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

[Campbell, W. Gardner]

It's been great to read so many fervent and eloquent replies to the original poster's question. 
 
My Milton seminar syllabi always listed two goals. The second goal had to do with the class's design as "speaking intensive." The first goal is more relevant here (though it implicitly addresses the second goal as well):
 
"To begin to come to grips with some of the most astonishing verbal art ever created...."
 
Maybe "come to grips" is not much less militant than John H.'s "ramparts," but I chose the metaphor thinking that, like Jacob, my students must wrestle for their Miltonic blessing. When we do our all-night Paradise Lost readathon (as we did last summer), that's literally until daybreak. Also, I want them to think about our responsibility as human beings to be answerable to the nature and scale of this human accomplishment. Surrounded by sense and provoked by beauty, we should attend.  
 
I think that our experience of value in Milton's work emerges from our shared lives, but I don't think that means that we've implanted that value in the work ourselves. (If I did think that, I couldn't bear to teach.) Or as a poet once put it in a different context, we didn't simply bring our own darkness to Robert Frost; it is from Robert Frost that we learn of a certain depth of darkness.
 
Gardner
 
Dr. Gardner Campbell 
Director, Academy for Teaching and Learning 
Assoc. Prof. of Literature and Media, Honors College 
Baylor University 
One Bear Place, Box 97189 
Waco, TX 76798 
254.710.3412 
www.gardnercampbell.net

________________________________

From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu on behalf of John Hale
Sent: Sun 9/21/2008 3:54 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] "Making Milton Matter"???? was Smokey Mountain...



1. The people *inside* the ramparts need encouragement.
2. They include our research students, who have made an unfashionable
choice.
3. These research students are often tutoring, so are in the most direct
contact with the new generation.
4. But "ramparts" is the wrong metaphor.
5. We should write more often for newspapers and the media.  They know
they need people who write with knowledge and passion.

_______________________________________________
Milton-L mailing list
Milton-L at lists.richmond.edu
Manage your list membership and access list archives at http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 6221 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20080922/92b818e0/attachment.bin