I'm so sorry to hear about your Mum, Annette. There are just too many stories around at the moment about the effects of accidents and illness especially among elderly people being exacerbated by the long waiting times in A&E. I hope yoour Mum is more comfortable now. Thanks for the update on Peg Woffington's status – I was just wondering the other day how you were getting on with finding a publisher. Hope you have a breakthrough on that front soon. It sounds like such a worthwhile book that should surely have a substantial audience.
Thank you so much Clare. Yes, it was quite stressful - as you might imagine - but she is on the mend now. The cast is coming off in December - hoping she will recuperate well and get back to walking regularly (these things do knock the confidence). Re: Mrs Woffington, I haven't forgotten her - just put her aside while I finish another book. The ms. needs a developmental edit, but it's nothing I can't fix - I just need time to do it. Hope you are well!
Hello Annette, talking of Peg Woffington, guess you've already read 'A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt' which includes her trials as an author working on a book about Peg Woffington in the 1950s or 1960s, I think it was?
Hi there - thanks for this! I have not read ‘A Notable Woman’ but I suspect they are the journals of Janet Camden Lucey (that was her pen name) who wrote a biography of Peg which was published in 1951. I will definitely look up these journals as I’m kind of fond of “Camden Lucey” and her biography, which is definitely one of the better ones. I own two copies, one of which is hilariously annotated by an angry reader!
I’m also reading the Paradise Lost, gorgeous in spirit but equally depressing for the dogmatic world it’s trapped inside.
No wonder Milton had to come back to earth on Blake’s left foot to redeem himself in the same poem.
You know, it’s interesting how snakes are seen a sneaky creatures in the western world, whereas in the east those are auspicious creatures, often directly serving the gods
Perhaps this has something to do with dual VS non dual visions of the world.
Thanks Stefano! Good points about snakes (and glad you’re also reading Paradise Lost). I’m planning on reading C S Lewis’s introduction to PL because my theology is shaky, but there’s a lot that’s ambiguous about that poem. It is a very strange world he inhabits - and so visual in nature I can’t stop thinking of photographs of the earth from space etc.
Honestly, the absence of a feminine divine in that cosmology feels impossible to defend. A universe shaped only by the masculine is a half-made vision—missing the generative pulse that completes the sacred.
And when I look at Satan’s revolt, it reads less like defiance of God and more like a rising against Urizen—the cold architect of chains and measurement.
Yes, the masculine nature of it is oppressive but I don’t think unusual for the period in which Milton is writing (I have a feeling he was not always very kind to his wife - she lived separately from him for a time if I haven’t misremembered what they told me at Milton’s Cottage). Satan’s revolt is so fascinating because he comes across as more interesting and more three-dimensional than God a lot of the time - he seems to use Republican arguments for freedom but I can’t imagine that Milton intended us to sympathise with Satan (despite Milton’s own Republicanism). This is why I need more theological guidance from C S Lewis. A lot of it is plain weird (the war in heaven for eg) but I’m just trying to go with the flow!
Maybe he was unable to label Satan otherwise because of the conditionings of his own age. I see that portrait close to the hell of the Divine Comedy, an unrestrained space of creative energy, whereas the heaven ends up a bit more boring (perhaps?); though I enjoyed reading Uriel flying over the sun beams like a sort of a skateboard.
But I'm telling you this after reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell+Milton by Blake :)
Happy to read your impressions if you ever consider future post on the Paradise Lost.
Best wishes to your mum. I hope she recovers soon. Snakes through the letterbox is a weirdly specific fear, isn't it? Many people are afraid of snakes (including me) but the image of them wriggling through the letterbox takes the phobia to a whole new level!
Thank you Rob. Yes, I thought the same thing! She has never liked snakes since she saw one (a grass snake) in a local park in the 1970s. Not sure why the letterbox thing occurred to her!
I'm so sorry to hear about your Mum, Annette. There are just too many stories around at the moment about the effects of accidents and illness especially among elderly people being exacerbated by the long waiting times in A&E. I hope yoour Mum is more comfortable now. Thanks for the update on Peg Woffington's status – I was just wondering the other day how you were getting on with finding a publisher. Hope you have a breakthrough on that front soon. It sounds like such a worthwhile book that should surely have a substantial audience.
