More Sightings of Milksops in the Wild
Or, Strolling into a Literary Minefield
In an earlier ODD post, I shared how over the centuries a number of authors—Stephen King, E. Nesbit, Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Spurgeon—have used the title word of my debut novel in their own writing. Since then, there have been more sightings of “milksop” in the wilds of writing, thanks to you, dear readers.
With these new sightings, I’m tempted to write a lengthy treatise on the meaning and critical importance of milksopiness in literature throughout history. After all, in a former life I was an English professor. If not such a study, then I might at least put together a lecture analyzing “The Relevance, Resonance, and Reach of ‘Milksop’ in Writing.” (Scholars like a lot of alliteration in their titles.)
But no. I’ve left that life behind. I’m now a novelist and must behave accordingly. (I’m still figuring out what “accordingly” might mean for a writer of fiction.) No, the only lecturing I do now is at my adult children and their partners—and occasionally my mother-in-law.
Instead, I’ll share below some more sightings shared with me, sightings suggesting that I’ve written a novel that places me in the middle of a minefield.
Milksops vs. Knights in Shining Armour
Apparently, there’s a centuries-old antithesis between milksops and knights. My former student, Abby Ciona, found a “milksop” in Jonathan Auxier’s middle-grade novel Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes.
In this passage, the knight Sir Tode, who happens to be a hybrid horse-cat, says to the title character Peter:
“I’d rather die than live a milksop!”
A bit drastic, don’t you think? Overly dramatic, even. But knights apparently have been this way for centuries, except the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who were models of milksopiness. (“Run away! Run away!”) Who knew that in writing Milksop I would tap into this ancient feud at the heart of the Medieval worldview.
The Dangers of Raising Milksop Males
In my earlier post, I shared that the nineteenth century was apparently a great one for “milksop,” based on how often it was used. My former colleague and soon-to-be fellow retiree Karen Dieleman, an expert in nineteenth-century British women’s writing, shared with me some milksop references she located in the writings of the Brontë sisters. What’s striking is their use in relation to the raising of male children. “Milksop” was apparently at the centre of a gender-specific debate about childrearing.
The passage below is from chapter 3 of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. In it, a moral debate rages between the characters over whether giving a young male some wine is wise or foolish.
Rose, now, at a hint from my mother, produced a decanter of wine, with accompaniments of glasses and cake, from the cupboard and the oak sideboard, and the refreshment was duly presented to the guests. They both partook of the cake, but obstinately refused the wine, in spite of their hostess’s hospitable attempts to force it upon them. Arthur, especially shrank from the ruby nectar as if in terror and disgust, and was ready to cry when urged to take it.
“Never mind, Arthur,” said his mamma; “Mrs. Markham thinks it will do you good, as you were tired with your walk; but she will not oblige you to take it!—I daresay you will do very well without. He detests the very sight of wine,” she added, “and the smell of it almost makes him sick. I have been accustomed to make him swallow a little wine or weak spirits-and-water, by way of medicine, when he was sick, and, in fact, I have done what I could to make him hate them.”
Everybody laughed, except the young widow and her son.
“Well, Mrs. Graham,” said my mother, wiping the tears of merriment from her bright blue eyes—“well, you surprise me! I really gave you credit for having more sense.—The poor child will be the veriest milksop that ever was sopped! Only think what a man you will make of him, if you persist in—”
“I think it a very excellent plan,” interrupted Mrs. Graham, with imperturbable gravity. “By that means I hope to save him from one degrading vice at least. I wish I could render the incentives to every other equally innoxious in his case.”
“But by such means,” said I, “you will never render him virtuous.—What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist?—Is he a strong man that overcomes great obstacles and performs surprising achievements, though by dint of great muscular exertion, and at the risk of some subsequent fatigue, or he that sits in his chair all day, with nothing to do more laborious than stirring the fire, and carrying his food to his mouth? If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them—not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.”
“I will lead him by the hand, Mr. Markham, till he has strength to go alone; and I will clear as many stones from his path as I can, and teach him to avoid the rest—or walk firmly over them, as you say;—for when I have done my utmost, in the way of clearance, there will still be plenty left to exercise all the agility, steadiness, and circumspection he will ever have.—It is all very well to talk about noble resistance, and trials of virtue; but for fifty—or five hundred men that have yielded to temptation, show me one that has had virtue to resist. And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand?—and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his—like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it?”
“You are very complimentary to us all,” I observed.
