Posts Tagged ‘Milton’
“Your memory and your senses will be nourishment for your creativity”*…
On which senses do great creators rely? Randall Collins investigates…
Beethoven started going deaf in his late 20s. Already famous by age 25 for his piano sonatas, at 31 he was traumatized by losing his hearing. But he kept on composing: the Moonlight Sonata during the onset of deafness; the dramatic Waldstein Sonata at 32; piano sonatas kept on coming until he was 50. In his deaf period came the revolutionary sounds of his 3rd through 8th symphonies, piano and violin concertos (age 32-40). After 44 he became less productive, with intermittent flashes (Missa Solemnis, Diabelli variations, 9th symphony) composed at 47-53, dying at 56. His last string quartets were composed entirely in his head, left unperformed in his lifetime.
Handel went blind in one eye at age 66; laboriously finished the oratorio he was working on; went completely blind at 68. He never produced another significant work. But he kept on playing organ concertos, “performing from memory, or extemporizing while the players waited for their cue” almost to the day he died, aged 74.
Johann Sebastian Bach fell ill in his 64th year; next year his vision was nearly gone; he died at 65 “after two unsuccessful operations for a cataract.” At 62 he was still producing great works; at 64 he finished assembling the pieces of his B Minor Mass (recycling his older works being his modus operandi). At death he left unfinished his monument of musical puzzles, The Art of the Fugue, on which he had been working since 55.
Can we conclude, it is more important for a composer to see than hear?…
And given examples like Milton, that it’s more critical to poets and writers to hear than see? More at “Deaf or Blind: Beethoven, Handel,” from @sociologicaleye.
* Arthur Rimbaud
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As we contemplate creativity, we might recall that it was on this date in 2013 that Google– Google Search, YouTube, Google Mail, and Google Drive, et al.– went down for about 5 minutes. During that brief window, internet traffic around the world dropped by 40 percent.
“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out”*…
That most quotable (well, after Shakespeare) of wits…
More enduring epigrams in the entertaining infographic “And the Oscar goes to…” (full and larger) from @guardian.
See also “Oscar Wilde Will Not Be Automated, ” from @benjaminerrett.
* Oscar Wilde
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As we chortle, we might recall that it was on this date (which is, by the way, Fibonacci Day) in 1644 that John Milton published Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. A prose polemic opposing licensing and censorship, it is among history’s most influential and impassioned philosophical defenses of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. The full text is here.
“I was supposed to say, ‘In a pig’s eye you are,’ what came out was, ‘In a pig’s ass you are.’ Old habits die awfully hard.”*…
Explore expletives at “Strong Language.” (Though it probably goes without saying: NSFW.)
Special word-lover’s bonus:
* Ava Gardner, Ava: My Story
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As we flirt with forswearing swearing, we might recall that it was on this date in 1644, at the height of the English Civil War, that Milton’s Areopagitica (or Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England) was published. An impassioned philosophical attack on censorship and defense of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression, it is regarded as one of the most eloquent arguments for press freedom ever written; indeed, many of its principles form the basis for modern justifications of that right.
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries”*…
The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)
Jonathan Basile, a Brooklyn author and Borgesian Man of the Book, taught himself programming so that he could recreate Borges’ Universal Library [the Library of Babel, which “contained all books”] as a website. The results are confounding. A true site-as-labyrinth, Basile’s creation is an attempt to write and publish every story conceivable (and inconceivable) to man. In the process, Basile encountered new philosophical conundrums, French rappers, and unheard-of porno search strings. The possibilities, after all, are endless…
Browse the Universal Library here; read more of Basile’s prodigious project here.
* Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” [“La Biblioteca de Babel”]
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As we renew our Library cards, we might recall that it was on this date in 1667 that John Milton sold the rights to Paradise Lost to printer/publisher Samuel Simmons for £10. Milton, who’s worked for Cromwell, was on the outs in those early days of the Restoration. (Indeed, Simmons kept his name off the title page [below], naming only his sellers.)
That original edition was structured into 10 sections (“books”). Milton revised his work and reordered it into 12 books, the form we know today; it was published in the year of his death, 1674. While his motive may well have been, as some critics have suggested, to emulate the structure of Virgil’s Aeneid, a second payday probably also figured in.
Loving Godzilla, 17 syllables at a time…
From SamuraiFrog, an arresting (and very amusing) collection of Godzilla Haiku.
“Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy, they are not evil by choice; that is their tragedy”
– Ishiro Honda (Kurosawa friend, Toho director, and creator of Godzilla)
Honda on the set of the original Godzilla
As we rethink our attraction to urban centers, we might compose a birthday rhyme for Torquato Tasso, the 16th Century Italian poet; he was born on this date in 1544. Though Tasso was a giant in his own time– he died in 1595, a few days before the Pope was to crown him “King of the Poets”– he had fallen out the core of the Western Canon by the end of the 19th century. Still, he resonates in the poems (Spencer, Milton, Byron), plays (Goethe), madrigals (Monteverdi), operas (Lully, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn, Rossini, Dvorak) , and art work (Tintoretto, the Carracci, Guercino, Pietro da Cortona, Domenichino, Van Dyck, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Delacroix) that his life and work inspired.
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