Thank you so much Clare. Yes, it was quite stressful - as you might imagine - but she is on the mend now. The cast is coming off in December - hoping she will recuperate well and get back to walking regularly (these things do knock the confidence). Re: Mrs Woffington, I haven't forgotten her - just put her aside while I finish another book. The ms. needs a developmental edit, but it's nothing I can't fix - I just need time to do it. Hope you are well!
Oh good, that sounds positive on both counts. I'm absolutely fine thanks.
Hello Annette, talking of Peg Woffington, guess you've already read 'A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt' which includes her trials as an author working on a book about Peg Woffington in the 1950s or 1960s, I think it was?
Hi there - thanks for this! I have not read ‘A Notable Woman’ but I suspect they are the journals of Janet Camden Lucey (that was her pen name) who wrote a biography of Peg which was published in 1951. I will definitely look up these journals as I’m kind of fond of “Camden Lucey” and her biography, which is definitely one of the better ones. I own two copies, one of which is hilariously annotated by an angry reader!
Oh yes, you’re right. She had a slightly different pen-name. Good luck.
Brilliant spot - I’ll enjoy reading those!
Be prepared: one thing she’s quite honest about as a diarist is that sex started well before 1963 as Philip Larkin claimed!
Wow!
We are looking forward to the Wright exhibition on 10th!
Ooh lovely - it’s well worth seeing!
Wishing her a quick recovery.
I’m also reading the Paradise Lost, gorgeous in spirit but equally depressing for the dogmatic world it’s trapped inside.
No wonder Milton had to come back to earth on Blake’s left foot to redeem himself in the same poem.
You know, it’s interesting how snakes are seen a sneaky creatures in the western world, whereas in the east those are auspicious creatures, often directly serving the gods
Perhaps this has something to do with dual VS non dual visions of the world.
Thanks Stefano! Good points about snakes (and glad you’re also reading Paradise Lost). I’m planning on reading C S Lewis’s introduction to PL because my theology is shaky, but there’s a lot that’s ambiguous about that poem. It is a very strange world he inhabits - and so visual in nature I can’t stop thinking of photographs of the earth from space etc.
Thank you, Annette. Spot on.
Honestly, the absence of a feminine divine in that cosmology feels impossible to defend. A universe shaped only by the masculine is a half-made vision—missing the generative pulse that completes the sacred.
And when I look at Satan’s revolt, it reads less like defiance of God and more like a rising against Urizen—the cold architect of chains and measurement.
Does that echo your sense of it?
Yes, the masculine nature of it is oppressive but I don’t think unusual for the period in which Milton is writing (I have a feeling he was not always very kind to his wife - she lived separately from him for a time if I haven’t misremembered what they told me at Milton’s Cottage). Satan’s revolt is so fascinating because he comes across as more interesting and more three-dimensional than God a lot of the time - he seems to use Republican arguments for freedom but I can’t imagine that Milton intended us to sympathise with Satan (despite Milton’s own Republicanism). This is why I need more theological guidance from C S Lewis. A lot of it is plain weird (the war in heaven for eg) but I’m just trying to go with the flow!
Quite insightful detail from his private life...
Maybe he was unable to label Satan otherwise because of the conditionings of his own age. I see that portrait close to the hell of the Divine Comedy, an unrestrained space of creative energy, whereas the heaven ends up a bit more boring (perhaps?); though I enjoyed reading Uriel flying over the sun beams like a sort of a skateboard.
But I'm telling you this after reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell+Milton by Blake :)
Happy to read your impressions if you ever consider future post on the Paradise Lost.
I am ashamed to say i haven’t read Dante (yet), but Milton was influenced by him, for sure. Thanks for the great discussion!
Best wishes to your mum. I hope she recovers soon. Snakes through the letterbox is a weirdly specific fear, isn't it? Many people are afraid of snakes (including me) but the image of them wriggling through the letterbox takes the phobia to a whole new level!
Thank you Rob. Yes, I thought the same thing! She has never liked snakes since she saw one (a grass snake) in a local park in the 1970s. Not sure why the letterbox thing occurred to her!