[Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

Tue Mar 4 12:32:12 EST 2008

I deeply dislike excerpting Paradise Lost as well.  Ii think  
"Lycidas" can work well in the context of other elegies, the "Carey/ 
Morrison Ode," for instance.  However, if the course treats issues of  
political/religious changes in the period, I would definitely include  
Milton's prose, along with some of the selections one finds in  
Leveller Tracts, and perhaps excerpts from Patriarcha, Leviathan, and  
so on.  I don't know how appropriate such texts would be in a general  
survey of the period, but they're a great way to bring Milton into play.

Al Cacicedo

On Mar 4, 2008, at 12:09 PM, HANNIBAL HAMLIN wrote:

> Hmm.  I entirely sympathize with Peter Herman's feelings about  
> excerpting Paradise Lost, in fact I hate excerpting anything  
> (though FQ and Gulliver's Travels and such work because in distinct  
> books/chapters).  At the same time, leaving Milton out entirely  
> seems worse.  Especially with surveys (and I'm not sure if this is  
> true of the one Prof. Durocher has in mind), we need to remember  
> that the students may only take one such course (i.e., one  
> Renaissance, one Brit Lit, or even one lit!).  Don't we want to  
> give them SOME taste of Milton?  And assuming that students take  
> the surveys in some logical fashion within the major (HA!), i.e.,  
> chronologically, before specializing further -- how can they really  
> understand later writers without Milton?  The list of Milton- 
> influenced writers is huge: Cowper, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge,  
> Keats, both Shelleys, Melville, and on and on to Phillip Pullman  
> and Charles Frazier.
>
> This said, I confess in recent Brit Lit surveys I've taught, I  
> reluctantly dropped FQ Bk. 1, because (a) at OSU we have only 10  
> weeks from Beowulf to Swift, and (b) the students almost always  
> (with a few bright exceptions) dislike it.  Milton, on the other  
> hand, they usually enjoy.  That's not to say one should always  
> cater to student tastes, but it is (sadly) a practical consideration.
>
> If you are looking to excerpt PL, I'd recommend (it was recommended  
> to me) the excerpted PL that Barbara Lewalski did for the Norton  
> Anthology a few editions ago (it's now complete).
>
> Hannibal
>
>
>
> Hannibal Hamlin
> Associate Professor of English
> The Ohio State University
> Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation
>
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>
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> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter C. Herman" <herman2 at mail.sdsu.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2008 11:36 am
> Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Renaissance course tips
>
>> Dear Prof. Durocher,
>>
>> In my experience, I've had good success with the Longman anthology
>> of
>> English literature, as it contains nearly all the texts that I
>> want
>> to cover in my early modern survey courses, e.g., , More's Utopia,
>> poetry by Wyatt and Surrey, Book 1 of the FQ, some Shakespeare,
>> Sidney's Apology, excerpts from AS, Dekker and Middleton's The
>> Roaring Girl, John Donne, and much much more. The added advantages
>> to
>> this volume are the notes and introductions by Constance Jordan,
>> which are brand new, and the inclusion of historical materials
>> (since
>> I do a lot of contextualizing in my classes). As for Milton, I
>> have
>> to admit that I leave him out of the survey, since everything in
>> Milton is so connected to everything else, I find excerpting Comus
>> or
>> Lycidas just doesn't work. And I will not, EVER, teach excerpts of
>> PL. Just won't do it. As for newer voices, I tend to include women
>> authors, such Lanyer and Carey.
>>
>> I hope this helps, and I look forward to hearing the other sage
>> suggestions from others on this list,
>>
>> Peter C. herman
>>
>>
>>
>> At 08:12 AM 3/4/2008, you wrote:
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>
>>>    This coming term I will teach a sophomore-level course on
>>> English Renaissance Literature.  I have done so before, and have
>>> taught broader courses (Literatures in English, beginnings to
>> 1650
>>> is our staple course for majors, and it includes colonial
>>> literature and the New World) for 20 years.  So I'm no upstart
>>> here.  But as I approach this course, eager to make it shine, I
>>> wonder if list members have particular suggestions in the
>> following areas:
>>> 1.  Texts (Anthologies; or has anyone had success using a group
>> of
>>> individual author texts?  If so, which?)
>>> 2.  Milton  (Have folks simply left out the big guy, or tried to
>> fit
>>> in some selections?  If so, which?)
>>> 3.  Newer voices (In my course on "Radical Voices" I teach
>> writers
>>> such as Elenore Davies and James Nayler, but these seem less
>>> important in the long haul from, at least, Wyatt to Milton, Bacon
>> to Behn).
>>>
>>>    You can reply to me individually at durocher at stolaf.edu if
>> you
>>> prefer.  Many thanks to all for suggestions.
>>>
>>>    Rich DuRocher
>>>    St. Olaf College
>>>
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>>> http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l
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