Milton and the English Revolution
King, Robert L.
lights the moral dilemmas latent in any discussion with "learners-teachers." Together they try to understand the "problem" they have discovered and to find ways to solve it. Such adult educa- tion...
...In short, anyone seriously in-terested in approaches to literature and history can profit from this book, which should stand as a seminal study for dec- ades...
...Why did earlier successes at consciousness-raising fade away...
...What is one to do," he asks, "when the leadership 'carries on' with a war establishment, when the Vietnam scandal becomes the post-Vietnam scan- dal...
...As a word, problem can serve as a handy crutch in an emergency A forest of rhetorical crutches, however, loses open-minded readers.9 In brief I MILTON AND THE ENGLISH REVOLU- TION, by Christopher Hill, Viking, $20...
...But you keep on keeping on, praying.9 The nub: faithless- ness on our part is no response to derelic- tion on theirs...
...The movements these men inspired are now in twilight as Freire's is not...
...Perhaps it is more of a peeve.9 In this otherwise tightly-written, 126-page book, Wren re-peatedly (nearly three score times...
...Hill argues that Milton's ideas were more radical than is generally supposed, that his radicalism can be known only by thoroughly examining his cultural and political milieu, and that the knowledge so gained illuminates all his writing, es- pecially the three great poems...
...According to Wren, it is in his own special brand of "radical socialism" which, unlike some socialist societies, will not become "dogmatic, domineering and oppres-sive...
...While Wren anticipates five objections--and supplies five answers--to consciousness-raising as a pedagogical process, he seems unaware of the moral dilemmas that he himself has set in motion.9 For example, what is to prevent someone from exploiting such education in order to replace one tyranny with another...
...problems of poverty...
...At first, some students of litera- ture will find it hard to distinguish the various sects (Ranters, Familists, An-tinomians...
...544 pp...
...The book's Foreword, a tale of Buddha and Mara told by Thich Naht Hanh, and seventeen woodcut illustra- tions, by Robert McGovern, comple-ment Uncommon Prayer, written and drawn with a simplicity and directness that characterize Berrigan's recent, dis- ciplined style...
...Hill's title indicates that his concern is not with the categorical approach of the History of Ideas, but with the reality of one man's thinking: "I shall concentrate on the sub- stance of his unorthodoxies, not their names...
...One listens out of respect and admiration, especially to the prose sections, agreeing, as Berri- gan wrote in the preface to his other re- centA Book of Parables (now in a second printing), that "there is something to be said for the struggle of living a life, writ- ing a book" from his perspective...
...But if the end result of his educa- tional method has already been pre-determined, how likely is it to enjoy the universal acceptance which Wren seeks for it...
...We come to see Milton from the point of view of his contemporaries, both the familiar figures (Cromwell, Marvell) and the lesser-knowns (Fludd, Muggle- ton...
...MICHAEL TRUE Correspondence (Continued from page 802) [Oct...
...And this scandal is so nearly uni- versal among the authorities that some of us, for sanity's sake, must stay out in the cold...
...Such adult educa- tion is subversive by nature, exposing injustice and upsetting the status quo...
...others may feel inadequate before Hill's knowledge of literary criti- cism...
...Hill often flatteringly assumes that his reader knows as much history as he does himself...
...The range of Hill's learning and the clar- ity of his style do more, however, than decipher terms...
...ROBERT L. KING UNCOMMON PRAYER: A BOOK OF PSALMS, by Daniel Berrigan, Seabury, $7.95 [141 pp...
...in- troduces the word "problem" which lies at the heart of consciousness-raising...
...One final comment...
...A persistent theme in the reflections is the difference between "faith and reli- gious camouflage.9 In distinguishing be- tween the two, Berrigan accurately de- scribes the conflict that Catholics face, in the post-Vietnam era--not with the church, but with its leadership.9 He offers no easy comfort, however, to either party...
...13] is a welcome contemporary re- statement of the dilemma posed by Lipset fifteen years ago--equality of opportu- nity is not compatible with an equal dis- tribution of success...
...Wren's express purpose is to propagate Freire's educational method among teachers everywhere--in both develop- ing nations and highly technological so- cieties...
...Their experiences put to the test the capacity of conscientizacion to be ex-ported worldwide, as Wren proposes...
...I refer specifically to the "observe-judge-act" method which Canon Cardijn popularized among the world's young workers and to Monsignor Coady's edu- cational programs which spurred Nova Scotia's fishermen to lift themselves out of poverty...
...he enriches our experi- ence of the literature by insisting on that fullness of meaning that comes from a writer committed to the issues of his time as well as to his art...
...Outside...
...With Hill as guide, we understand Mil- ton partly on the basis of what he does not say, because--with so much opposition to suppress--seventeenth-century Eng- land forced its radicals to write in code...
...9 problem-posing style.., problems of rational justice . .9 . problematize . . ." etc...
...Father Berrigan chooses, from forty- two Old Testament psalms, a word, a hint, or a phrase, and goes with that, writing his own poetic adaptations and prose reflections.9 They are essentially cries of anguish or of praise and longing, utterances of a man on the edge of de- spair, who surveys the nuclear landscape and daily expects the worst...
...Yet, he tints it ~,ith various meanings, without defining it at crucial points: "the first problem is...
...What then is that just society to which consciousness-raising leads...
...For equity in dis- tribution there has to be some restraint upon opportunity by legislation, com-munal values, or religious prescription.9 Commonweal: 824...
Vol. 105 • December 1978 • No. 25
