Lectures on and discussion of Milton's major works.

"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary. . . . [T]hat which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. " - Milton, _Areopagitica_ (1644) Probably the most influential and famous (and, to some of his contemporaries, infamous) literary figure of the seventeenth century, John Milton has often been misrepresented as a mainstay of a traditional canon rather than as the rebel he was. Those who do not know his work frequently assume that he was a remote or traditional religious poet, although in fact he was an independent and unconventional thinker, who distrusted any passively held faith and was relentlessly self-questioning. He hated, as he wrote in the remarkable text criticizing censorship (quoted above), a “fugitive virtue . . . that never sallies forth” to face what is “contrary” or different. As we follow Milton’s carefully self-shaped career from the shorter early poems, through some of the controversial prose of the English Civil War era, and into the astounding work that emerged in the wake of political defeat (_Paradise Lost_, _Paradise Regained_, _Samson Agonistes_), we will discover a writer known in his time as a statesman as well as a poet, and in both pursuits considered more an iconoclast than an icon. We will discuss Milton’s writing in relation to the political and scientific revolutions that he witnessed and in which he took part, and we will also think about his experiments in poetic form, his ambivalent incorporations, revisions, and expansions of classical literature and biblical texts alike, the literary dimension of his often-unorthodox theology, his writings on love, marriage, and divorce, his life-long preoccupation with vocation – and more. In this course, you will improve your analytic skills and capacity for developing more subtle arguments. You will also have a better sense of each of the following: the formal aspects of the text (rhythm and verse, diction, simile, chiasmus, enjambment, etc.) and why they really do matter; different poetic genres and the choices they imply; and a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between history and literature during this remarkable era. When we are done, you will know just about all of the works of an entire, prolific career that powerfully influenced future centuries of poets. Lastly, through Milton, you will learn about the watershed seventeenth century— the beginning of modernity and the world we live in now. Regular attendance in person is a requirement. So is having a textbook and bringing it to class (don’t worry – I will work with you on accessibility and affordability issues). Online used book sellers will have much more affordable copies than the bookstore of our single (large) text: John Milton, _The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose_, ed. William Kerrigan et al. If ordering online, confirm the ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0679642534 (ISBN-10: 0679642536).

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills