal of commonly understood ideas and patterns (i.e., commonplaces, topoi). This model rein-­ forces my contention that the rise of early modern skepticism, which resists precisely the universal understanding that gives commonplaces their force, motivates the rise of early modern sublimity. 8. See J. L. Logan, "Montaigne et Long in: Une nouvelle hypothese," Revue d'his-­

toire litteraire de la France 83 (1983): 355-70; Dorothy Gabe Coleman, "Montaigne and Longinus," Bibliotheque d'humanisme et Renaissance 47 (1986): 405-13; and Michel Magnien, "Montaigne et le sublime dans les Essais," in Montaigne et la rhetorique, ed. John O'Brien, Malcolm Quainton, and James J. Supple (Paris: Champion, 1995), 27-48. An approach closer to my own is that of Ullrich Langer (Perfect Friendship:

Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccaccio to Corneille [Geneva: Droz,

164

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21-24

1994]), who reads Montaigne's famous explanation of his friendship with La Boetie ([C]"par ce que c'estoit luy; par ce que c'estoit moy [Because it was he, because it was I]" [188/139]) as sublime discourse (see n. 10 for the edition and translation cited here). For my reading of this passage, see chapter 2. 9· For a discussion of the various factors that probably motivated Montaigne's journey, see Donald Frame's Montaigne: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, 1965). 10. Citations of Montaigne's Essais refer to Pierre Villey's edition revised by V.--L. Saulnier (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, I967). Translations, which I occa-­ sionally modify, are from The Complete Works ofMontaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Let-­

ters, trans. Donald Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press, I95 7). Letters in brack-­ ets refer to the three major stages of the composition of the Essais. "[A]" indicates text published largely in I58o. "[B]" indicates text published for the first time in I588. "[C]" indicates text published after I588. II. For an account of what inspired Pierre Eyquem to have his son speak Latin first, see Roger Trinquet, Lajeunesse de Montaigne: Ses origines familiales, son enfance et

ses etudes (Paris: Nizet, I972), and Trinquet, "Nouveaux apen;us sur les debuts du col-­ lege de Guyenne, de Jean de Tartas a Andre de Gouvea (I533-I535)," Bibliotheque

d'humanisme et Renaissance 26 (I964): 5Io-s8. I2. Montaigne attended the college de Guyenne in Bordeaux from I539 to I 546, where his special proficiency in Latin helped him land starring roles in Latin plays; see Trinquet, Lajeunesse de Montaigne. I3. On learning Latin as a school--bound activity whose purpose was to toughen the soul by exposing it to accumulated wisdom perceived as linguistically located, see Walter J. Ong, "Latin Language Study as a Renaissance Puberty Rite,"in Rhetoric,

Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I97I), II3-41. I4. Citations of Montaigne's Journal de voyage refer to the text edited by Fran<;ois Rigolot (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, I992). Translations are from The Com-­

plete Warks of Montaigne. IS. Petrarch makes his ambition of renovatio especially clear in the coronation ora-­ tion at Rome: Opere latine, ed. Antonietta Bufano (Turin: Torinese, I975), I255-83, translated in Ernest Wilkins's Studies in the Life and Works of Petrarch (Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, I955), 300-3I3. Discussions of renovatio Romae and of the special significance of Rome for the Renaissance include MacPhail's Voyage to

Rome in French Renaissance Literature, Philip Jacks's The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-­ sity Press, I993), Margaret M. McGowan's The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance

France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2ooo), and various essays in the collections edited by Annabel Patterson, Roman Images (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I984), and Paul Ramsey, Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, (Bing-­ hamton: State University of New York Press, I982). I6. Accounts of the history and ideology of Roman antiquarianism include Arnaldo Momigliano, "Ancient History and the Antiquarian," Journal of the Warburg

and Courtauld Institutes I3 (I94o): I84-204; Erna Mandowsky and Charles Mitchell, Pirro Ligorio's Roman Antiquities: The Drawings inMS XIII. B. 7 in the National Library of Naples (London: Warburg Institute, I963); Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, I988); Angelo Mazzocco, "Petrarca, Poggio, and Biondo: Humanism's Foremost Interpreters of Roman Ruins," Francis

Notes to Pages 24-30

165

Petrarch, Six Centuries Later: A Symposium, ed. Aldo Scaglione (Chapel Hill: Univer-­ sity of North Carolina Department of Romance Languages; Chicago: Newberry Library, I975), 353-63; Mazzocco, "Rome and the Humanists: The Case of Biondo Flavio," in Rome in the Renaissance, ed. P. A. Ramsey (Binghamton: State University of New York Press, I982), I85-95; and Martine Furno, "Le Descriptio urbis romae dans l'histoire du latin et de la culture humaniste," in Leon Battista Alberti, Descriptio urbis

romae, ed. Martine Furno and Mario Carpo (Geneva: Droz, 2ooo), 97-I I9. See also Leonard Barkan, Unearthing the Past, and Anthony Grafton's Leon Battista Alberti:

Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (New York: Hill and Wang, 2ooo), especially chap. 7 ("Alberti the Antiquary"). I7· Citations of Raphael are from Gli scritti: Lettere, firme, sonetti, saggi tecnici e

teorici, ed. Ettore Camesasca (Milan: Rizzoli, I994); translations are from Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton Uni-­ versity Press, I98I). IS. A later, French contribution to Roman antiquarianism akin to Raphael's is Antoine Lafrery's Speculum romanae magnificentiae (I574), whose engravings (by Eti-­ enne du Perac and others) present ideal reconstructions of Rome alongside its actual disrepair. On this work, see McGowan, The Vision of Rome. I9. This otherwise unannotated copy is in the Bibliotheque Municipale of Bor-­ deaux. 20. By imputing to Montaigne's meditation a critique of conventional assessments of Roman ruins, I disagree with Roland Mortier, who, in La poetique des ruines en

France: Ses origines, ses variations de la Renaissance a Victor Hugo (Geneva: Droz, I974), assimilates Montaigne to the prevalent sixteenth--century tendency to view modern Rome as either the site of grandeur (as does Du Bellay) or of desolation (as does Jacques Grevin). My interpretation is closer to that of Daniela Boccassini, who, in "Ruines montaigniennes," Montaigne Studies 5 (I993): I55-90, recognizes in Montaigne a dif-­ ferent, posthumanist attitude toward ruinousness. Boccassini, however, maintains that this attitude is absent from the meditation, and relates it neither to skepticism nor to the sublime. Although McGowan (in The Vision of Rome) does identify skepticism as the cause of Montaigne's new posture toward ruins, I find it more complexly motivated than she does, as will be clear later in my discussion. 21. From The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I984). Aristotle also discusses admiratio in the Nicomachean Ethics (II22b4-I9), where it offers the "magnificent man" a way to make the extent of his grandeur known to the public, and in the Poetics (I46oai I-I9, I46ob23-25), which express more tolerance for wonder in drama or poetry as an end in itself, with a warning, however, against outright absurdi-­ ties. 22. For studies of Renaissance admiratio, see Marvin T. Herrick's "Some Neglected Sources of Admiratio," Modern Language Notes 62 (I947): 222-26, J. V. Cunningham's

Tradition and Poetic Structure, and Baxter Hathaway's Marvels and Commonplaces, which emphasize Aristotelian critics and thus the alliance between wonder and knowl-­ edge. More recent studies (Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order

of Nature; Mary Baine Campbell, Wonder and Science) have complicated, but not undone, this alliance. Peter G. Platt (Reason Diminished) takes exception to knowl-­ edge--oriented admiratio and proposes Francesco Patrizi's Longinian articulation as an alternative model flexible enough to harbor a more durable confusion than that

I66

NOTES TO PAGES

30-34

allowed by Aristotle. However, whereas Patrizi can be seen to stretch the traditional confines of admiratio, Montaigne, I contend, breaks them. 23. Charles Homer Haskins pioneered this periodization in The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I928); cf. Christopher Brooke, The Twelfth Century Renaissance (New York: Harcourt, I969), G. Pare, A. Brunet, and P. Tremblay, La Renaissance du douzieme siecle (Paris: Vrin, I933), and Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Stockholm: Almqvist, I96o). Examples of revival include increasingly widespread and enthusiastic imitations of Roman archi-­ tecture, and the reinstatement of the Roman Senate in II43· Cf. Ferdinand Gre-­ gorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. Annie Hamilton, 8 vols. (London: Bell, I894-I902). 24. Latin text: in Codice topographico della citta di Roma, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Media Evo, I946), 3:I7-65. Translation: The Marvels of Rome, ed. and trans. Francis Morgan Nichols, 2nd ed., ed. Eileen Gardiner (New York: Italica, I986); this edition includes a useful introduction by Gardiner, who considers (as do Haskins and Gregorovius) the Mirabilia as a product of the twelfth--century Renaissance. 25. Latin text: Petrarch, Le familiari, ed. Vittorio Rossi, 4 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, I926). Translation: Petrarch, Rerum familiarium libri I-VIII, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, 3 vols. (Albany: State University of New York Press, I975). 26. A more

political

way that Petrarch pursued

renovatio-and

co--opted

admiratio-involved urging the pope to persevere in returning to Rome: "Return to her, or rather remain with her now that you have returned. Restore her head, I say, and you will immediately restore her limbs and her strength, if not her original strength, then great strength anyhow. Only he who does great wonders can restore it"; Letters of Old Age, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), I:323. 27. Latin text: Petrarch, L'Africa, ed. Nicola Festa (Florence: Sansoni, I926). Translation: Petrarch's "Africa," trans. Thomas G. Bergin and Alice S. Wilson (New Haven: Yale University Press, I97 7). 28. Italian works of antiquarian interest written in the wake of Petrarch and laced with reconstructive admiratio include Biondo's Roma instaurata and Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, I499). The latter had great popularity in French translation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; see Colonna, Le songe de Poliphile: Traduction de l' "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" par Jean Martin (Paris, Kerver, I549), ed. Gilles Polizzi (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, I994). 29. Citations of Du Bellay's Deffence are from the edition by Jean--Charles Mon.­ ferran (Geneva: Droz, 200I); translations are from Laura Willett, ed. and trans., Poetry and Language in Sixteenth--Century France: Du Bellay, Ronsard, Sebillet (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2003). 30. For an example of how closely together Du Bellay knits literary and political senses of empire, see his dedication of the Deffence to Cardinal Jean Du Bellay, his father's cousin and a protector of French letters as well as French interests ("affaires Fran<;oyses" [68]) in Rome. 3I. Latin text of "Romae descriptio" is from Du Bellay, CEuvres poetiques, vol. 7, ed. Genevieve Demerson (Paris: Nizet, I984). Translations are mine. Numbers in parentheses refer to the lines of the poem. 32. French text of the Antiquitez: Du Bellay, CEuvres poetiques, ed. D. Aris and F.

Notes to Pages 34-44

167

Joukovsky, 2 vols. (Paris: Bordas, I993). The translation is by Edmund Spenser, from

The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, ed. William A. Oram et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, I989); I have modernized the spelling. 33· On the surprise of this disappointment in light of sonnet 2, see George Hugo Tucker, The Poet's Odyssey: Joachim du Bellay and the "Antiquitez de Rome" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I990), I32-33· 34· See Tucker's comparison of sonnet 29 to the pro--Roman rhetoric of Petrarch's invectives (The Poet's Odyssey, 99-Ioo). 35· Latin and English: Lucan, The Civil War, ed. and trans. J.D.Duff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I962). 36. As of the I560s Huguenots targeted not only single images of holy figures but also their edifices. Periodic waves of destruction, fueled by the wars of religion, began in the Midi but spread throughout France and lasted through the mid--I58os. See Olivier Christin, Une revolution symbolique: L'iconoclasme huguenot et la reconstruction

catholique (Paris: Minuit, I99 I). It is interesting to note that Montaigne, generally wary of Reformation radicalism, associates iconoclasm with what he regards as an inade-­ quate aesthetics of grandeur. Agrippa d'Aubigne would construct sublimity from a Huguenot perspective on Catholic destruction in the Tragiques. Embedded in Mon-­ taigne's reference to iconoclasm is thus a subject for further inquiry into the sublime in France prior to Boileau.

