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Exercising Milton
Al Shoaf
I have had very good luck with the following, which is based, as you will
know, on a venerable insight in PL studies. For the _first_ assignment in
my upper-division undergraduate seminar on Milton, I give students a
concordance of the word "high" and its various forms in the first three
books of PL and ask them to analyze what happens with and to the word in
these books. Among many benefits to the students, this assignment helps
them see early and clearly that words in PL are quick and changing, never
static, always challenging the reader by the energy of their polysemy and
the paradoxes of their positions.
Though I do not speak from the perspective of an "experienced teacher," I
can say that I do have some experience as a student creating essays in
response to effective Milton writing assignments, ones that I particularly
enjoyed because I thought that they were simple yet sophisticated,
sophisticated in their simplicity, ones that, in my opinion, allow the
reader to enter the enoromous universe of Milton through nice, narrow,
focused, little topics. (They are managable topics for a 1,500-2,000 word
essay.) All of the topics specifically treat _Paradise Lost_.
The following writing assignments were given by Jonathan F. S. Post in his
Milton undergraduate seminar and Paul Douglas Sheets in hiw Wordsworth
undergraduate seminar, both at UCLA.
Post gave a range of seven topics:
1) Take any simile or pair and analyze how it (they) function. This means
tracing down the allusions, working through the imagery and the comparison
in detail, interpreting its effect on the reader, and finally determining
its meaning in a wider thematic or stylistic context supplied by the book
in which it appears or by _Paradise Lost_ as a whole.
2) Solitude and its problems: analyze the different kinds of "aloneness"
in _PL_. You might begin by looking up the several meanings of "alone" in
the _OED_ and then see how different figures in the poem (i.e., God,
Satan, Abdiel, or Adam and Eve) compare to each other in the different
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kinds of solitude they manifest.
3) Imperialism/Colonization: as epic, Milton's poem is frequently said to
participate in Renaissance colonialist discourse, a discourse made
especially acute and resonant with the discovery of the "new" world. How
does Milton's poem make use of these linked ideas? What metaphors of
exploration does he adopt? Who are the imperialists and colonizers? How
are they described? What defines an Imperialist? A Colonizer?
4) Milton might well be the most deeply political poet in English
literature. In what way does an understanding of Milton's politics help
with a reading of _Paradise Lost_? You might begin by gathering
references from the poem to the subject of monarchy, for instance. Do you
find the poem manifests a consistent political attitude?
5) Adam and Eve waking: Compare the different ways Milton represents the
first responses-the births-of our "Grandparents." How is each described?
What does it tell us about their "subjectivity," that is, their sense of
self? Who is the more assured? Why? And how does this difference
manifest itself in the scene and elsewhere in the poem?
6) Milton and the Visual Arts. Many scenes from _PL_ have inspired
artists, of whom William Blake is the most famous. He made a series of
illustrations for many of Milton's poems, including _PL_. Take one or two
of these and compare visual and verbal representations. Many have now
been conveniently collected in Robert N. Essicks recent _William Blake at
the Huntington_ (1994).
7) _Paradise Lost_ is an epic of erotic and spiritual love, with many
kinds of love described: male-female; male-male; angel to angel; man to
God; father to son; God to his Creation; poet and his muse. Which do you
think is the most important to Milton?
Sheets's assignment is to write 500-word essay comparing Eden's moon rise
in _Paradise Lost_ (IV.597-609) to Wordsworth's "A Night-piece" (1798).
His suggestion is to look carefully at how the writer's choice of words,
use of figurative language, and selection and presentation of images
effect the representation of "nature" and its relation to the reader.
(This topic is perhaps designed more to evoke a more Wordsworthian
response than one which gets at issues that are fundamental to comprehending Milton.)