Wow! I never realized that at the heart of the whole Prohibition movement was the attempt to turn men into cowardly milksops. Now I understand why I enjoy drinking so much: it’s made a man of me. Not just any man, but a virtuous man, bravely navigating stones in my path, along with dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
In the closing chapter of Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor, there are no fewer than three repetitions of “milksop.” Amazing! Charlotte ends her novel with a veritable battle over milksopiness. All done very politely, of course. It is, after all, a Victorian novel.
Of course, a novel about a professor would have to be milksoppy in nature, given the nature of professors. After all, they spend their life cloistered in an ivory tower.
The chapter is much too long to include below, but I invite you to check it out, available on Project Gutenberg.
The closing focuses on Victor, the son of the narrator and his wife Frances. There’s the neighbour Hunsden, who wants to make a man out of Victor, disputing with his mother:
Hunsden is expected—nay, I hear he is come—there is his voice, laying down the law on some point with authority; that of Frances replies; she opposes him of course. They are disputing about Victor, of whom Hunsden affirms that his mother is making a milksop. Mrs. Crimsworth retaliates:—
“Better a thousand times he should be a milksop than what he, Hunsden, calls ‘a fine lad;’ and moreover she says that if Hunsden were to become a fixture in the neighbourhood, and were not a mere comet, coming and going, no one knows how, when, where, or why, she should be quite uneasy till she had got Victor away to a school at least a hundred miles off; for that with his mutinous maxims and unpractical dogmas, he would ruin a score of children.”
Milksop vs. fine lad: what a battle!
Then at the heart of the chapter is a dramatic episode in which the narrator must shoot Yorke, Victor’s dog, which was bitten by a rabid dog, a deed the narrator says was a “stern necessity.” The event leads to a debate about the boy’s character, the battle going on within him, and how that might turn out. It ends with the narrator concluding, in typical nineteenth-century British fashion, that Victor must soon be sent away to school:
Victor learns fast. He must soon go to Eton, where, I suspect, his first year or two will be utter wretchedness: to leave me, his mother, and his home, will give his heart an agonized wrench; then, the fagging will not suit him—but emulation, thirst after knowledge, the glory of success, will stir and reward him in time. Meantime, I feel in myself a strong repugnance to fix the hour which will uproot my sole olive branch, and transplant it far from me; and, when I speak to Frances on the subject, I am heard with a kind of patient pain, as though I alluded to some fearful operation, at which her nature shudders, but from which her fortitude will not permit her to recoil. The step must, however, be taken, and it shall be; for, though Frances will not make a milksop of her son, she will accustom him to a style of treatment, a forbearance, a congenial tenderness, he will meet with from none else. She sees, as I also see, a something in Victor’s temper—a kind of electrical ardour and power—which emits, now and then, ominous sparks; Hunsden calls it his spirit, and says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven of the offending Adam, and consider that it should be, if not whipped out of him, at least soundly disciplined; and that he will be cheap of any amount of either bodily or mental suffering which will ground him radically in the art of self-control. Frances gives this something in her son’s marked character no name; but when it appears in the grinding of his teeth, in the glittering of his eye, in the fierce revolt of feeling against disappointment, mischance, sudden sorrow, or supposed injustice, she folds him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her alone in the wood; then she reasons with him like any philosopher, and to reason Victor is ever accessible; then she looks at him with eyes of love, and by love Victor can be infallibly subjugated; but will reason or love be the weapons with which in future the world will meet his violence? Oh, no! for that flash in his black eye—for that cloud on his bony brow—for that compression of his statuesque lips, the lad will some day get blows instead of blandishments—kicks instead of kisses; then for the fit of mute fury which will sicken his body and madden his soul; then for the ordeal of merited and salutary suffering, out of which he will come (I trust) a wiser and a better man.
Little did I know that in writing Milksop I would be wading into centuries-old debates about how to raise children, especially male children. Given that verse, “spare the rod, spoil the child”—a debate of biblical proportions! Given the current angst about masculinity, including its toxic manifestation in so many areas of life, what a minefield!
Yes, my little novel has entered a minefield. Above that minefield a storm is brewing, one the literary world and the global order have never seen, worse than the combined havoc created by those two viruses, COVID and Donald Trump. The name of this rapidly forming hurricane shall be Milksop, for while Anne Brontë used “milksop” just once and her sister Charlotte dared use it three times, in my novel I’ve foolishly used this charged term more than 60 times.
That’s right. On May 23, I’ll release almost 70 “milksops” into the wilds of writing. The world isn’t ready, and it’s all my foolish fault. My humblest, milksopiest apologies.