CHAPTER TWO

I. In the I588 version of "De la phisionomie [Of Physiognomy]" (3.I2), Mon-­ taigne says that he has " [B] mille volumes de livres autour de moy en ce lieu ou j'escris [a thousand volumes around me in this place where I write]" ( I056/8o8). Of course, Montaigne's library contained modern as well as classical texts. (For speculation on what Montaigne had and the latest recension of what has survived, see Gilbert de Bot-­ ton and Francis Pottiee--Sperry, " A la recherche de la librairie de Montaigne," Bulletin

du bibliophile I997-2, 254-98.) The latter, however, provided the overwhelming major-­ ity of citations in the Essais (see note 3 in the present chapter). 2. Of the seventy--four inscriptions that survive, thirty--nine are in Latin, thirty-­ two are in Greek, and two are unidentified. There are two modern texts, one by Eras-­ mus, the other by Michel de !'Hospital. See Alain Legros, Essais sur poutres: Peintures et

inscriptions chez Montaigne (Paris: Klincksieck, 2ooo). 3· Out of the I07 total essais only I2 include no citations. The Essais as a whole include approximately I,300 citations, roughly 90 percent of which are from classical sources. See Michael Metschies, La citation et l'art de citer dans les "Essais" de Montaigne, trans. Jules Brody (Paris: Champion, I997), and Floyd Gray, Montaigne bilingue: Le latin

des "Essais" (Paris: Champion, I99I). 4· Pierre Villey, Les sources et l'evolution des "Essais" de Montaigne, 2nd ed. (Paris: Hachette, I933); first edition published in I9o8. 5· See the prefaces of Antoine Compagnon in his editions of Ferdinand Brunetiere, Etudes sur Montaigne (Paris: Champion, I999), and Emile Faguet, Autour de

Montaigne (Paris: Champion, I999). 6. Pierre Villey, Les "Essais" de Montaigne (Paris: Nizet, I972). 7· Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, trans. Dawn Eng (Berkeley: University of Califor-­ nia Press, I99I); original German editions published in I949 and I967.

I68

NOTES TO PAGES

44-50

8. Jean Starobinski, Montaigne in Motion, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I98s); original French edition published in I982. 9· Edwin Duval, "Rhetorical Composition and 'Open Form' in Montaigne's Early

Essais," Bibliotheque d'humanisme et Renaissance 43 (I98I): 269-8 7. IO. Jean--Yves Pouilloux, "Dire a demi," Bulletin de la societe des amis de Montaigne 8.IS-I6 (I999): I3-2I. II. Andre Tournon, "Les preteritions marquees ou le sens de l'inachevement," in

Montaigne et les Essais, rs88-rg88, ed. Pierre Michel et al. (Paris: Champion; Geneva: Slatkine, I983), 23I-38. I2. Andre Tournon, "L'energie du 'langage coupe' et la censure editoriale," in

Montaigne et la rhetorique, ed. John O'Brien, Malcolm Quainton, and James J. Supple (Paris: Champion, I99S), II7-33. I3. Ann Hartle, Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher (Cambridge: Cam-­ bridge University Press, 2003), I6. Hartle carefully distinguishes Montaigne's thought from ancient skepticism as defined by Pyrrho, although she does define the former as a transformation of the latter (IS, 2s). I4. This argument extends comparisons-of the Essais to ruins-by Daniela Boc-­ cassini ("Ruines montaigniennes") and Margaret M. McGowan (The Vision of Rome). IS. See, for example, Frederic Brahami, Le scepticisme de Montaigne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, I997). I6. Previous critics have pinpointed "C'est folie" as a particularly strong and early manifestation of Montaigne's skepticism: see Pierre Villey, Les "Essais" de Montaigne, Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, and Craig B. Brush, Montaigne and Bayle. I7. Horace, Satires, Epistles, andArs Poetica, ed. and trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I978), 440-41. I8. Taward the end of Montaigne philosophe (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, I996), Ian Maclean suggests something closer to my position. He remarks that Montaigne leads his reader from wonder to the "decombres [rubble]" of the philosoph-­ ical edifice built on the basis of wonder by Aristotle (I20). Daniel Menager also implies, with regard to "De la prcesumption [Of Presumption]," that a critique of admi-­ ration lies at the heart of the Essais project: "La culture heroi:que de Montaigne," Bul-­

letin de la societe des amis de Montaigne 9-Io (I998): 39-s2. I9. Cf. Lucretius, De rerum natura, ed. and trans. W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I9S9), 2.I023-29. In the recently discovered copy of Lucretius owned and annotated by Montaigne, there is a marginal remark along lines 2.Io2s-28 ("Digression sur ce que toute nouuellete nous etonne & que nous n'ad-­ mirons rien que nous aions aco'tume [Digression on the fact that all novelty surprises us & that we admire nothing that we are accustomed to]") and a series of five vertical pen strokes demarcating groups of lines that interested Montaigne, including those that he inserted into "C'est folie": M. A. Screech, Montaigne's Annotated Copy of

Lucretius: A Transcription and Study of the Manuscript, Notes, and Pen--marks (Geneva: Droz, I998), 28s. One may thus speculate that in Montaigne's readings his process of cutting his Latin sources into pieces has already begun. 20. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum, ed. and trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge: Har-­ vard University Press, I96I), 2.38.97. 2I. On citation in the Essais, see Metschies, La citation et l'art de citer; Antoine Compagnon, La seconde main au le travail de la citation (Paris: Seuil, 1979); Mary B. McKinley, Words in a Corner: Studies in Montaigne's Latin Quotations (Lexington:

Notes to Pages sr-6r

169

French Forum, I98I); Claude Blum, "La fonction du deja dit dans les Essais: Emprunter, alleguer, citer," Cahiers de l'association internationale des etudes fran�aises 33 (I 98I): 35-5I; Michel Charles, L'arbre et la source (Paris: Seuil, I985); Christine Brousseau--Beuermann, La copie de Montaigne: Etude sur les citations dans les "Essais" (Paris: Champion, I989); and Gray, Montaigne bilingue. 22. The procedure by which I study clusters or series of essais was suggested by Richard Sayee, "L'ordre des Essais de Montaigne," Bibliotheque d'humanisme et Renais-­ sance IS (I956): 7-22. 23. Cf. Trinquet, Lajeunesse de Montaigne, 2I6ff. Du Bellay makes use of the stereotype in the Deffence (1.3), where he remarks "!'ignorance de notz majeurs, qui ayans (comme diet quelqu'un, parlant des anciens Romains) en plus grande recom-­ mendation le bien faire, et mieux aymans laisser a leur posterite les exemples de vertu, que les preceptes [the ignorance of our forefathers who, as someone said of the ancient Romans, had more regard for noble actions than for fine words, preferring to leave for posterity examples of valour sooner than wise sayings]" (79-So/45). 24. Etienne de la Boetie, Discours de la servitude volontaire, ed. Simone Goyard-­ Fabre (Paris: Flammarion, I983); translation mine. 25. Montaigne, CEuvres completes, ed. Albert Thibaudet and Maurice Rat (Paris: Gallimard, I962). 26. My analysis here exploits methods developed by Tom Conley in his studies of the typographical aspects of Renaissance French texts, especially The Graphic Uncon-­ scious in Early Modern French Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I992). 27. Ullrich Langer, Perfect Friendship. 28. See J. L. Logan, "Montaigne et Longin," and Dorothy Gabe Coleman, "Mon-­ taigne and Longinus." Although Michel Magnien ("Montaigne et le sublime dans les Essais") emphasizes divergences between Montaigne and Longinus, he still attributes Montaignian sublimity to classical sources and describes it according to Longinian cri-­ teria. More suggestive for my own reading of "Du jeune Caton" have been Timothy Hampton's observation (in Writing from History) that Montaigne removes Cato's virtue as a stable point of reference and Hugo Friedrich's analysis (in Montaigne) of Mon-­ taigne's Cato as resistant to explanation. 29. On Montaigne and heroism, see Menager, "La culture heroi:que de Mon-­ taigne." 30. In his Saturnalia (trans. and ed. Percival Vaughan Davies [New York: Colum-­ bia University Press, I969], 5.1. 7), Macrobius identifies Cicero as the master of the copious style. 3I. On the importance of Cato to Montaigne, see David Quint, Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy: Ethical and Political Themes in the "Essais" (Princeton: Princeton Uni-­ versity Press, I998). 32. Plutarch, Les vies des hommes illustres, trans. Jacques Amyot and ed. Gerard Walter. 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, I95I). 33· Plutarch's Lives, ed. and trans. Bernadotte Perron, II vols. (London: Heine-­ mann, I9I4-26). 34· Montaigne's association of Cato with the potential of France for modem grandeur has an indirect but important precedent in Virgil, whose reference to Cato in the Aeneid Montaigne cites to conclude "Du jeune Caton" (discussed later in this chap-­ ter). The eighth book of the Aeneid contains an ecstatic vision of the future of Rome displayed on Aeneas's shield, in which Cato figures prominently. Since according to

I70

NOTES TO PAGES

62-73

the French version of the doctrine of translatio imperii, the seat of empire passes from Rome to France, Cato may represent a French as well as a Latin empire. 35· On the role of skepticism in the development of anthropology, see Frederic Brahami, Le travail du scepticisme: Montaigne, Bayle, Hume (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2ooi ). 36. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, ed. and trans. J. E. King (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I945). 37· Herodotus, ed. and trans. A. D. Godley, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-­ sity Press, I98I-82), 9.7I-72. 38. On invention, nai:Vete, and their uses by poets to articulate and secure special status, see Grahame Castor, Pleiade Poetics. 39· Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, I997). 40. Ficino explains the furies in, for example, his Commentarium in convivium Pla-­

tonis de Amore [Commentary on Plato's Symposium] (Commentaire sur le Banquet de Pla-­ ton, ed. and trans. Raymond Marcel [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, I956], 7.I4.258ff.) and his letter entitled "De divino furore" (Lettere, ed. Sebastiana Gentile [Florence: Leo S. Olschki, I990], I:I9-28). For English translations of these texts, see (respectively) Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Symposium on Love, trans. Sears Jayne (Dallas: Spring, I985), and The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, trans. Members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, London (London: Shepheard--Walwyn, I975-). On Ficinian fury, see Michael J. B. Allen, "The Soul as Rhapsode." 4I. Ficino describes inspiration as magnetic several times in his commentary on Plato's Symposium; cf. 6.2.200. For details about the diffusion of Ficino's theory, see Jean Lecointe, L'ideal et la difference: La perception de la personnalite litteraire a la Renais-­

sance (Geneva: Droz, I993), chap. 2 ("Le genie et la fureur"). 42. See Castor, Pleiade Poetics. 43· Pierre de Ronsard, CEuvres completes, ed. Jean Ceard, Daniel Menager, and Michel Simonin, vol. I (Paris: Gallimard, I993), 6o3, lines 369-86. 44· Ronsard, Selected Poems, ed. and trans. Malcolm Quainton and Elizabeth Vinestock (London: Penguin, 2002), 7I-72. 45· Other examples of this protective use of divine fury include Richard Le Blanc's dedication of his translation of Plato's Ion (I546) to Ambroise de Vieupont, which thanks the latter for contradicting "vertueusement, comme esprins de fureur divine [virtuously, as if taken over by divine fury]" a "mesdisant de poesie, qui mesprisoit les carmes faictz aulcunes foys par les poetes modernes a l'honneur et celebration du nom de Dieu, et qu'il n'estoit licite d'alleguer lesditz poetes, ny entremesler les compositions d'iceulx principalement es sainctes escriptures [a slanderer of poetry, who hated the songs of modern poets written in honor and celebration of God's name, and who held that it was not proper to cite such poets nor to mix their compositions with sacred writ-­ ings]" (reprinted in Abel Lefranc, Grands ecrivains fran�ais de la Renaissance [Paris: Champion, I969], I25); translation mine. 46. Aeneid, in Virgil, ed. and trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, rev. ed. G. P. Goold, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2ooo), 8.670. 47· Cf. the famous opening of "De la gloire [Of Glory]" (2.I6): "[A] I1 y a le nom et la chose: le nom, c'est une voix qui remerque et signifie la chose; le nom, ce n'est pas une partie de la chose ny de la substance, c'est une piece estrangere joincte a la chose, et hors d'elle [There is the name and the thing. The name is a sound which designates and signifies the thing; the name is not a part of the thing or of the substance, it is an

