[Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

[HANNIBAL HAMLIN]

At the risk of encouraging members of the list to once again draw their long knives, I'd argue against referring to Milton as "that old white Puritan guy who wrote that boring poem."  I won't enter the perilous labyrinth of old white Puritan maleness, but I do think PL -- the poem -- far and away the most exciting, magnificent thing Milton ever wrote, and I suspect he might agree with me.  Surely we don't need to apologize for one of the greatest human literary achievements (sounds overblown, but I don't really think I'm going out on a limb) by saying that its author also wrote polemical prose tracts about the hot political topics of his day?  I realize that many in the world might need to be convinced or converted, but why not focus our efforts on showing just how earth-shattering, life-changing, intellectually stimulating, moving, etc. a poem can be?

Hannibal


Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
The Ohio State University
Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation

Mailing Address (2007-2009):

The Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol Street SE
Washington, DC 20003

Permanent Address:

Department of English
The Ohio State University
421 Denney Hall, 164 W. 17th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1340

----- Original Message -----
From: Carol Barton <cbartonphd1 at verizon.net>
Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2008 11:53 am
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

> I agree with Professor Herman's aversion to teaching bits and 
> snatches of 
> PL, with one specific exception: as I just told Professor Durocher 
> privately, the fact that I recently had to explain to the 
> Corporation of 
> London (which has jurisdiction over the City proper) why Milton 
> deserved the 
> title "statesman" leads me to think that one might, in a survey 
> course, 
> profitably use thematic excerpts from Books I and IX of PL (to 
> explore 
> theories of liberty, tyranny, servitude, and government by consent 
> of the 
> governed) coupled with excerpts from RCG, TKM, Eikonoklastes, the 
> Defences, 
> and even DDD to demonstrate that Milton wasn't just "that old 
> white Puritan 
> guy who wrote that boring poem." Such an approach would at least 
> present a 
> fairer picture of Milton than is traditionally painted (especially 
> in those 
> who may never encounter him again), and it might inspire curiosity 
> even in 
> those budding majors who were prepared to dismiss him from their 
> thoughts 
> the moment the class ends. (It might even teach them that the 
> separation of 
> church and state had and has nothing whatsoever to do with keeping 
> the Ten 
> Commandments or the Bible out of the courtroom.)
> 
> In an era in which the will of the many has been summarily ignored 
> in favor 
> of the will of the few, even a country that considers itself the 
> world's 
> foremost bastion of democracy, much of what Milton had to say 
> about 
> government by fiat is painfully pertinent.
> 
> Best to all,
> 
> Carol Barton
> 
> 
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