G. K. Chesterton's "Stilton and Milton"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem, whose full title is “Stilton and Milton; Or Literature in the 17th and 20th Centuries,” has something for book lovers and cheese lovers alike to dig in to. Chesterton once wrote that “poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese,” and he then set about rectifying that state of affairs through poems like these. Happy reading.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, January 24th, 2025.
0:14.7	And seeing as it's the end of the week, it seemed like a good day for some light verse upon a heavy subject.
0:24.0	And so I give you today's poem from G.K. Chesterton, Stilton and Milton, or literature in
0:30.5	the 17th and 20th centuries.
0:33.9	Vocationally, I am a classical school teacher with an emphasis on literature, which means I do a lot of thinking about John Milton, but if you know me, you might also know that I do a lot of thinking about food too and cheese maybe in particular. So this poem is wonderful for combining both of those
1:00.8	loves. G. K. Chesterton in an oft-quoted essay entitled simply cheese once said,
1:09.9	poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
1:15.1	And he then goes about rectifying that as often as he can. And this poem is a great example of that.
1:25.5	In fact, doubly so, because it's not only a poem about cheese, but a poem
1:31.2	about cheese and poets. He also claims in that essay that he's working on a five-volume work
1:38.3	entitled The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature. I don't think he actually ever began such a work,
1:46.0	but I hope that you, like me, are saddened by that fact. This poem about John Milton,
1:54.8	author of Paradise Lost in particular, and Stilton, which is one of the great, unique and protected British cheeses.
2:05.4	That's this white cow's milk cheese that actually is produced in two varieties.
2:12.6	There is blue Stilton, which has penicillin added to it, particularly penicillium Roque 40,
2:21.3	and then there is white stilton, which does not.
2:24.7	And so many people think of, when they think of stilton, they think of blue stilton,
2:29.6	which has the characteristic blue veins.
2:32.8	It's a blue cheese.
2:37.6	White stilton, though produced in exactly the same way,
2:43.7	minus the penicillin, is this sort of nutty, crumbly cheese. It's a little bit more like a British Wensleydale. So even if you're not a fan of blue cheese, there's a Stilton out there for you.
2:52.6	Stilton also, it's very much like Parmigiano Reggiano or Champagne even.
	...

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