I hope these are useful. I also have, if anyone is interested, a list of
the graduate course readings, and a mixture of other pedagogical devices
that Post had chosen for the Milton graduate seminar. (One such device
was a handout of the last two pages of Edward Snow's introduction to
_Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children's Games_ in which Snow
contextualizes Nietzsche's advocation of "lento," slow reading, as the
prime act of the philologist.)
But if there was one critical reading that Post kept returning to, and has
always continued to return to, in so far as it concerns Milton, it is Dr.
Johnson's account in the _Lives_. Post believes that any student who wants
to begin to learn about Milton ought to read Johnson's "life of
Milton."
I quote Post's syllabus:
Although it may not be apparent from a look at current
criticism generated by the Milton industry, Samuel
Johnson's "life of Milton" remains the single
indispensible introduction to Milton, and I assume
everyone will, at some point, curl up with a copy
and treat themselves to one of the great critical reads of
a lifetime.
Tristan Saldana
Here's an exam question that could also be a paper topic; I got some
interesting and thoughtful responses to it. I didn't get as many fuzzy
overgeneralized answers as you might expect, perhaps because I warned the
students to support their arguments with plenty of close analysis of
specific passages."Truth is beauty, beauty truth," Keats writes. Anachronism aside, how might
Milton respond? In a clear, well-written essay full of specific examples,
discuss the relationship of truth to beauty in Paradise Lost and at least
three of the following four works: A Masque, Areopagitica, the companion
poems, the Nativity Ode.
Gardner Campbell .
Mary Washington College
What an exciting message--it felt like a classified ad! Here are my
topics, and I always start off with two short explications (about one page)
to make sure they are oriented. I hope they are helpful.
Margie
1) Consider the role of the good angels in the poem--Uriel, Gabriel, and
the angelic guard in Eden (Book 3.621-742; 4:115-130, 549-590, 776-1015;
Book 10.18-39.); Raphael (Books 5-8); and Abdiel and the warriors in Heaven
(Abdiel, Book 5:803-Book 6). What does their behavior reveal about
Milton's idea of Christian heroism? Or what kinds of models do the good
angels offer Adam and Eve and the regenerate reader?
If you find this topic too large, you may focus on one group of angels or
one incident.
2) Milton has filled Paradise Lost with parallel passages. Choose a
pair--Satan's encounter with Sin and Death in Book 2 and his encounter with
Zephon, Ithuriel, and Gabriel in Book 4; Eve's account of her birth in Book
4 and Adam's account of his birth in Book 8; Sin's account of Satan's evil
thought in Book 2 and Eve's account of her evil dream in Book 5; the Son's
offer of self-sacrifice in Book 3 and Adam's in Book 9 (these are just a
few examples). What is the relationship between these two passages? How
does the pairing that you have chosen illuminate the central issues of the
poem? How does their sequence help the poem to educate its reader?
You may NOT compare the two Councils or compare Satan's offer of
self-sacrifice in Book 2 with the Son's offer of self-sacrifice in Book 3.
Professor Samuel's essay might serve as a model for approaching this kind
of topic.
3) Paradise Lost tells multiple stories of Creation--in the invocation to
Book 1; in Uriel's speech at the end of Book 3; in Raphael's description in
Book 7; in Adam's account of his birth in Book 8. Why does each character
see something different? What do their differing perspectives contribute
to the poem's sense of what God is like? OR why do the accounts come in
this particular order? How do they build upon each other?
4) Choose a scene that you find particularly complex, problematic, or
compelling. How does Milton use this scene as part of his effort to show that the Fall is not inevitable?
5) Critics often refer to the narrator as a character in Paradise Lost.
Choose one section of the poem--an invocation or a section in which the
narrator comments frequently (any episode involving Satan). Why does he
intrude so much of his personal situation into the poem? How does Milton
use the narrator in this poem?
6) How does Milton use epic similes to amplify the significance of
particular moments in the poem? You may either analyze a section of the
poem where he uses several epic similes in close succession, or you may
select similes that particularly interest you and develop a thesis that
offers a logic for considering them as a group.
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