Notes to Pages 77-83

171

extraneous piece attached to the thing, and outside of it]" (6I8/468). On Montaigne and nominalism, see Antoine Compagnon, Nous, Michel de Montaigne (Paris: Seuil,

I98o), and Langer, Divine and Poetic Freedom. 48. See, respectively, Lawrence D. Kritzman, Destruction/Decouverte: Le fonction-­ nement de la rhetorique dans les "Essais" de Montaigne (Lexington: French Forum, I98o); Mary B. McKinley, Les terrains vagues des "Essais": Itineraires et intertextes (Paris: Cham-­ pion, I996); and Tom Conley, "Montaigne en Montage: Mapping 'Vanity' (III, ix) ,"

Montaigne Studies 3 ( I99I ): 208-34.

49· On the concern of"De la vanite" with style, see McKinley, Les terrains vagues.

CHAPTER THREE

I. Milton: The Critical Heritage, ed. John T. Shawcross, 2 vols. (London: Rout-­ ledge and Kegan Paul, I970-72), and The Critical Response to John Milton's "Paradise

Lost," ed. Timothy C. Miller (Westport: Greenwood Press, I997), anthologize discus-­ sions of the sublimity of Milton's poetry. For histories of such discussions, see Christo-­ pher Ricks, Milton's Grand Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I963), and Leslie E. Moore, Beautiful Sublime. Although recent studies of the Miltonic sublime tend to understand it in eighteenth--century terms (I am thinking of Moore, Steven Knapp,

Personification and the Sublime, and Victoria Kahn, "Allegory and the Sublime in Par-­ adise Lost"), two of the most recent consider, as I do, the sublime in Milton as an intended effect rather than as a category imposed after the fact. Annabel Patterson, in "The Good Old Cause," in her Reading between the Lines (Madison: University of Wis-­ consin Press, I993), 2I0-75, and David Norbrook, in Writing the English Republic:

Poetry, Rhetoric, and Politics,

I

62 7- I 66o (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

I999), associate Milton's sublimity with his republicanism. 2. Citations of Milton's prose are from The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don Wolfe et al., 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, I953-82). 3. See Terence Cave, Pre--histoires, and Andre Tournon, "Images du pyrrhon-­ isme." For reasons why Milton in particular was silent about or even scorned philo-­ sophical trends that nevertheless influenced him, see Stephen M. Fallon's study of Milton's monism, Milton among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-­

Century England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I99I). Milton mentions skepticism twice in addition to once in the seventh Prolusion: in The Tenure of Kings and Magis-­

trates, he says that if"any Sceptic" doubt the power of the sword,"let him feel" (3.2I9); in Paradise Regained, Jesus lists doubting "all things, though plain sense" as among the philosophies rendered moot by divine wisdom (4.296). Citations of Milton's poetry are from John Milton: Complete Poetry and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York: Odyssey Press, I957).

4· See Catherine Gimelli Martin, "'What If the Sun Be Centre to the World?': Milton's Epistemology, Cosmology, and the Paradise of Fools Reconsidered," Modern

Philology 99 (2ooi): 23I-65; Karen L. Edwards, Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in "Paradise Lost" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I999); John Rogers, The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I996); and Harinder Singh Marjara, Contemplation

of Created Things: Science in "Paradise Lost" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

I992). 5· On Milton's acquaintance with Baconian ideas, see David Masson, The Life of

I72

NOTES TO PAGES

83-86

John Milton: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time, 7 vols. (Cambridge: Macmillan,I859-94),and William Riley Parker,Mil-­ ton: A Biography, 2nd ed., ed. Gordon Campbell, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I996), as well as Milton's allusions to Bacon in the Prolusions, On Education,

Areopagitica, and so forth. 6. Citations of Jonson are from Ben Jonson, ed.C.H.Herford and Percy and Eve-­ lyn Simpson,II vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,I925-52). 7· Francis Bacon, The "Instauratio magna" Part II: "Novum organum" and Associ-­

ated Texts, ed.and trans.Graham Rees with Maria Wakely (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2004). 8. Work on English transmissions of philosophical skepticism (such as Sir Walter Ralegh's History of the World, editions and translations of Sextus Empiricus, Cicero's

Academica, Henry Cornelius Agrippa's Of the Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sci-­ ences, Montaigne's Essays, and Pierre Charron's Of Wisdom) includes Louis I. Bred-­ vold,The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, I934); Ernest A.Strathmann,Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in Elizabethan Skepticism (New York: Columbia University Press,I95I); Howard Schultz,Milton and Forbidden Knowl-­

edge (New York: Modern Language Association of America, I955); Don Cameron Allen, Doubt's Boundless Sea: Skepticism and Faith in the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,I964); Charles B.Schmitt,"John Wolley and the First Latin Translation of Sextus Empiricus, Adversus logicos I," in The Sceptical Mode in Modern

Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin, ed. Richard A. Watson and James E. Force (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, I988), 6I-67; Beverley C. Southgate, Covetous of Truth:

The Life and Work of Thomas White, I593-1676 (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993); William M.Hamlin,"A Lost Translation Found? An Edition of The Sceptick (c. 1590) Based on Extant Manuscripts [with Text]," English Literary Renaissance 31 (2001): 34-51; and Luciano Floridi,Sextus E mpiricus. 9· Marin Mersenne, La verite des sciences contre les Sceptiques au Pyrrhoniens, ed. Dominique Descotes (Paris: Champion,2003).Translation is mine. 10. The Works of John Milton, ed.Frank Allen Patterson et al. (New York: Colum-­ bia University Press,1936),12:280. II. Milton cites John Selden's De jure naturali and says that it "proves ...that all opinions,yea errors,known,read,and collated,are of main service & assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest " (2.513). In this work, Selden uses skeptical arguments to claim the fallibility of natural law philosophy. See Richard Tuck, Philos-­

ophy and Government. 12. See Catherine Gimelli Martin,'"What If the Sun Be Centre to the World?' ." 13. The following list is by no means comprehensive: Barbara Breasted, "Comus and the Castlehaven Scandal," Milton Studies 3 (1971): 201-24; Leah Marcus, "The Milieu of Milton's Comus and the Problem of Sexual Assault," Criticism 25 (1983): 293-327; Leah Marcus, "Milton's Anti--Laudian Masque," in her The Politics of Mirth:

Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes (Chicago: Uni-­ versity of Chicago Press, 1986), 169-212; Annabel Patterson, '"Forc'd fingers': Mil-­ ton's Early Poems and Ideological Constraint," in The Muses Common--Weale: Poetry

and Politics in the Seventeenth Century, ed.Claude J.Summers and Ted--Larry Pebworth (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1988),9-22; Nancy Weitz Miller, "Chastity, Rape,and Ideology in the Castlehaven Testimonies and Milton's Ludlow Mask," Mil--

Notes to Pages 86-go

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ton Studies 32 (I995): I53-68; and Barbara K. Lewalski, "Milton's Comus and the Pol-­ itics of Masquing," in The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque, ed. David Bevington and Peter Holbrook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I998), 296-320. I4. Stephen Orgel, "The Case for Comus," Representations 8I (2003): 3I-45· IS. Penelope Gouk, Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth--Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, I999). I6. Aristotle, Sense and Sensibilia, 43 7a4-6. I7. The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Dou-­ glas Denon Heath, vol. 4 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, n.d.). IS. Francis Bacon, ed. Brian Vickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I996). I9· The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Dou-­ glas Denon Heath, vol. 8 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, n.d.). 20. For a roughly contemporaneous discussion of echo that also emphasizes the acoustical phenomenon's special challenge to science with reference to the myths of Echo and Pan, see Marin Mersenne, Harmonie universelle contenant La Theorie et la pra-­ tique de la musique (Paris, r 63 6) , Edition facsimile de l' exemplaire conserve a la Bibliotheque des Arts et Metiers et annote par l'Auteur, 3 vols. (Paris: Editions du CNRS, I975), I:48ff. 2I. Francis Bacon, The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I985). 22. Bacon's comments may allude to a passage in the description of Thomas Cam-­ pion's masque in honor of Lord Hayes (I6o7): "This Chorus was in manner of an Eccho

seconded by the Cornets, then by the consort of ten, then by the consort of twelve, and by a double Chorus of voices standing on either side, the one against the other, bearing five voices a peece, and sometime every Chorus was heard severally, sometime mixt, but in the end alto-­ gether: which kinde of harmony so distinguisht by the place, and by the severall nature of instruments, and changeable conveyance of the song, and performed by so many excellent masters as were actors in that musicke (their number in all amounting to fortie two voyces and instruments) could not but yeeld great satisfaction to the hearers" (The Works of Thomas Campion, ed. Walter R. Davis [Garden City: Doubleday, I967], 223). This description serves to elaborate Bacon's condensed remarks in his essay and to substantiate the idea that he saw the masque as a sound--house full of echoes. Bacon's association between echo and the theatrical space of the masque appears also in his discussion of echo in

Sylva sylvarum, where he remarks that a "quire of echoes" can be heard "in some hills that stand encompassed, theatre--like" (4:287). 23. See Kevin Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the

England of Charles I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I987). 24. On the complimentary function of masques, see Stephen Orgel, The]onsonian Masque (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I965), and Orgel, The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, I975). 25. On the importance of Aristotelian conceptions of magnificence and wonder to the masque genre, see Dolora Cunningham, "The Jonsonian Masque as a Literary Form," English Literary History 22 (I95s): IoS-24; Stephen Orgel, "The Poetics of Spectacle," New Literary History 2 (I97I): 37I-89; and Peter G. Platt, Reason Dimin-­ ished. Aristotle discusses wonder in Metaphysics (982bi2-22) and Poetics ( I46oai I-I9, I46ob23-25) and magnificence in Nicomachean Ethics (II22b8-I 7).

