Today John Milton would be 401 years old. He was born in a house in Breadstreet in London to John Milton a scrivener by profession and considered to be an "honest, worthy and substantial citizen..." and "cast out by his father, a bigoted Roman Catholic, for embracing, when young, the protestant faith, and abjuring the popish tenets." (from the Life of John Milton by his nephew Edward Phillips who became his pupil).
He started St. Paul's school when very young and according to his brother "he studied very hard , and sat up very late; commonly till 12 or one o'clock at night, and his father ordered the maid to sit up for him, and in those years (10) composed many copies of verses, which might well become a riper age. And a very hard student in the university (Christ's College, Cambridge) and performed all his exercises there with good applause." (from John Aubrey, F.R.S.)
With this brief intro to the early life of a great blind poet, theologian, writer of prose, drama and and civil servant/statesman, I wish this year to pay tribute to a formidable Miltonist, Gadfly Teacher and mentor at Columbia Graduate Faculties, Professor Ted Tayler, who guided me through my two year stint with Milton and 17th Century Metaphysical Poetry and Verse, while I pursured my Master's Thesis on Milton's dramatic poem, Samson Agonistes.
Ted Tayler was born in Berlin in the early 30's; his father was in the business of setting up wallboard factories in Europe and was later pressured to take his family to the US due to harassment by Nazi brownshirts. Tayler grew up in Westfield, New Jersey where he was an average student; the last 2 years of High School, he attended the Gunnery, a prep. school in Connecticut. His grades improved and he was accepted at Amherst. He then went on to Stanford, to earn his PHD in English and Humanities. He came to Columbia in 1960 and retired 39 years later earning the distinction of Lionel Trilling Professor of the Humanities Emeritus. He is a five foot four inch, blond hair, blue eyed, tweed jacketed Marlin Brandoesque charismatic figure with the military aura of a tough cane bearing Lieutenant Commander Queeg played to the hilt by the inimitable Humphrey Bogart. In his year long Milton Course, he organized the literary canon from early works, such as Christ's Nativity, Lycidas, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, Comus to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained into a vast year-long argument that developed themes that were progressively experienced and developed by Milton: the clash between academic University Life and the practical mercenary City Life, the natural, simple pastoral genre versus the political, religious prosaic turmoil that culminated in the regicide, the traditional Catholic dogma versus the Protestant and Episcopal winds of change, the moral ethical life versus the evil corrupted satanic ways.
The highlight of the course was when, Prof. Tayler would turn away from his copious notes and begin the dialectic by calling on individual students to interpret specific texts: suddenly we his students were in the spotlight, we were asked to make Milton come alive in the context of our lives. We were forced to find the meaning-as if Tayler himself and only Tayler knew the one correct answer- when we knew there were only approximations. How exciting...I knew I would be called on and I hoped I would be able to find the truth through a give and take dialog with Tayler through my mere prosaic literary discourse... And it would help if I could make an allusion to Wallace Stevens who I knew was his favorite modern poet (The Idea of Order at Key West was his and my favorite poem).
Prof. Tayler taught me a method of investigation, of searching for my truth, of asserting with a positive forceful voice my discovery of truth, my own discovery of order out of seeming chaos. He made Milton come alive for me and made Milton relevant to the themes of modern life and verse. He inspired me to tackle Milton's grand imaginative poetic style for my Master's thesis in a self-enlightening essay: The Psycho-Sexual Tragedy of Milton's Samson.
Check out my blog on remembering another Ted, another Professor Emeritus at Columbia University: A Colloquium in honor of Ted Reff
Thank you Professor Tayler.
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