No date prefixed directs me in the starry rubric set. – John Milton
John Milton was a Protestant poet and a historian who is best known for his work Paradise Lost which was greatly inspired by his visit to a predominantly Catholic country, Italy. Imagine the culture shock the Milton experienced here!
While he was traveling in Florence, he encountered Galileo’s son who then introduced him to Galileo, the quintessential renaissance man, (astronomer, scientist, mathematician) who was pretty much under house arrest for his charges of heresy against the church. Galileo left an impression on Milton as evident in Milton’s tribute:
“Angel Raphael is granted a clear view through the heavens, “As when by night the glass of Galileo, less assured, observes imagined lands and regions in the moon”
Dr. Joe Moshenka, an academic at Trinity College, Cambridge, mentioned the purpose of Milton’s visit that resonated with me.
“He was not going there because it would be a comfortable, languorous wander through the Italian countryside. He deliberately wants to go somewhere which will be alien and different and ‘other’. Somewhere that will place an interesting pressure on the ideals he’s forming for himself”
Every time I go somewhere new, it seems like there is always a new rubric for approaching problems if any at all, and that’s always an exciting adventure for me.
- In response to Word of the Day: Rubric
- In response to Daily Word Prompt: Quintessential
- Reference: When Milton met Galileo: the collision of cultures that helped shape Paradise Lost
Culture Shocks 