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26. The importance of Aristotelian magnificence to Jonson's conception of the masque has been remarked before. See especially Cunningham, "The Jonsonian Masque as a Literary Form." 27. See my remarks on admiratio in chapter I. 28. Other masques of Janson feature the same educational admiration. The admir-­ ing questions of Wonder reveal King James as the authority behind The Vision of Delight (I6I7) (7:469, lines 20I-4). In Hymene£i (I6o6), an Angel elucidates a disputation about marriage between the indistinguishable figures of Truth and Opinion. Before the exposure and rejection of Opinion's "uncertainties," the Angel asks the audience to "attend a tale of height and wonder" ( 7:239, line 88o), which precipitates the removal of skepticism celebrated by the masque. In Pleasure reconcild to Vertue (I6I8), Daedalus, introducing the series of dances that comprises the masque proper, insists that the masquers dance intricately but not to the extent that they cause confusion instead of admiration ( 7:488, lines 263-68). Jonson carefully distinguishes between pointless perplexity and the wonderful aesthetic experience that is consistent with the "wisdom" to be apprehended by the audience. 29. In addition to the examples that I discuss in the main text, obvious signs of masque interest in wonderful magnificence can be found in Samuel Daniel's Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, where the apparition of the goddesses produces Iris's ("the daugh-­ ter of Wonder") stupefied "admiration," which in turn leads to the identification of the goddesses and the interpretation of their iconography (The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 5 vols. [New York: Russell and Rus-­ sell, I963], 3:I98-99, lines 43-75, 3:200-202, lines 89-I5o), and in Thomas Carew's CC£lum Britannicum, which describes the virtues of English royalty as "wonders Time has brought to light" that illuminate "Regall Magnificence" (The Poems of Thomas Carew with His Masque "CC£lum Britannicum," ed. Rhodes Dunlap [Oxford: Oxford University Press, I949], I 76.876, I7o.66I). 30. George Gascoigne, "The Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth Castle," "The Steele Glass" and Other Poems and Prose Works, ed. John W. Cunliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I907 ) . 31. Joseph L. Loewenstein, in Responsive Readings: Versions of Echo in Pastoral, Epic, and the ]onsonian Masque (New Haven: Yale University Press, I984), goes so far as to speculate that by including a masque in Cynthia's Revels, Janson is "making a bid for the position of Master of Revels" (83). 32. Loewenstein, in his astute interpretation of Cynthia's Revels, also emphasizes echo's directive role, noting how Jonson in his "first mythological drama" employs Echo to invoke the attendance of pagan myths to the English stage, thus inspiring the crucial process of reorientation fundamental to Renaissance culture, the transport of ancient grandeur to a modern setting: "Jonson contrives that Echo . .. should herald that revival, a revival that makes possible the constitution, in England, of Cynthia's court" (Responsive Readings, 4-5). 33· Although I focus on the educational echo employed by Gascoigne and Jonson, a parallel tradition exists in the Renaissance. Just as natural echo involves both aug-­ mentation and decay (insofar as an echo at once prolongs and fragments an original sound), so there exist both constructive and deconstructive strains of literary echo. I have just traced the constructive strain. The potential of echo for distraction rather than attention erupts notably in dramatic echo--scenes. Examples include Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus (The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, 4 vols.

Notes to Pages 94-103

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75

[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I953-6I], I:Io5-205), where echo frustrates the attempts of the title character to orient himself in the woods (I.I.II6-I7), and James Shirley's Love Tricks (The Dramatic Works and Poems of ]ames Shirley, ed. William Gifford and Alexander Dyce, 6 vols. [London: John Murray, I833], I:I-97 ), where essentially the same scene transpires (4.4.70-72). The two traditions of pre--Mil-­ tonic echo are those recognized by the major studies of echo in English, Joseph Loewenstein's Responsive Readings and John Hollander's The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After (Berkeley: University of California Press, I98I). The strains of echo that these studies trace, however, intersect as well as diverge. Complex instances of echo occur, for example, in Erasmus's colloquy "Echo" and in John Web-­ ster's Duchess of Malfi. Even Jonsonian echo, which I have designated as educational, may confuse: in Cynthia's Revels, echo misleads the courtly vices before it leads to virtue; in The Masque ofBlacknesse, echo postpones before it hastens beautification. My argument, however, is that educational and skeptical echo are opposed in that while echo may orient as well as distract, it does not orient because it distracts. In Milton, I will contend, the power of echo to distract becomes its power to orient. 34· Horace, Odes, in The Odes and Epodes, ed. and trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 3.1.2-3; Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, trans. Sir John Harrington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I972), I.2. 35· See Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I989), s.v. "state." 36. For more on "horror," see chapter 4· 37. Critics have often noted that Comus departs from certain masque traditions. See, for example, John G. Demaray, Milton and the Masque Tradition: The Early Poems, Arcades, and "Comus" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I968), and Maryann Cale McGuire, Milton's Puritan Masque (Athens: University of Georgia Press, I983), which contrast the Stuart and Caroline masque and generally argue that Comus privi-­ leges the former and disparages the latter, and David Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, I984), which views Comus as violating J onsonian formulae and the political ideology that they support. 38. See Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "inform." 39· See Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "swill." 40. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, ed. Harold F. Brooks (London: Methuen, I979). 41. Terrors of the Night, in The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald B. McKerrow (corrections and supplementary notes by F. P. Wilson), vol. I (Oxford: Blackwell, I958), 339-86. 42. See Oxford English Dictionary, s.vv. "votarist" and "palmer." 43· Patricia Parker, Inescapable Romance: Studies in the Poetics of a Mode (Prince-­ ton: Princeton University Press, I979). 44· "Do I err, or was there a clash of arms? I err not, there was a clash of arms" (Ovid, Fasti, ed. and trans. James George Frazer [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I959D·

45· G. Wilson Knight, The Burning Oracle: Studies in the Poetry of Action (London:

Oxford University Press, I939), 65. 46. The following description of Milton's style as a complex movement involving and inducing error reflects a general consensus among critics. Christopher Ricks, refer-­ ring to William Empson and F. T. Prince, considers "characteristically Miltonic" lines

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that "combine two kinds of movement, forward and spinning" (Milton's Grand Style, 35-36). In his edition of Paradise Lost (2nd ed., London: Longman, I998), Alistair Fowler, concurring with Thomas Corns, suggests that the richness of Miltonic verse in enjambments and coordinating conjunctions stems from a negotiation "between ener-­ getic movement (fluent, continuous) and perpetual afterthoughts interposing, correct-­ ing, dividing the word of truth" (I3).John Hollander's observation, in Vision and Res-­ onance: Two Senses of Poetic Form, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, I983), that "two impulses-the one toward systematic, static pattern, the other toward peri-­ odic flux and articulated paragraphing-are the warp and weft of the verse fabric of Paradise Lost" (94) animates Gilles Mathis's massive Analyse stylistique du "Paradis perdu" de John Milton: L'univers poetique, echos et correspondances, 3 vols. (Aix--en-­ Provence: Universite de Provence, I987). For the effect of Milton's meandering style on the reader, see Stanley E. Fish, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in "Paradise Lost" (New York: St. Martin's Press, I967). 47· I owe this observation to John Hollander, Vision and Resonance, 37· 48. For an analysis of compound words in the Lady's song, see Archie Burnett, Mil-­ ton's Style: The Shorter Poems, "Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes" (London and New York: Longman, I98 I ), 6I. Burnett discusses the importance of compound words to Milton's style more generally in "Compound Words in Milton's English Poetry," Modern Language Review 75 (I98o): 492-506. 49· My claim that Comus and especially the Lady's song to Echo announce the Miltonic sublime develops the views of a number of critics. Samuel Johnson remarks, "The greatest of [Milton's] juvenile performances is the Mask of Comus, in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise Lost. Milton appears to have formed very early that system of diction and mode of verse which his maturer judge-­ ment approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to deviate" (The Lives of the English Poets, ed. George Birkbeck Hill, 3 vols. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, I905], I:I67). F. T. Prince agrees with Johnson that much of Milton's mature expression surfaces in Comus, many of whose passages "convey a sense of discovery as well as achievement, a reaching out towards a new style" (The Italian Element in Mil-­ ton's Verse [Oxford: Oxford University Press, I954L 67). Angus Fletcher (The Tran-­ scendental Masque: An Essay on Milton's "Comus" [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, I97I]), John Hollander (The Figure of Echo and Vision and Resonance), and Gilles Mathis (Analyse stylistique du "Paradis perdu" and "Comus et la genese d'un style," Etudes anglaises 43 [I99o]: 85-99) all see echo as a basic trait of Milton's verse, whose evolution they trace to Comus. The notion of Comus as Milton's early experiment in sublimity also squares with the technical studies by Ronald David Emma (Milton's Grammar [The Hague: Mouton, I964]) and Thomas N. Corns (Milton's Language [Oxford: Oxford University Press, I99o]), who note that the percentage of compound adjectives, the length of sentences, and the rate of lexical invention all spike in Comus relative to Milton's other poetry. Corns concludes: "Syntactically, Comus in most respects shows more affinities with the epics and with Samson Agonistes than with his other early poetry....Like his pamphlets, his longer poems have many long sentences produced by the multiplication of subordinate clauses. Such sentences are in no way alien or unEnglish. The result is both precision of qualification and an argumentative and cohesive power which are probably unique within the English poetic tradition" (II8). so. Critics echoing Johnson's dissatisfaction with Comus as drama include

Notes to Pages 105-7

177

William Hazlitt, Walter Bagehot, W.W.Greg, A.H.Bullen, and C.S.Lewis.Among dissenters from Johnsonian dissatisfaction are Thomas Warton, Thomas Macauley, W. V. Moody, E. M. W. Tillyard, and Mark Van Doren. For summaries of these works and complete references, see the survey of criticism of Comus by A. S. P. Woodhouse and Douglas Bush in A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, vol.2, pt.3 (New York: Columbia University Press, I972), 784-852. 51. A. S. P. Woodhouse, "The Argument of Milton's Comus," University of

Toronto Quarterly II (I 94 I-42): 46-7I; Woodhouse, "Comus Once More," University of Toronto Quarterly I9 (I949-5o): 2I8-23. 52. Critics who have essentially agreed with Woodhouse include Dick Taylor, Rosemond Tuve, W.G.Madsen, C.L.Barber, Eric LaGuardia, B.Rajan, W.J.Grace, J. S. Lawry, and P. E. Boyette. Critics who object to Woodhouse include Maynard Mack, R.M.Adams, R.H.Bowers, J.Arthos, A.E.Dyson, K.Muir, W.B.C.Watkins, G. W. Whiting, Sears Jayne, Marjorie Nicolson, Jacques Blondel, Akira Arai, and R. Neuse.For summaries and references, see Woodhouse and Bush, A Variorum Commen-­

tary on the Poems of John Milton. 53· William Kerrigan, "The Root--Bound Lady," in The Sacred Complex: On the

Psychogenesis of "Paradise Lost" 22-72 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I983). 54· Marcus, "Milton's Anti--Laudian Masque." 55· Patterson, '"Forc'd fingers."' 56. Orgel, "The Case for Comus." 57· For an argument linking Miltonic repetition to theology, see Regina M. Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: Biblical Creation in "Paradise Lost" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I988). 58. "Since, then, God's supreme wisdom foreknew the first man's falling away, but did not decree it, it follows that, before the fall of man, predestination was not absolutely decreed either. Predestination, even after the fall, should always be consid-­ ered and defined not so much as the result of an actual decree but as arising from the immutable condition of a decree" (Milton, Christian Doctrine, 6:I74). "The condition upon which God's decision depends, then, entails the action of a will which he himself has freed and a belief which he himself demands from men. If the condition is left in the power of men who are free to act, it is absolutely in keeping with justice and does not detract at all from the importance of divine grace" ( 6: I89). 59· "By

GENERATION

God begot his only Son, in accordance with his decree.That

is the chief reason why he is called Father.Generation must be an example of external efficiency, since the Son is a different person from the Father.Theologians themselves admit as much when they say that there is a certain emanation of the Son from the Father. This point will appear more clearly in the discussion of the Holy Spirit, for although they maintain that the Spirit is of the same essence as the Father, they admit that it emanates and issues and proceeds and is breathed from the Father, and all these expressions denote external efficiency. They also hold that the Son is of the same essence as the Father, and generated from all eternity.So this question, which is quite difficult enough in itself, becomes very complicated indeed if you follow the orthodox line" (Milton, Christian Doctrine, 6:205). 6o. "We may, however, be absolutely sure, from other scriptural passages, that when God breathed that breath of life into man, he did not make him a sharer in any-­ thing divine, any part of the divine essence, as it were.He imparted to him only some-­ thing human which was proportionate to divine virtue....So it would seem that the

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human soul is generated by the parents in the course of nature, and not created daily by the immediate act of God" (Milton, Christian Doctrine, 6:3I7, 3I9). 6I. "Here the word law means primarily that law which is innate and implanted in man's mind; and secondly it means the law which proceeded from the mouth of God ...for the law written down by Moses is of a much later date" (Milton, Christian Doc-­

trine, 6:382).

