Entry #1 (”Il Penseroso”)
“Hail divinest Melancholy, / Whose saintly visage is too bright / To hit the sense of human sight; / And therefore to our weaker view, / O’er laid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue” (Milton 12-16).
These lines encapsulate the troubling conflation of wisdom with depression that characterizes Milton’s “Il Penseroso.” I am particularly struck by the religious symbolism Milton deploys to celebrate Melancholy, which he openly calls “divinest” and “saintly.” Regarding the latter description, I am compelled and disturbed by Milton’s assertion that Melancholy’s “saintly visage is too bright”; this description blatantly glorifies emotional strife by suggesting, perhaps, that to be sad is to be closer to God and knowledge? He even calls humans’ sensory perceptions “weaker” because they cannot see the true holiness of Melancholy. The capitalization of “Melancholy” and “Wisdom” also feels particularly poignant, allowing Milton to make his (questionable) priorities abundantly clear. Furthermore, Milton plays with his characteristic dichotomy of light and dark, and ironically, he attributes both traits to Melancholy. It appears “black” to humans (it sounds like we will push back against the loaded implications of this word later!) but is actually just “too bright” for us mere mortals to appreciate! Thus, happiness is constructed as inferior to Melancholy... As we discussed in class, this romanticization of what we can now interpret as depression is inherently toxic. However, I think these lines, with their invocation of the light/dark binary and Milton’s association of pain with transcendence, exemplify themes that we see playing out in the first books of Paradise Lost.