[Milton-L] Renaissance course tips

[Berglund, Lisa]

In the Beowulf-1700 survey I devote three weeks of a thirteen-week class
to Paradise Lost: we read Books 1, 4 and 9 in their entirety, plus the
last section of Book 12. (I also spend nearly three weeks on Chaucer and
two weeks on Shakespeare). I agree that it's unpleasant to excerpt
Milton but I would rather ensure my students have read some PL than not,
as most, even most English majors, may never read Milton again. Lycidas
I think is too sophisticated for non-major sophomores to appreciate,
whereas if you've covered Beowulf and Gawain and Henry 4 Part 1 (as I
do), students can be prepared for Milton's development of and/or
rejection of epic convention, and for his interpretation of what
constitutes a Christian hero (I also teach Oroonoko in this class, which
is a good pendant to PL). Book 9 in particular is extremely accessible
to students and the presentation of Adam and Eve's marriage can build on
a study of Renaissance lyric.

I use the Norton anthology major authors volume, but I ask my students
to try to find the 7th edition rather than 8th because I prefer teaching
Henry 4 to Twelfth Night. I use the Norton because it includes Seamus
Heaney's Beowulf translation. I dislike the modernized PL but as I think
I explained in an earlier post, I spend one class period focusing on the
choices the editor made, and how that affects our experience of Milton.
Otherwise, in a general education survey, I don't worry about not having
the original text. 

For more on this topic, albeit from an 18th century studies perspective,
you might want to read my article: "'Like the Pedant in Hierocles':
Thoughts on the Present and Future of the Eighteenth-Century Studies
Anthology," The Age of Johnson 15 (2004): 331-365.  This is a review of
17 anthologies and a commentary on the status of the anthology in the
age of the Internet.

Lisa Berglund, Ph.D.
Associate Chair, English Department
Buffalo State College, SUNY
Executive Secretary, Dictionary Society of North America
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/
Work: 716-878-4049; Fax: 716-878-5700
berglul at buffalostate.edu