CHAPTER FOUR

I. How taste in Milton relates to the notion of taste that developed between mannerist theories of art and empiricist aesthetics remains an open question. On this development, see Dabney Townsend, Hume' s Aesthetic Theory: Taste and Sentiment (London and New York: Routledge, 2ooo); Dabney Townsend, ed., Eighteenth--Century

British Aesthetics (Amityville: Baywood, I999); Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, I450-r6oo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I94o); Robert Klein, "Judgment and Taste in Cinquecento Art Theory," in Form and Meaning: Essays on Renaissance and

Modern Art, trans.Madeleine Jay and Leon Wieseltier (New York: Viking Press, I979), I6I-69; and George Dickie, The Century of Taste: The Philosophical Odyssey of Taste in

the Eighteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, I996). 2. See Steven Knapp's Personification and the Sublime, Victoria Kahn's "Allegory and the Sublime in Paradise Lost," and Leslie E.Moore's Beautiful Sublime. 3· See the discussion of skepticism and modernity in my introduction. 4· As it does frequently in the Bible: "And the sight of the glory of the

LORD

was

like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Exo-­ dus 25:I7). In the seventeenth century, "glory" begins to denote (along with "halo," "aureole," and "nimbus") the glow that surrounds holy figures. For a full--scale discus-­ sion of glory, see John Peter Rumrich, Matter of Glory: A New Preface to "Paradise Lost" (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, I987). 5· The delightfulness of Milton's Eden reflects a long--standing association between paradise and pleasure inspired by the Septuagint version of Genesis, which translated "Eden" into the Greek paradeisos tes tryphes (garden of delight) on the assumption that "Eden" derived from the Hebrew word eden (delight). The paradisum

voluptatis of the Vulgate further solidified the notion of a garden of delight or pleasure. See A.R.Millard, "The Etymology of Eden," Vetus Testamentum 34 ( I984): I03-6. 6. Milton's attribution of horror to Hell parallels a Renaissance tendency to make Hell as unattractive as possible in order to frighten the faithful into Heaven. D. P. Walker studies this deterrent value of Hell in The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth--Century

Discussions of Eternal Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I964). For a wealth of theological and literary portrayals of the horrors of Hell, see C. A. Patrides, "Renaissance and Modern Views on Hell," Harvard Theological Review 57 (I964): 2I7-36. 7. In Latin, the verbs horreo and horresco refer to the act of bristling. 8. Thomas Browne, Religio Medici and Other Works, ed. L. C. Martin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I964). 9· John Owen, Animadversions On A Treatise Intituled Fiat Lux: Or, A Guide in

Differences of Religion, between Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian and Independent by a Protestant (Oxford, I662).

Notes to Pages

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10. On Veron, see Louis I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden, and Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism. II. In Veron's dedication to his Methode nouvelle, facile, et solide de convaincre de

nullite la Religion pretendue reformee en taus les poincts controversez (Paris, I623). Trans-­ lation is mine. I2. On the rule of faith controversy, which pitted the Protestants John Tillotson, Edward Stillingfleet, and Henry Hammond against Canes and Sergeant, see the fol-­ lowing works by Beverly C. Southgate: "'Beating Down Scepticism': The Solid Philos-­ ophy of John Sergeant, I623-I707,'' in English Philosophy in the Age of Locke, ed. M.A. Stewart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2ooo), 28I-3IS; Covetous of Truth; '"Cau-­ terizing the Wound of Pyrrhonism': Blackloism versus Skepticism," Journal of the His-­

tory of Ideas 53 (I992): 63I-45; and "Blackloism and Tradition from Theological Cer-­ tainty to Historiographical Doubt," Journal of the History of Ideas 6I (2ooo): 97-I I4. I3. Joseph Glanvill, A Seasonable Recommendation, and Defence of Reason, In the Affairs of Religion; Against Infidelity, Scepticism, and Fanaticisms of all sorts (London, I67o). I4. For a theological interpretation of Satan's "fixt mind" as a self--destructive compulsion to repeat, see Regina Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating. IS. See, for example, Satan's claim that God intends his injunction to keep his worshippers "low and ignorant" (9· 704). I6. On English casuistry and its relevance to Milton, see Camille Wells Slights,

The Casuistical Tradition in Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and Milton (Princeton: Prince-­ ton University Press, I98I). I7. Thomas Wilcox, A Discourse Touching The Doctrine Of Doubting (Cambridge, I598). IS. Obadiah Sedgwick, The Doubting Beleever: Or, a Treatise Containing r. The Nature, 2. The Kinds, 3 . The Springs, 4. The Remedies of Doubtings, Incident to Weak Beleevers (London, I64I). I9. Joseph Hall, Satans Fiery Darts Quenched, Or Temptations Repelled (London, I647). Outside the strictly casuistical tradition, Sir Thomas Browne (in Religio Medici) describes fending off doubt as fighting off the devil: "our endeavours are not onely to combate with doubts, but alwayes to dispute with the Devill. . . . Thus the Devill playd at Chesse with me, and yeelding a pawne, thought to gaine a Queen of me, taking advantage of my honest endeavours; and whilst I labor'd to raise the structure of my reason, hee striv'd to undermine the edifice of my faith" (2o). 20. In Satan's conclusion, "Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least I Divided Empire with Heav'n's King I hold I By thee" (4.IIO-I2), Fowler finds "distorted, dou-­ bled repetitio, miming the splitting of dyadic evil" (22I ). I would agree and also say that the absence of true repetitio here reflects Satan's deviation from reasonable or straight-­ forward sense. Cf. Christian Doctrine, where Milton defines evil as a deviation from the course of law (6:39I) and as inconstancy (6:6ss) and good as the pursuit of a single course of action (6:652). The "know" at the end of the soliloquy (4.II3) is, therefore, ironic. After the soliloquy, Milton remarks that while speaking Satan turns three shades of pale (or turns pale three times) due to the passions of "ire, envy, and despair" (4.II5). Cf. what Robert Burton says about passions: "Wee are torne in pieces by our passions, as so many wild horses"; and "It [i.e., the Will] was (as I said) once well agree-­ ing with reason, and there was an exellent concent and harmony betwixt them, but

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that is now dissolved, they often jarre, Reason is over borne by Passion" (The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Thomas C. Faulkner et al., vol. I [Oxford: Oxford University Press, I992], 56, I6I ). In light of Burton's remarks, Satan's discourse appears all the more unreasonable and incoherent, and is thus not an object of knowledge. In general, my reading of the soliloquy agrees with John Carey's sense that it amounts to a series of tensions that hide more that they reveal about Satan ("Milton's Satan," in The Cam-­

bridge Companion to Milton, ed. Dennis Danielson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I999], I3I-45). 2I. Kester Svendsen, Milton and Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I956), I20. 22. Michael Murrin, History and Warfare in Renaissance Epic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I994). 23. The bad taste that (I am suggesting) involves this recoil, moreover, accounts for and is explained by the outburst of tastelessness on the devils' part. The bad puns begun by Satan continue throughout the episode and in places become scatological: "From those deep--throated Engines belcht, whose roar I Embowell'd with outrageous noise the Air, I And all her entrails tore, disgorging foul I Thir devilish glut" (6.586-89). Neoclassical readers predictably found this excessive invention in poor taste and in doing so echoed classical warnings about the dangers of too much punning. 24. Relatively recent interpretations of Satan's connection to sublimity, different from my own reading, include Harold Bloom, Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from

Blake to Stevens (New Haven: Yale University Press, I976), and Sandy Feinstein, "Mil-­ ton's Devilish Sublime," Ben Jonson Journal 5 (I998): I49-66. Surveys of Enlighten-­ ment and romantic views of Satan as sublime appear in John M. Steadman, "The Idea of Satan as the Hero of Paradise Lost," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society I20 (I976): 253-94; Arthur Barker,'" . . . And on His Crest Sat Horror': Eighteenth-­ Century Interpretations of Milton's Sublimity and of His Satan," University of Toronto

Quarterly II (I94I-42): 42I-36; Kenneth Gross, "Satan and the Romantic Satan: A Notebook," in Re--membering Milton: Essays on the Texts and Traditions, ed. Mary Nyquist and Margaret W. Ferguson (New York: Methuen, I987), 3I8-4I; and Ken-­ neth Allen Bruffee, "Satan and the Sublime: The Meaning of the Romantic Hero" (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, I964). 25. This function of Satan connects to the idea of felix culpa or fortunate fall alluded to by both Adam and Satan. See Diana Benet, "God's Glory, and the Fortunate Fall," Milton Quarterly I9 (I985): 34-37, and John C. Ulreich, Jr., "A Paradise Within: The Fortunate Fall in Paradise Lost," Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (I97I): 35I-66. 26. On Satan's heroic potential, see Steadman, "The Idea of Satan as the Hero"; Gross, "Satan and the Romantic Satan"; Bruffee, "Satan and the Sublime"; and John T. Shawcross, "An Early View of Satan as Hero of Paradise Lost," Milton Quarterly 32 (I998): I04-5· 27. As Leslie E. Moore shows in Beautiful Sublime, the eighteenth--century recep-­ tion of Paradise Lost consists in large part of discussions of what elements-characters, books, episodes-of the epic to designate as sublime. 28. A sublimity that obviates formal standards differs from a grandeur that relies on forms known and approved by literary consensus. The latter kind of elevation Fran-­ cis Goyet (in Le sublime du "lieu commun") calls the "commonplace" sublime, which flourished in the Renaissance before being supplanted by the sublime of the seven-­ teenth century. According to Goyet, under the auspices of such notions as Cicero's

Notes to Pages 125-3 r

181

movere, the rhetorical orthodoxy of the sixteenth century construed persuasion as the result of the rehearsal of commonly understood ideas and patterns (i.e., commonplaces,

topoi). When Marvell says that Miltonic sublimity "needs not Rime," therefore, he her-­ alds a post--commonplace sublimity, an uncommon grandeur uplifted not by conform-­ ing to convention but by deforming it. 29. My sense of this investment in confusion complements Nigel Smith's point that Marvell exploits theological ideologies that mutually contradict one another ("The Boomerang Theology of Andrew Marvell," Renaissance and Reformation 25 [2oo1]: 139-55). 30. Sharon Achinstein, "Milton's Spectre in the Restoration: Marvell, Dryden, and Literary Enthusiasm," Huntington Library Quarterly 59 ( 1997): 1-29. 3 I. An interpretation with similarities to Achinstein's is Andrew Shifflett's, which I consider later in this chapter. 32. The Latin components of "surmise" are super ("over," "above," "upon") and

mrtto . ("send," "throw," "put"). 33· I use the text and translation of Barrow's poem offered by Michael Lieb in "S.B.'s 'In Paradisum Amissam': Sublime Commentary," Milton Quarterly 19 (1985): 71-78. In a footnote, Lieb remarks, "It might be argued, in fact, that Marvell's poem distinguished itself by calling into question the kinds of rhetorical assumptions that S.B.'s poem takes for granted" (78). 34· Andrew Shifflett, '"By Lucan Driv'n About': A Jonsonian Marvell's Lucanic Milton," Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996): 803-23. 35· Of the former group, David Masson asserts that "Marvell's discipleship . . . is perfect and exceptionless to the last" (The Life of John Milton, 6:716), James Holly Hanford judges that Marvell's "doubts are at length submerged in a kind of approval"

