Milton and Music

Milton and Music is the first study to juxtapose John Milton's poetry on music with later musical adaptations of his work, showing that writing about music galvanized Milton's intellectual development towards animist materialism and that music can be realized in actual musical sound.

Format: Hardback
Length: 140 pages
Publication date: 03 April 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Milton and Music is a groundbreaking study that explores the profound interplay between John Milton's poetry and subsequent musical adaptations of his work. In Part I: Milton on Music, Seth Herbst delves into the transformative effect of writing about music on Milton's intellectual journey. Through his analysis, Herbst demonstrates how Milton's engagement with music led him to embrace animist materialism, a belief that everything in the universe, including the human soul, is composed of matter. This transformative perspective grants Milton a visionary status, as he conceives music not as an ethereal art form but as a tangible phenomenon that exists simultaneously as sound and metaphor.

In Part II: Milton in Music, the study takes a captivating turn as it follows two daring composers who embark on a quest to realize Milton's visionary concept of music in actual musical sound. The first composer examined is George Frideric Handel, renowned for his oratorio adaptation of Milton's Samson Agonistes. Handel's work in Samson presents a fascinating contrast to Milton's music theory, as he resists the notion that music can seamlessly function as both sound and metaphor. Instead, Handel suggests that music struggles to fulfill these dual roles, highlighting the complexities and challenges inherent in such a pursuit.

The second composer explored in Part II is the twentieth-century Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Penderecki's opera adaptation of Paradise Lost, titled Paradise Lost, presents a radical departure from traditional musical conventions. Through his composition, Penderecki creates a soundworld of fractured dissonance, where music serves as both aural delight and a profound metaphorical expression. Penderecki's innovative approach challenges the boundaries of traditional music theory and showcases the immense potential of music to convey complex ideas and emotions.

By reclaiming Milton's own high estimation of music from a critical tradition that has often subordinated it to his political and religious convictions, Seth Herbst unveils Milton as an interdisciplinary thinker and an overlooked figure in the study of words and music. Milton and Music not only revises our understanding of Milton's intellectual revolutionaryism but also expands our horizons by highlighting the profound connections between literature and music.

Weight: 294g
Dimension: 222 x 143 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032457215