"A Space for Narration": Milton and the Politics of Collective Memory

? SPACE FOR NARRATION": Milton and the Politics ofCollective Memory Harold Weber 1 In this essay I will examine three works of John Milton's that deal with the complex relationship between history, memory, and authorship: the Latin ode "To John Rouse" (1647), the Latin prose masterpiece A Second Defence of the English People (1654), and his dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (1671).' MeasuringMilton's public careerfrom its first decade to its last, these texts suggest his profound investment in considerations ofthe nature and durability of collective memory, and demonstrate that such concerns were central to the ways in which he imagined his life as the author of controversial prose pamphlets , as Secretary for Foreign Tongues, and as a poet. The internal regulation ofthebourgeois subject, the formation ofa national identity, the properdefinition of"active virtue," and the necessityto apprehend and seize the opportune moment—topics fundamental to Milton's literary career and cultural ideology—all intersect in his fascination with the paradoxicalweakness and resilience ofhuman memory and the ways in which fictions and narratives generate and sustain collective memory. The arc that describes Milton's progress from "To John Rouse" to Samson Agonistes moves from comfortable certainty to terrible doubt, from easy beliefto struggle and even despair. Early in his career, Milton has little doubt that history will vindicate his life and writings, for he sees himself as one of those upright custodians ofmemory who alone can defeat time and preserve THE JOURNAL FOR EARLY MODERN CULTURAL STUDIES Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2004) © 2004 WEBER ft 63 what otherwise would be forgotten. The collapse of the Cromwellian settlement , however, and Restoration ofthe Stuart monarchy undermine such certainties , forcing Milton to confront the dialectical bond between memory and forgetting, the tension between fragility and monumentality in the preservation of writing and culture, and the problematic relationship between truth and fable in the recovery ofhistorical memory. Samson's ambiguous triumph in Samson Agonistes must be read in light ofa confrontation—developed in these three works, as well as others—between martial and intellectual virtue, and Milton's conviction that cultural labor is essential to the establishment ofa collective memory and the national identity that depends upon it. All three works accomplish this task by attempting to resolve the same pressing issues that generated what has become the most enduring poem to emerge from the English civil war: The forward Youth that would appear Must now forsake his Muses dear, Nor in the Shadows sing His Numbers languishing. 'Tis time to leave the Books in dust, And oyl th' unused Armours rust. (1-6) These opening lines of Marvell's "Horatian Ode" envision a moment of national crisis that both demands sacrifices ofthose who would actively participate in the processes of history, and provides special opportunities to those ambitious for recognition and fame. The devaluation ofthe arts suggested in these lines is perhaps not as extreme as might first appear: in its assumption of a periodic rhythm to the cycles ofnational history, the poem anticipates times when the "Muses" will triumph over warfare, and "Books" will reign rather than "Armour." Indeed, the poem's cynical conclusion, which suggests the inability of armed might to legitimate itself except through an inevitable and continued force, questions and even subverts the military opportunism that it initially celebrates. Nonetheless, the poem begins with a very conventional insistence on the irrelevance ofart and cultural labor at moments ofhistorical crisis. The normative power ofsuch sentiments in early modern Europe, which "governed" itself through an almost perpetual state of military crisis, is most famously dramatized in the opening ofAn ApologieforPoetrie, where Sidney cannot mount his defense of poetry without acknowledging, in the words of John Pietro Pugliano, that "Souldiours were the noblest estate ofmankinde." Sidney cer- 64 M THE JOURNAL FOR EARLY MODERN CULTURAL STUDIES tainlymocks Pugliano's "strong affection and weake arguments" when he facetiously denigrates his own "unelected vocation" and "pittiful defence ofpoore Poetry" (sig. Br-v), but in choosing to begin with Pugliano he nevertheless acknowledges the cultural and ideological authority ofPugliano's orthodox wisdom .2 Statesmen ofall stripes have everbeen eagerto damn "the ingloriousArts ofPeace" when young men (and nowwomen) must be recruited in the service...