(John Milton, Englishman [New York: Crown, 1949], 252), and Christopher Hill sug-­ gests that Marvell's doubts allude to a fear among Milton's friends that Paradise Lost would lament too explicitly the downfall of a king--free England and get him into trou-­ ble, a fear allayed completely upon reading the epic ("Milton and Marvell," in

Approaches to Marvell, ed. C. A. Patrides [London: Routledge, 1978], 1-30). Of the lat-­ ter group, J. B. Broadbent senses that Marvell's "retraction of these doubts is not quite wholehearted, and his statement of the excellencies of Paradise Lost continues to hint at the difficulties" involved in writing a Christian heroic poem in an age of science

(Some Graver Subject: An Essay on "Paradise Lost" [New York: Barnes and Noble, 196o], 64), and Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr. contends that Marvell persists in his doubts about Paradise Lost in order to maintain the integrity of his own poetry ("Perplexing the Explanation: Marvell's 'On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost,"' in Approaches to Marvell, 280-305). This indecision about the relation between the two parts of Marvell's poem occurs individually as well as collectively: Kenneth Gross says both that the chaotic vision of the opening lines of the poem is never entirely displaced and that in the sec-­ ond part of the poem, "the anxious, unstable stances of the opening, the images of dis-­ order, perplexity, and discontinuity-all of these disappear" ('"Pardon Me, Mighty Poet': Versions of the Bard in Marvell's 'On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost,'" Milton Stud-­

ies 16 [1982], 88). 36. This last point of view does not rectify the instability produced by the profu-­ sion of perspectives contained in the paragraph but rather perpetuates that instability, since outside of voyages to New Guinea no European had seen a bird of paradise alive. Furthermore, Marvell adds the wings that the bird was supposed-due to the wingless

182

NOTES TO PAGES

132-38

skins that reached Europe-to lack, emphasizing the precariousness of European knowledge of the matter. See H. M. Margoliouth's note to this line in his Poems and

Letters of Andrew Marvell, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 1:337· 37. The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. Edward Niles Hooker,2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I939).

38. In Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory, Marjorie Hope Nicolson interprets Dennis's letter as a result of the transfer of the newly discovered qualities (e.g., irregu-­ larity) of celestial grandeur to terrestrial grandeur. I am suggesting that Dennis may also be transferring his notion of grandeur from the poem that enraptured him. For infor-­ mation about Dennis's notorious passion for Milton and Paradise Lost, see The Critical

Works, 1:5II-I4. 39· Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sub-­ lime and the Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (London: Routledge,I958).

CONCLUSION

I. Among studies of Burke's aesthetics, I have found the following useful: N. Wood, "The Aesthetic Dimension of Burke's Political Thought," Journal of British

Studies4 (I964): 4I-64; Terry Eagleton, "Aesthetics and Politics in Edmund Burke," History Workshop Journal28 (I989): 53-62; Steven Cresap, "Sublime Politics: On the Uses of an Aesthetics of Terror," ClioI9 (I99o): III-25; T. Furniss, Edmund Burke's

Aesthetic Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I993); David Bromwich, "The Sublime before Aesthetics and Politics," RaritanI6 (I997): 30-5I; and Vanessa L. Ryan, "The Physiological Sublime: Burke's Critique of Reason," Journal of the His-­

tory of Ideas62 (2ooi): 265-79. 2. In Reflections on the Revolution in France (I790), Burke laments, "All the pleas-­ ing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason" (ed. Thomas H. D. Mahoney [New York: Liberal Arts Press,I955L 87 ).

3· The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Thomas W. Copeland, Io vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I958-78).

4· As an adolescent, Burke belonged to a literary club in Dublin, whose minutes record his early enthusiasm for Milton. The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Henry J. Todd, 7 vols. (London, I 8o9), contains an excerpt (I:I55-56). See also the numerous allusions to Milton throughout Burke's Correspondence and his Writings and Speeches, ed. Paul Langford (Oxford: Oxford University Press,I98I-).

5· Evidence of Montaigne's influence on Pascal is abundant and well docu-­ mented. See above all Bernard Croquette, Pascal et Montaigne: Etude des reminiscences

des "Essais" dans l'C£uvre de Pascal (Geneva: Droz, I974). On Kant's readings of Mon-­ taigne and Pascal, see Jean Ferrari, Les sources fran�aises de la philosophie de Kant (Paris: Klincksieck,I979).

6. Citations of De l'esprit geometrique refer to Blaise Pascal, CEuvres completes, ed. Jean Mesnard, vol. 3 (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer,I99I). Translations of the same work are from The Essential Pascal, ed. Robert W. Gleason and trans. G. F. Pullen (New York: Mentor,I966).

Notes to Pages 139-53

I83

7. Citations of the Pensees refer to the edition by Philippe Sellier (Paris: Bordas, I99 I). Translations are from Blaise Pascal, "Pensees" and Other Writings, ed. Anthony

Levi and trans. Honor Levi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I995). Numbers in parentheses represent fragment numbers and page numbers of the French and English texts, respectively. 8. All recent editions of the Pensees (including Sellier's) include an account

along the lines of the one that I give. The most advanced analysis of Pascal's posthu-­ mous papers is Pol Ernst, Les "Pensees" de Pascal: Geologie et stratigraphie (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, I996). 9· Studies sympathetic to this view of the Pensees include Lucien Goldmann, Le

dieu cache: Etude sur la vision tragique dans les "Pensees" de Pascal et dans le theatre de Racine (Paris: Gallimard, I955); Louis Marin, La critique du discours: Sur la "Logique de Port--Royal" et les "Pensees" de Pascal (Paris: Minuit, I975); Sara E. Melzer, Discourses of the Fall: A Study of Pascal's "Pensees" (Berkeley: University of California Press, I986); and Buford Norman, Portraits of Thought: Knowledge, Methods, and Styles in Pascal (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, I988). Io. Citations of De l'art de persuader are from the edition by Mesnard; translations

are from the edition by Levi. I I. Blaise Pascal, Entretien avec M. de Sacy sur Epictete et Montaigne, ed. Pascale

Mengotti--Thouvenin and Jean Mesnard (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, I994). Transla-­ tions of the Entretien are by Levi. I2. The secondary literature on Kant's aesthetics is large and growing. I have

found the following sources particularly helpful: Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of

Taste (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I979); Paul Crowther, The Kantian Sub-­ lime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I99 I); Salim Kemal, Kant's Aesthetic Theory (London: St. Martin's Press, I992); Howard Caygill, A Kant Dictionary (Oxford: Black-­ well, I995); and Henry E. Allison, Kant's Theory ofTaste: A Reading of the "Critique of

Aesthetic Judgment" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2ooi ). I3. Citations of Kant's Critique of Judgment refer to the translation by Werner S.

Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, I987). I4. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New

York: St. Martin's Press, I965). IS. Jean--Fran<;ois Lyotard, Heidegger and "the Jews," trans. Andreas Michel and

Mark Roberts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, I990).

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nal of the History of Ideas 53 (I992): 63I-45. ---

.Covetous of Truth: The Life and Work of Thomas White, I593-1676. Dordrecht:

Kluwer, I993·

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Spenser, Edmund. The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser. Ed. William A. Oram et al. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Stanley, Thomas. The History of Philosophy. 4 vols. London, I655-62. Starobinski, Jean. Montaigne in Motion. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: Univer-­ sity of Chicago Press, I985. Steadman, John M. "The Idea of Satan as the Hero of Paradise Lost." Proceedings of the

American Philosophical Society I2o (I976): 253-94. Strathmann, Ernest A. Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in Elizabethan Skepticism. New York: Columbia University Press, I95 I. Svendsen, Kester. Milton and Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I956. Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I989. Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. New York: Free Press, I990· Tournon, Andre. "L'energie du 'langage coupe' et la censure editoriale." In Montaigne

et la rhetorique, ed. John O'Brien, Malcolm Quainton, and James J. Supple, II7-33. Paris: Champion, I995· ---

. "Images du pyrrhonisme selon quelques ecrivains de la Renaissance." In Les

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. "Les preteritions marquees ou le sens de l'inachevement." In Montaigne et les

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. "Nouveaux apen;us sur les debuts du college de Guyenne, de Jean de Tartas a

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."Translations and Commentaries ofLonginus, On the Sublime, to I6oo: A Bib-­

liography." Modern Philology 47 (I95o): I45-51. Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Tran-­

scendence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, I976. Weiss, Roberto. The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity. 2nd ed. Oxford: Black-­ well, I988. Wilcox, Thomas. A Discourse Touching The Doctrine Of Doubting. Cambridge, I598. Wilkins, Ernest Hatch. Studies in the Life and Works of Petrarch. Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, I955· Willett, Laura, ed. and trans. Poetry and Language in Sixteenth--Century France: Du Bel-­

lay, Ronsard, Sebillet. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2003. Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. "Perplexing the Explanation: Marvell's 'On Mr. Mil-­ ton's Paradise Lost.'" In Approaches to Marvell: The York Tercentenary Lectures, ed. C. A. Patrides, 280-305. London: Routledge, I978. Wood, N. "The Aesthetic Dimension of Burke's Political Thought." Journal of British

Studies 4 (I964): 4I-64. Woodhouse, A. S. P. "The Argument of Milton's Comus." University of Toronto Quar-­

terly II ( I94I-42 ): 46-71. ---

."Comus Once More." University of Toronto Quarterly I9 (I949-5o): 2I8-23.

Woodhouse, A. S. P., and Douglas Bush. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John

Milton. Vol. 2, pt. 3· New York: Columbia University Press, I972.

Index

Academica (Cicero), I2,I6on29

ancient virtue,64-65,66

accidental philosophy,48

anecdotes,5

Achinstein, Sharon, I25-26,I8In3o

Animadversions On A Treatise Intituled Fiat Lux (Owen),II5-I6,I78n9 Annals of History (Tacitus),I44-46

acoustics,86,Ioo,I03. See also echo/rep-etition Adam and Eve (Paradise Lost): fall of,

anthropology, 62

IIO-II,I36; morning hymn of,

Antichita della Citta Roma (Mauro), 26

I37-38

Antigonus,72 antiquarianism,23,24-25,27, 30,

Addison,Joseph,I33

admiratio (wonder),9, II,I29,I38,

I64ni6

Les Antiquitez de Rome (Du Bellay),

I65n22; act of knowing and,48;

I9-20,32,33,34-39

grandeur and,34-35,39; in masques,

antiquity,admiratio and,34-35; author-­

90-9I, I74n28; Montaigne's fragmen-­ tation of,48-5I,I39; in Montaigne's

ity of,2I; entombment of,28-29,37,

Journal de voyage, IS,2I,28,29-32,

4I; fragmentation of,34, 36,42, 43,

39-40,8I

66; grandeur of, II,I9,2I-22,23,3I, 46,56; humanism and, 2I,24,26;

Advancement of Learning (Bacon),83,

recovery of,63-67 (see also renovatio

84-85 aesthetic authority,2I,I57ni6

Romae); Renaissance revival of,

aesthetic experience,I7,29,95,Io9;

Io-II; ruin and,37-40; science of, 24. See also ]ournal de voyage

grandeur and,7,9,90-9I; reformation of, 85

Antitrinitarianism, I07

Africa (Petrarch), 32

"Apologie de Raymond Sebond" (Mon-­

ambiguity, 6,II8. See also doubt

taigne), 20, 46

ancient grandeur. See antiquity,grandeur of

aporia, 4· See also doubt; uncertainty Areopagitica (Milton),85, IoS-9

20I

202 Aristodemus,65 Aristotle: Metaphysics, 29-30,86, I 73n25; Nicomachean Ethics, 90-9I, I65n2I

INDEX

ica,I2, I6on29; De natura deorum, so; Tusculan Disputations, 64

citation, in Montaigne's Essais, so-si, 6o,I68n2I

Arminianism,Io6-7

cognition,27. See also reason

art,experience of,9· See also aesthetic

coherence,I46,ISI. See also incoher-­

experience

ataraxia (tranquility), II attention,96-98,99,IOS,I3I "Au Lecteur" (Montaigne),77 authority, aesthetic,2I,I57nI6 avant--garde,2-3

ence "Comme nous pleurons et rions d'une mesme chose" (Montaigne),7I-73 communication, discord as mode of, I43-44 composition,44· See also writing

