SOURCE: "What It's Like to Read 'L'Allegro' and Ί1 Penseroso,'" Milton Studies, Vol. VII, 1975, pp. 77-98.

In the following essay, Fish offers a performative reading of "L'AUegro" and "Il Penseroso."

I have only one point to make and everything else follows from it: "L'Allegro" is easier to read than "Il Penseroso." This I assume is hardly news, but if one were a subscriber to the Times Literary Supplement in 1934, the matter might seem to be shrouded in considerable doubt, for on October 18 of that year J. P. Curgenven initiated a remarkable correspondence by asking and answering the question, "Who comes to the window in "L'Allegro," line 46?" Curgenven is disturbed by those who construe "come" as dependent on "hear," which thus, he says, "gives the crude rendering: 'to hear the lark … to come, in spite of sorrow, and at my window bid good morrow!'" "Surely," he exclaims, "'come'...