[Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

[HANNIBAL HAMLIN]

My apologies, Carol.  All that you say makes sense, and I'm grateful for the clarification.  However, along with your suggestion of engaging students with some of the most interesting themes and ideas in Milton, I'd still urge that we also think about introducing PL as a poem.  Certainly, you're right that one can't do justice to Milton's verse in a survey, especially if (as has been my typical experience) most students arrive entirely ignorant of the most basic understanding of prosody -- I think I've taught "Meter in a Nutshell" in almost every course I've taught!  Still, it's also been my experience that many students find prosody rather exciting, once they have some sense of how it works.  Or rather, what they find exciting is the brilliant marriage of sound and sense, in Milton's line-breaks and enjambments, for instance, or his multilingual puns, or his dizzying classical and biblical allusions.  If nothing else, including some examples of this will convey to students w
hy it was that Milton chose to write PL as a poem and not as another prose tract.

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:

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----- Original Message -----
From: Carol Barton <cbartonphd1 at verizon.net>
Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2008 12:46 pm
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

> I think you misunderstood my point, Hannibal:
> 
> (1) There is no way you can cover sufficient background, acclimate 
> students 
> to Miltonic blank verse, or even give the most cursory reading of 
> _Paradise 
> Lost_ in full in a survey course that will lead to anything like a 
> full 
> appreciation of the poet and the poem.
> 
> (2) Even the two books I suggested require a good deal of 
> preparation of the 
> kind identified above.
> 
> (3) It might be better, in a sophomore survey, to give students a 
> broad 
> sample of Miltonic writing and thought by excerpt (organised 
> thematically) 
> in a form and format in which they can fully assimilate it, and 
> thus to whet 
> their appetites for more, than to try to cram as much PL into 
> their reading 
> list as possible, and succeed only in reinforcing what seems to be 
> the 
> non-specialist impression of him.
> 
> In no way--ever--would I advocate an impression of Milton as (1) a 
> Puritan--especially but not only when the term is used 
> pejoratively; as (2) 
> an old white guy--whose work is irrelevant to the modern world; as 
> (3) the 
> author of a long boring poem--ANY long boring poetry. I certainly 
> haven't 
> cultivated that negative imagery at any time in my life--but I 
> have often 
> been told by others (when they learn what my research interests 
> are) how 
> much they "hated" Milton, and how surprising it is for them to 
> hear from me 
> that studying his work could be a lifelong passion. Some have even 
> been 
> inspired to go back and give him a second (fairer) chance.
> 
> All I'm suggesting is that, if we have to parcel Milton out 
> piecemeal, we do 
> it in such a way that we spark an interest, rather than confirm 
> (bad) 
> popular mythology.
> 
> Best to all,
> 
> Carol Barton
> 
> 
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