Comus (Milton),8,82-I07, Bacon,Francis,83-89,92,94; Advance-­

ment of Learning, 83,84-85; Idols of,

I76nn49-5o; attention in, 96-98, 99, Ios; Baconian influence in,83-88, 89;

83-84; New Atlantis, 86-87,88,89;

confusion/distraction in,99-IoI,I04,

Novum organum, 83-84; "sound-­

Ios;Echo in,I7,86,87,92,95,I04;

houses" of,86-87,88,95,I73n22;

echo/repetition in,86-90,93-96,IOI,

Sylva sylvarum, 86,87-88

Io8; enjambment in,I03-4,I76n46;

bad taste,I09,I8on23

Evening in,IOI-2; masque and,I7,

Barrow, Samuel,I27-28,I8In33

Bs-86, 88-94; multiple voices in,

Beelzebub,II7. See also devils; Satan

88-89; plot of,97· See also Lady

biblical truth,I07

conference,I43-46

Biondo,Flavia,2 3-24

confusion,I3I; distraction and, 99-IoI,

Boileau--Despreaux,Nicolas, 3,Io, 57-58,82,IIO,I34 Browne,Thomas,II5,I79ni9 Burke,Edmund,I,3, I33,I82nni-4; A

I04,I05,I74n33 "Consideration sur Ciceron" (Mon-taigne),72,75-76,77

copia, 76

Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of

crise pyrrhonienne, 20

Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,

Critique of Judgment (Kant),2,I34,I49,

I34-38,I52

ISO,I52,IS6ns

Cynthia's Revels (Jonson),92-93,I74n26 Caesar,Julius, 39,6I,7I,72 Canes, John,II6

Dante Alighieri, 99

capacity. See suffisance (capacities)

De augmentis (Bacon),87

Castiglione,Baldassare,24

debate and discord,I43-44

Cato,74-75,I69n34. See also "Du jeune Caton" Cave, Terence,I3,I62n37 "C'est folie de rapporter le vray et le faux a nostre suffisance" (Montaigne),45,

46-si,53,58 Charles of Blois,72

De bello civili (Lucan), 38-39 deconstruction,3,4,57,I55n2. See also fragmentation defeat,as undoing,72-73

Deffence, et illustration de la langue fran�oyse (Du Bellay), 32-39, I66nn29-30,I69n23

Charles of Burgundy,72

"De l'amitie" (Montaigne),53-58

Christian Doctrine (Milton),Io6,

"De la phisionomie" (Montaigne),59,

I77nns8-6o, I78n6I,I79n2o Christianity, I4I Cicero,6o,6I,74,75-76, So; Academ--

I67ni "De la prcesumption" (Montaigne), s6

Index "De l'art de conferer" (Montaigne), I43-46,I47 De l' art de persuader (Pascal), I43, I47-50

203 ticism and,II; wonder and,I8,so. See also uncertainty Dryden, John, IIo Du Bellay,Joachim,30; Antiquitez,

"De la solitude" (Montaigne), 72,73-75

I9-20,32,33,34-39;Deffence, 32-39,

"De la vanite" (Montaigne),46,76-SI

I66nn29-30,I69n23

De l' esprit geometrique (Pascal),I38-4I, I82n6 delight and horror in Paradise Lost, II2-I4,IIS,I3I-33,I34,I78nns-6 "De !'institution des enfants" (Mon-taigne),22-23,SI-53,sS,6o,6I "De l'usage de se vestir" (Montaigne),

"Du dormir" (Montaigne), 6o,73 "Du jeune Caton" (Montaigne),58-67; ancient grandeur in,63-67,70-7I, I69n34; dismemberment of Cato in, 45,6o-6I,72,73; skeptical detach-­ ment in,62,64-66,7I Duval, Edwin,45,I68nio

62 de Man,Paul,2,I55n2

Echo (Comus), I7,86,87,92, 95,I04

demonstration and proof,I40

echo/repetition, I73n2o; in Bacon's

De natura deorum (Cicero),so

"sound--houses," 86-87, 88,95,

Dennis,John,I32-33,I82nn37-38

I73n22; in masques, 88-90, 92, 93,

De rerum natura (Lucretius),49-50,

I74n33; in Milton's Comus, 86-90,

I68ni9

93-96,IOI,I02-3,I04

"Des cannibales" (Montaigne),62

economy of recovery,II,I9,25,30

Descartes, Rene,I2,I3,I4

Eden,IIO-II,I78ns. See also Paradise

detachment,I6,62,64-66,7I; in Mon-taigne's "De la solitude," 73-74 devils,in Paradise Lost, III-I2,II3, II4-I5. See also Satan Diogenes Laertius, I2 Discours de la servitude voluntaire (La Boetie),54-55 dismemberment,45,6o-6I,72,73 disquiet,II

Lost education,22-23,SI-53,97-98,I04 Elizabeth I, queen of England, 92 eloquence,64 eminence,42, 63-64, I25,I28, I3o; divine,III,II8-I9; ignorance and, I7,IIo; knowledge and,IIS. See also grandeur

distraction,99-IOI,I04,IOS,I74n33

emotion. See passion empiricism,I, 95

diversity, 62

enargaeia (vivid picture),I27-28

divine eminence,III

encomiastic strategy,I25,I27-30

divine fury, poetry as, 67-70,I70n45

English culture,89,93,IIo. See also

divine intervention,Io6-7 divine sufficiency,Iso

masque enjambment,I03-4,I76n46

divine truth,I46-48

Enlightenment,3,I7

divinity,I35-36. See also God

enlightenment,9I,93

dogmatism, 5,47,84

entombment,28-29,37,4I

doubt, I2, 20,48,84; divine eminence

Entretien avec Monsieur de Sacy sur Epic--

and,II8-I9; grandeur and,64,89,

tete et Montaigne (Pascal),I47-48,I49

II9,I22,I25,I26-27, I32; horror

Epictetus,I48

and,II7,I20; as index of ruin,

Epicureanism,44,74

I09-IO, II8,I20,I22,I24,I30;

epistemology,I4-I5,I9,47,89; dogma-­

modernity and,I4-IS; modes of,I3;

tism and, 84; masque aesthetics and,

praise and,I29,I3o; of Satan in Par-­

86,96; modes of,83; of sound,88. See

adise Lost, I09-IO, I I7-25, I32; skep--

also knowledge

204

Epistles (Horace), 47 Essayes (Bacon), 88 Essais (Montaigne), I6-I7, 2I, 42,

INDEX

Frame, Donald, 8I French Revolution, I35 Friedrich, Hugo, 44, 45, I67n7

43-8I, I38; "Apologie," 20; "C'est

friendship. See "De l'amitie" (Mon--

folie," 45, 46-sI s8; citation in, ' so-si, 6o, I68n2I; "Comme nous

furor poeticus, 2I, 68-7I, I70n45

taigne)

pleurons et rions," 7I-73; "Considera-­ tion sur Ciceron," 72, 75-76, 77; "De

Gabriel (angel), II9

la coustume," 62; "De l'amitie,"

Galileo Galilei, I3

53-58; "De la phisionomie," 59,

Gascoigne, George, 92

I67ni; "De la prcesumption," s6; "De

Gassendi, Pierre, I3

l'art de conferer," I43-46, I47; "De la

geometrical order, I38-4I

solitude," 72, 73-75; "De la vanite,"

Glanvill, Joseph, II6-I 7, I79ni3

46, 76-8I; "De !'experience," 77; "De

God, I22-23; eminence of, II8-I9, I24;

!'institution des enfants," 22-23,

glory of, III, I78n4; in Milton's

SI-53, s8, 6o, 6I; "De l'usage de se

Christian Doctrine, I77nns8-6o;

vestir," 62; "Des cannibales," 62;

omnipotence of, Iso, I6on28; sublim-­

detachment in, I6, 62, 64-66; Epistles of Horace and, 47-48, 49; suffisance

ity of, I35-36 Gouk, Penelope, 86, 88

(capacities) in, 53, 54-55, s8; teleo-­

government, theories of, I3-I4

logical view of, 59· See also "Du jeune

grandeur, so, 53, I38-43; of aesthetic

Caton"

eudaimonia (well--being), II Eve, seduction of, IIo. See also Adam and Eve

experience, 7, 9, 90-9I;Cato as figure of, 6o, 66; communication of, I9;dis-­ mantling of, I7;doubt and, 64, 89, II9, I22, I24; fragmentation and,

Evening (Comus), IOI-2

I39, I4I-43, ISI; infinite, I38-4I,

exemplarity, 63, 64, 66

I42, I49, ISI; in informed judgment, 52;Longinian, 62;in Milton's Paradise

Faerie Queene (Spenser), 99

Lost, I09, III, II8, II9, I22, I24,

Ferguson, Frances, 3

I26-27, I3I; poetry and, 70; recovery

Fiat Lux, Or A general Conduct to a right understanding and charity in the great Combustions and Broils about Religion here in England (Canes), II6

of, 24;sublimity and, 58-59; wonder and, s8 grandeur of antiquity. See antiquity, grandeur of. See also ]ournal du voyage

Ficino, Marsilio, 2I, 68, I7onn40-4I

Greenblatt, Stephen, 4-7, I57nni4-I6

fideism, skepticism and, I2

Greene, Thomas, I9, I63n4

finitude and infinity, I5I

gunpowder, invention of, I23

Fletcher, Angus, 89 formalism, 7, I57n I6

Hall, Joseph, I20, I79ni 9

fragmentation, 45, 54, 57, 74, I4I;of

Hartle, Ann, 45, 48, I68ni3

antique grandeur, 34, 36, 42, 43, 66;

Hobbes, Thomas, I3-I4

exploitation of, I7; grandeur and, I39,

Homer, 9

I4I-43, ISI;imagination and,

Horace, 47-48, 49, 94

I49-5o; Kantian sublimity and, 2,

horror, I42;delight and, II2-I4, IIS,

ISI; recollection and, 30, 32;of syn-­

I3I-33, I34, I78nns-6;doubt and,

tax, s8;of wonder, in Montaigne's

II7, I20

"C'est folie," 48-5 I. See also dismem-­

housekeeping, 79

berment; incoherence

Huguenots, 40, I67n36

Index humanism,I2,20-2I,24-26;antiquari-­ anism and, 23,24-25,30

205 knowledge,so,88;crisis of, I2;doubt and ,48; zn1orme vzsage " of,52,53; .{ "'

.

