EN 340.01 Milton (Fall 2008-2009: 3)
Fulfills the pre-1700 requirement.
While virtually all the works that we read in our literature courses were
not written for us to parse in a classroom, Paradise Lost actually
benefits a good deal from coming into our lives through a college course.
This is partly because it is full of learning. It intersects richly and
deeply with both the classical (epic) tradition and the traditions of biblical
literature in which fantasies of creation and of an original woman and man
are a constant reference point. So large and complex is Milton's epic that
when 'English' first became integral to the college curriculum, it was assumed
that the poem would not fit into a course; teachers tended to assign only
a few rhetorically gaudy bits for study and memorization. Over time many
productive ways of approaching the poem have been devised, and students
continue to find it timely to read a story about an original coming-of-age
precisely while they're in college. In universities across the globe the
whole of Paradise Lost is featured at the center of courses which
recognize that, whatever personal background we bring to it, it's a poem
that provokes to think about where we've come from and to decide where we
are headed. In this course, by preparing to read the poem by first reading
the poetry that Milton wrote in preparation for writing it, we'll watch
how the most deliberate and self-conscious of authors, even though he interrupted
his poetic career to take a prominent part in the English revolution and
went blind, managed to create a work of art that posterity has regarded
as the consummate epic in the English language.
Dayton Haskin
Last Updated: 27-MAR-08