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MIKLÓS PÉTI
giving dictation. Notwithstanding this scarcity of reference in Miltons career,
dictation and written composition were inseparable even beyond the school
bench. Appointed in March 1649 to be Secretary for Foreign Tongues, he ob¬
viously had to take dictation from his superiors, and, after he became blind in
1652 he himself was to employ amanuenses to dictate to. Further, he famously
dictated Paradise Lost (as well as all of his later works), which prompted Richard
Bentley (1662-1742) to “attempt a Restoration of the Genuine Milton," and
initiated a cult of its own in the work of generations of painters from George
Romney (1732-1802) to Mihäly Munkäcsy (1844-1900). Finally, in Milton’s
case we should not forget about the cognate expression "dictator," and the
author’s ambivalent positions on dictatorship, whether they be related to King
Charles, Cromwell, God’s monarchy in heaven, or conversely Satan, whom Mil¬
ton actually names the “Great Dictator” in Paradise Regained (PR 1.113).
There is, thus, a variety of general contexts involving education, authorship,
diplomacy, and the legitimate or illegitimate use or abuse of power to interpret
the concept of dictation—and Milton, characteristically, has an intellectual
stake in all of these. But his choice of word to describe the process of inspiration
is also significant in the context of early modern English literature. Researching
the Chadwyck-Healey Literature Online database (LION) for the verb “dictate”
and its cognate terms (“dictate” as a noun, and “dictator”) within the period
between 1471 and 1700, we might find some interesting interpretations and
connotations of the word-family. In accordance with the transparent status of
dictation as an educational method, very few texts actually refer to pedagogical
situations; the most explicit example being probably in Samuel Colvil’s Whiggs
Supplication: or The Scotch Hudibras (1681):
Sundry Philosophick Asses,
By Dictating, Teaching Classes
Not taking an account again
Making Boys spend their time in vain. (735-738)"
Far more common, but—given the import of epistolography in early modern
culture—perhaps less surprising, is the reference to dictating letters, especially
in dramatic texts (in spite of this, the word, quite incredibly, does not appear
13 BENTLEY, Richard (ed.), Milton’s Paradise Lost. A New Edition, London, 1732, a”
For an overview cf. KovAcs, Anna Zséfia, Milton Dictating to His Daughters. Varieties on a
Theme from Füssli to Munkäcsy, in G. Ittzes — M. Péti (eds.), Milton Through the Centuries,
Budapest, L'Harmattan, 2012, 322-337.
5° Allthe quotations below are taken from LION.
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