91抖阴 Berkeley English is delighted to congratulate Professor James Grantham Turner, whose article 鈥淢ilton, Lucretius, and the 鈥榃omb of Nature,鈥欌�� published in聽Milton Studies聽66.1, received the聽聽from the Milton Society of America this past January. The award recognizes 鈥渁 distinguished article on Milton published in a journal or in a multiauthor collection of essays,鈥� and celebrates Turner鈥檚 bold reappraisal of an intellectual relationship at the core of Milton鈥檚 work. Challenging the prevailing view that Milton鈥檚 engagement with Lucretius was marginal or antagonistic, Turner instead demonstrates a deep, sustained, and nuanced dialogue with the Roman poet-materialist across Milton鈥檚 career.聽
We asked Turner a few questions about the article, what his reevaluation of Milton and Lucretius' relationship consists of, and what imagination in literature means for the study of Milton today.
Can you tell us how your article reframes the connection between Lucretius and Milton?
It seems strange that a supposedly Puritan, godly poet should enjoy an 鈥渋ntimate, systematic, and lifelong鈥� relationship with an ancient Roman poet denounced as an 鈥渁theist dog,鈥� a wicked materialist who denied that the gods had the slightest interest in our universe or our species. But that鈥檚 my big discovery. For the most part scholars have filled footnotes with Milton鈥檚 echoes of Lucretius鈥檚聽The Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura), but I鈥檓 the first really to show how deep and wide that influence ran, and to liberate both poets from the restrictive idea of 鈥渁tomism.鈥� They did not see the world growing mechanically from the random collision of hard particles in a frigid void. I prove that Lucretius as well as Milton were 鈥減ansexual vitalists,鈥� meaning that for them everything is alive, that all beings including magnets and planets breathe an influential force and grew like us from fertile seeds in living wombs.
What would you say Milton鈥檚 relationship to imagination and creation is?
If you sat Milton down and interviewed him of course he would say that Almighty God created everything and rules over us, but AS A POET he responded more to this exciting vision of things bursting with vital energy and growing by their own 鈥渟elf-quickening power.鈥� Imagination is what we value most in literature and what we should be studying above all else.
Could you say a bit about the role of 鈥渟eed鈥� as an anchor in the argument of the paper? I was intrigued by how you contrast its appearance in Milton with the presence of imagery of the womb.
Not really a contrast, but a vision of the world as a biological entity, a teeming fertile body. In聽Paradise Lost聽as well as in Lucretius the primal ocean 鈥渇ermented the great Mother to conceive, / Satiate with genial moisture鈥� (genial聽meaning what modern English and Lucretius鈥檚 Latin call聽genital), and then the sun 鈥渟hot down direct his fervid rays to warm / Earth鈥檚 inmost womb.鈥�
What was the most interesting discovery you made while producing the article?聽
I think my most exciting discovery was that both poets conceived even the grimmer aspects of existence 鈥� death, excretion, monstrosity, dregs, slime 鈥� as essential aspects of the life process. Milton gives you the feel and texture of everything even when it鈥檚 disturbing. He doesn鈥檛 merely elevate the 鈥渟piritual鈥� and dismiss the 鈥渓ow鈥� material world; as I put it in the article, this poet鈥檚 鈥渞uling binaries are not body/ soul but vigorous/inert, fine/gross, and spirituous/slimy.鈥�
