On conspiracy

[Glenn Scheper]

http://www.upress.pitt.edu/htmlSourceFiles/pdfs/9780822943396exr.pdf
BROTHERHOOD OF THE ILLUMINATI:
MILTON, GALILEO, AND THE
POETICS OF CONSPIRACY
Michael Lieb

Both author and reader are
complicit in the construction of Milton as the site of relationships that are
themselves ‘‘conspiratorial,’’ not simply in the sense in which the term ‘‘conspiracy’’
is customarily understood—as that which implies sedition, secrecy,
and crisis—but also in the sense in which the term was likewise used during
Milton’s era—as that which implies the possibility of a productive union or
even the idea of working in harmony.Ω Both senses are already present in the
root conspirare, which denotes the act of ‘‘breathing together,’’ uniting in a
common enterprise.∞≠ Although Milton was inclined to draw upon the darker,
more threatening implications of the term throughout his works, the more
positive implications appear to obtain as part of the interpretive dynamics
through which his relationship with Galileo may be said to arise. What I call a
poetics of conspiracy is present both in Milton’s own direct and oblique
references to Galileo during the poet’s lifetime and in the fictions that represent
a crucial dimension of the afterlife through which Milton’s relationship
with the astronomer is construed.

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
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