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

[Lorayne C. Mundy]

I believe I have found in my classes that there is another portion of the 
population to be accounted for...the students who had never had the 
opportunity in the lower realms of education to even consider Milton in the 
scheme of their "required education".  When they are introduced to him in 
college and find the "classics" not at all dull/scarey/esoteric, and their 
eyes are opened to the beauty, we have then added a lovely dimension to 
their lives that would otherwise have been missed.  They needn't go on to 
"major" in this field, but this new awareness must certainly make a 
difference in their lives and this is what makes my job exciting and worthy. 
They are not great in numbers, admittedly, but who was it that said 'a 
journey begins with one step'?  When a technical (math/science/etc) student 
tells me, "Thanks for introducing Milton/Chaucer/Sophocles to me...it opened 
my eyes to a whole new realm of reading...", it makes my day.  So I thank my 
professor who introduced me to Milton every day of my life, and I intend to 
pay it forward.

Lorayne Mundy


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 7:47 AM
Subject: [Milton-L] "Making Milton Matter"???? was Smokey Mountain...


>
>
> 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
>
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