[Milton-L] "Making Milton Matter"???? was Smokey Mountain...

[Carrol Cox]

Salwa Khoddam wrote:
> 
> [CLIPI] I teach Milton and I find it
> difficult to persuade my students that Milton matters, despite my evident
> passion for this great writer. A few suggestions would help me a great deal.

I don't understand this concern to "make" Milton matter -- in fact it
seems hardly coherent to me.

In the first place, this is merely a special case of "Making Literature
Matter," and as Northrop Frye remarked a half-century ago, defenses of
poetry are seldom persuasive to anyone who isn't already inside the
ramparts. Those persuaded don't need to be because they already are, and
those who need to be persuaded will not be because the premises won't be
intelligible to them.

A certain proportion of the population will like to read.

A certain proportion of that sub-population will discover that they like
to read Milton.

He will matter to them, in the f uture as in the past. What point is
there in trying to MAKE him matter?

Carrol