[Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

Tue Mar 4 15:11:14 EST 2008

Hello,

I'm using a borrowed computer and time is short, but I'm taking time to read this thread at least.

Something I've noticed with my "Paradise Lost Daily" reading is something I don't recall anyone ever specifically pointing out about Milton: he is a superb storyteller. He is colorful, vivid, and gives a superb sense of space. Perhaps if you'd take students through the first 100 lines of Book I, showing them how to parse the sentences, get acclimated to the meter, having them read aloud, draw the pictures they receive of the characters and situations it would come more real to them. (It is curious that most PL illustrations are line drawings or engravings when the color M depicts is splashy; i'm toying with the idea of starting a contest on PL daily for pictures, but I have to get back online first.) 

All the objections presented in this thread could be brought up with the class to explain why in the survey course we're waterskiing over PL, but still pique their curiosity to learn more and read the whole poem. You could organize a marathon reading, or start a Milton club. In fact, you could use the daily divisions i've put on the PLdaily site or do your own, but the contrast of careful, close reading and a summary or quickly through in a marathon should go far to keeping eyes from glazing over at the very mention of Milton.

And why be so negative? If PL is interesting enough to be the basis of such films as "The Devil's Advocate" and "The Golden Compass" and the forthcoming "Paradise Lost" it can't be a total groaner.

Some courses I'd like to do: 
--Count on your fingers the ten, or five, imaginative books in Western literature (or just English) that have really made a difference in people's and nation's lives. I think you'd have to include PL, Pilgrims Progress, Dante (at least the Inferno), the KJV, Hamlet, and perhaps Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Pride and Prejudice, Black Beauty, and your choice of Dickens. Some might include Lolita, and Catcher in the Rye. 

--I'd call it something like "Answers to the Shepherd" i.e. Marlow's, and look at the various replies such as Raleigh. Donne, some lesser knowns back to classical times and forward to C Day-Lewis, and including L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. This could also be a multimedia performance, sheer eye and ear-candy, but as a course, these contrasts could serve as a fulcrum for examining ideas of balance and excess, longterm planning vs carpe diem, even Marxism vs capitalism.

--Much related would be "Happy the Man who ________". A look at Horace's "Beatus ille" and the various spinoffs ranging from sheer hedonism in allusions from some of the Cavalier poets to piety bordering on sanctimony is various hymns and popular poetry. The idea would be for each student to fill in the blank for himself, after an examination of what people have described, intuited or in any other wise come up with as to what constitutes happiness. I was thinking, I'm sure some Milton could be worked into this; what comes to mind is the Book IV speech in which Satan bemoans his lost happiness; or Books V, VI and IX where A&E's felicity is set out.

Incidentally, I think PL can be excerpted. The "arias" or orations, Milton's editorial asides, and perhaps some of the invocations.

The virtual sand of my virtual winged chariot is hurrying near, so I'll conclude and wish you "good night, and joy be with you all.
--
Nancy Charlton
http://groups.google.com/group/paradiselostdaily/

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: HANNIBAL HAMLIN <hamlin.22 at osu.edu>
> 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:
> 
> 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 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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