[Milton-L] Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom

[Jameela Lares]

Cynthia,

You've provided a useful list that I might include on future Milton syllabi
under the rubric, "Areas where Milton's poetry may be new and challenging for
modern students."

Thanks!

Jameela

Quoting gilliaca at jmu.edu:

> 
> .  
> >They can be useful in the classroom to define a crux to be 
> >examined--one has to start somewhere.
> 
> Precisely. I expect I am getting curmudgeonly as I approach 
> retirement, but I feel like the place from which one starts 
> in teaching Milton to undergraduates gets more remote every 
> time. I teach the course alterating with a colleague, so it's 
> every 2nd or 3rd year. It seems like each successive 
> beginning starts further away from the text, in that 
> students, with some exceptions, bring less and less 
> 
> 1. experience in reading older literature
> 
> 2. experience in reading poetry other than modern self-
> referential lyric
> 
> 3. knowledge of history - US or English
> 
> 4. general knowledge - like why the rooster crowing in 
> L'Allegro fits the theme of fertility and sexuality
> 
> 5. vocabulary
> 
> 6. knowledge of the Bible 
> 
> 7. knowledge of Greek/Roman myths
> 
> They are not unwilling to learn, by any means, but the whole 
> enterprise of reading Milton must feel very very uphill for 
> many who have lots of intelligence to apply to it.
> 
> C
> 
> Cynthia A. Gilliatt
> English Department, JMU
> JMU Safe Zones participant
> "You have made God in your own image when God hates the same people you
> hate." Fr. John Weston
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-- 
Jameela Lares, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of English
The University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive, #5037
Hattiesburg, MS  39406-0001
601 266-6214 ofc
601 266-5757 fax