Hume, David, I, I2, I52

power and, 89-90, 92;Rome as object

Hypotyposes (Sextus Empiricus),46

of,28;theory of,47,68;truth and,

identity,45,I09

temology

IoS-9;wonder and, I39· See also epis-­ ignorance, so, 84-85; aesthetic use of, IS;eminence and, I7,IIo;sublimity

La Boetie, Etienne de,I7, 54-58

and,II

Lady (Comus), I7,Io8;confusion/dis-­

imagination,I49-50,I5I

traction of,99-Ioi, Io4, Ios;solilo-­

imitation,63,64, 66

quy of,94-95,98-99,I02-3;song to

incoherence,55, 57,6o,77,8I;ofTaci-­ tus, I45,I46

Echo,86,95-I05, Io6 language, 73,79

inconsistency,3,73

Latin,22-23,I64ni3

indeterminacy of skepticism,2,I24. See

learning,ignorance and,84-85. See also

also doubt;uncertainty Inferno (Dante),99

education; knowledge

Learning to Curse (Greenblatt), 4-7

infinite grandeur,I38-4I,I42,I49,ISI

Leo X, Pope, 24

"In Paradisum Amissam Summi Poetae

Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime

Johannis Miltoni" (Barrow),I27-28

(Lyotard),3

inspiration, 68, 99

liberty,I25

Ion (Plato), 68

Life of Phocion (Plutarch),6I

James, King of England, 9I-92, I74n28

Longinus,57,62,7I,82,IIo,I34;Peri

Lives of the Philosophers (Diogenes),I2 Jesus,Satan and,I09 John, Revelation of,I20-2 I

hypsous, 2-3,9-Io,2I,58,I23, I58n2o, I63n7

Johnson,Samuel,IOS,I33,I76n49

Lucan, I2S;De bello civili, 38-39

Jonson,Ben,83,I28-29;Cynthia's Rev--

Lucretius: De rerum natura, 49-50,

els, 92-93,I74n32;The Masque of

I68ni9

Blacknesse, 90,9I,93;Vision of

Luther,Martin,I2

Delight, 9I-92,I74n28

Lyotard,Jean--Fran<;ois,2,3,I53,I55n2

Journal de voyage (Montaigne), 8,I6, IS-42,so, 54;admiratio (wonder) in,

magnetism,67-70

IS, 2I,28,29-32,8I;Du Bellay's

magnificence,90-9I

Antiquitez and, I9-20, 32,33,34-39;

Marcus,Leah,I05

grandeur of antiquity and,I9,2I- 22,

Marvell,Andrew,I7,82;and Barrow

26, 28,46,7I,76;humanism and,I2,

compared,I27-28,I8In33;encomias-­

2o-2I,23,24-26;Mirabilia urbis

tic strategy of,I25,I27-30; "On Mr.

Romae and,30-3I;renovatio Romae

Milton's Paradise Lost," IIo, I25-32,

and,26,30,3I-32 judgment,II,52- 53,63,65

I37,I8In35 masque,I7,Ss-86,88-94,I73n22;Aris-­ totelian magnifence and, 90-9I,

Kant, Immanuel, I38, I83nni2-I4; Cri-­

tique of Judgment, 2,I34,I49,ISO,

I73n2s;echo in,88-90,92,93, I74n32. See also Comus

I52, IS6ns;on reason, ISI-52, I53;

Masque of Beautie, The (Jonson),93

sublimity of,I-2, 3,I7, I49-52

Masque of Blacknesse, The (Jonson), 90,

Kerrigan, William,IOS,I77n53 Knight,G. Wilson,Io3,I75n45

9I,93 Mauro,Lucio, 26

206

Mersenne, Marin,I3,83-84,I72n9, I73n2o

INDEX

Paradise Lost (Milton), 8, I7,I02, Io8-33;Adam and Eve's hymn in,

Metaphysics (Aristotle), 29-30

I37-38;Burke's Enquiry and, I34,

Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare),

I36-38,I52;debate on skepticism

IOO Milton,John,8,IS-I6,I7, I53;Are-­

and,II5-I7;devils in, III-I2, II3, II4-IS;fall of Adam and Eve in,

opagitica, 85,Io8-9;Christian Doc-­

IIO-II, I36;grandeur in,I09,II8,

trine, Io6,I77nns8-6o, I78n6I,

II9,I22,I24, I26-27, I3I;horror

I79n2o;Prolusion 7, 82-83,84,89;

and delight in,II2-I4,IIS, I3I-33,

Samson Agonistes, I09. See also

I34, I78nns-6; Marvell's encomium,

Comus; Paradise Lost

IIo,I25-32,I37,I8In35;Restora-­

Mirabilia urbis Romae (guidebook),30-3I

tion politics and,I25,I29;ruin and

miracle, 9I

doubt in, I09-IO,II8, I20,I22,I24,

miracula (marvels),47

I3o;Satan's doubt in,II7-25. See also

modernity,I3,I4-I5,I6,I9,IIO,I23

Satan

modern philosophy, I4

Paradise Regained (Milton), I09

Monk, Samuel, I-2, Io, I58n2o

parataxis, 57

Montaigne, Michel de,8,I2, Is-I6,

Parker,Patricia,I02

I4I, I53;De l'art de conferer, I43-46;

Pascal,Blaise,I7, I38-so;De l'art de per-­

Pascal and,I38,I39,I43,I46,

suader, I43,I47-5o;De l'esprit

I47-49,I82n5. See also Essais; specific

geometrique, I38-4I,I82n6; Entre-­

essays

tien avec Monsieur de Sacy sur Epictete

motion of truth,Io8-9

et Montaigne, I47-48,I49;Kantian

Murrin, Michael,I23

sublimity and,I50-52;Montaigne

Muses,68-69

and,I38,I39,I43,I46,I47-49,

Nashe,Thomas,Ioo,I75n4I

I82n5;Pensees, I39, I4I-43,I49,

natural order,I46-48

I83nn7-9

nature, science and,I40-4I

passion and reason, I35-37,I79n2o

Neoplatonism,67-68,70

Patterson, Annabel,Io5

New Atlantis (Bacon), 86-87,88, 89

Paulinus,74

New Criticism,4,6,7

Pensees (Pascal), I39,I4I-43,I49,

New Historicism,4,s-6,7,I57ni4 Newton, Isaac, I3

Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle),90-9I, I65n2I nightingale,I04

I83nn7-9

Peri hypsous (Longinus),2-3,9-Io,2I, s8,I23,IS8n2o,I63n7 Petrarch,23,26,30,36;renovatio Romae and,3I-32,I64ni5,I66n26

nominalism, I59-60,I70n47

Pharsalia (Lucan),I28

Norris, Christopher,3

"Phenomenology and Materiality in

Novum organum (Bacon),83-84

Kant" (de Man),2

Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of "Ode a Michel de !'Hospital (Ronsard), 68 "Of Masques and Triumphs" (Bacon), 88 "On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost" (Mar-­ vell),IIO,I25-32, I37,I8In35 Orgel, Stephen, 86,Ios-6,I73n24 Owen,John,IIS-I6, I78n9

Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, A (Burke),I34-38,I52 Phocion,6I Plato,67-68;Ion, 68 Pliny,74,75 Plutarch,6I poetry, 99; "divine fury" of,2I,67-70, I7on4s

Index

207

Pompey,3S-39

Samson Agonistes (Milton),I09

Popkin,Richard,I2,I3,20,I6on29

Santi,Raphael,24

postmodernism, 3

Satan in Paradise Lost, I7, I09-I5, I37,

Pouilloux,Jean--Yves,45, I6Snio

I3S, ISonn24-26; bad taste of,I09,

power: of antiquity,42;knowledge and,

ISon23; delight and horror of,

S9-90,92

Princely Treasures at Kenelworth Castle (Gascoigne),92

Prolusion 7 (Milton), S2-S3, S4,S9

II2-I4,I32;doubt of,I09-IO, II7-25,I32;fall of Adam and Eve and, IIO-II;first soliloquy of,I20-22, I79n2o; God and, IIS-I9,I22-23; invention of gunpowder by, I23;pun-­

Quatre premiers livres des odes (Ronsard), 6S-70

ishment of,II2;repentence and, I2I-22;ruin and,I09-IO,IIS,I2o, I24

reason,I5I-52, I53;passion and, I35-37,I79n2o recollection,fragmentation and,30, 32 recovery. See economy of recovery

Satans Fiery Darts Quenched, Or Tempta-tions Repelled (Hall),I2o,I79ni9 Schiffman, Zachary,I4, I6In36 Scholasticism, S5,95,I40 science,S9; geometrical order and,

Reformation,I2,I6on29

I3S-4I;humanist,24,26;nature and,

Renaissance,S,I3,I6,IS;as economy of

I40-4I

recovery,II,I9,25,30,I59n24;

Sedgwick,Obadiah, I20

humanism and,2o-2I,25

selfhood,45,74

Renaissance culture,9,64, 66,I43;

Seneca,74

antiquity and,IO-I I,25,26-27,

sensitivity,detachment and,I32

I59n24

Sergeant,John,II6

Renan,Ernest,44

Sextus Empiricus,I2,20,46,I59n27

Rene of Lorraine,72

Shakespeare,William,Ioo

renovatio Romae, 26, 30,34, 36;Petrarch

Shifflett,Andrew, I29,ISin34

and,3I-32,I64ni5,I66n26. See also

Sidney,Philip,4

antiquity,grandeur of

skeptical detachment. See detachment

repentence, I2I-22

Socrates,59,6S

repetition,I4. See also echo/repetition

sound,II3· See also acoustics

Rerum familiarum (Petrarch),3I

"sound--houses," S6-S7, SS,95, I73n22

"Resonance and Wonder" (Greenblatt),

Spartans,65

5-6

Spenser,Herbert,99

Restoration politics, I25, I29

Starobinski,Jean,44-45,I6SnS

Revelations (John), I20-2I

stealth, of skepticism, S2

Robortello, Francesco, Io

Stilpo,74

Roma instaurata (Biondo), 23-24

Stoicism,6I,I29

Rome, grandeur and, 37-40, 63;ruin of,

Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in

7S,So-SI,I46;wonder and,34-35.

Eighteenth--Century England, The

See also ]ournal de voyage; renovatio

(Monk),I-2,I5Sn2o

Romae Ronsard,Pierre de, 6S-7o

"Sublime and the Avant--Garde,The" (Lyotard),2

Royal Society (England),I3

suffisance (capacities),53,54-55,5S

ruin,57,7I, 74,I43;doubt and, I09-IO,

SureFooting In Christianity, Or Rational

IIS,I2o, I22, I24,I30. See also frag-­

Discourse On The Rule ofFaith

mentation;Rome,ruin of

(Sergeant),II6

208

Sylva sylvarum (Bacon), 86, 87-88

INDEX

utopian science, 89. See also New

Atlantis Tacitus, Annals of History, 144-46 taste, 109, I8on23

Terrors of the Night (Nashe), Ioo, I75n4I

La verite des sciences contre les Sceptiques ou Pyrrhoniens (Mersenne), 83-84 Veron, Fran<;ois, II6

theology, Io6-7, II6, I77n59

Vico, Giambattista, I4

"To My Chosen Friend, the Learned

Villey, Pierre, 44, 59, I67n4

Translator of Lucan, Thomas May, Esq." (Jonson), I28-29 Tournon, Andre, 45, I68nni I-I2

Virgil, 71, 169n34 virtue, reconstruction of, 64-65, 66

Vision of Delight (Jonson), 9I-92, I74n28

"T awards a Poetics of Culture" (Green-­ blatt), 5

Wilcox, Thomas, I20, I79ni 7

transitions, 8I

Wimsatt, William K., 4, 5, 7

travel, 78-79, So. See also Journal de

wonder, 7, 37, 53, 157n14; Ciceronian,

voyage truth, I4, 53, I07, I26, I27; divine,

6I-62; entombment and, 28-29, 37; in Epistles of Horace, 47-48; knowl-­

I46-48; fragmentation of, I2; motion

edge and, I39; resonance and, 5-6; as

of, IoS-9; ruin of, I3o; skepticism

response to grandeur, 58. See also

and, 20

admiratio

Tuck, Richard, I3-I4

Woodhouse, A. S. P., I05, I77n5I

Tusculan Disputations (Cicero), 64

woods, terrors of, 99-IoI writing: fragmentation in, 75-76; inco-­

uncertainty, 4, 6, II6, II7-I8. See also doubt

herence in, 55, 57, 6o, 77, 8I; ruin and, 79-So; vanity and, 77-78