Spring 2004 Courses

English 315: Milton (Krier)

TR 10:10-11:40
OM 243

John Miltonıs big narrative poem Paradise Lost, written in the mid-17th century, was one of the greatest influences on poetry for the next 2 1/2 centuries, and continues to command the imaginations of ambitious writers today. Itıs hard to think of a poet who provokes such strong reactions, as each reader finds. Weıll read closely the entire poem, which expands on just a few chapters of biblical narrative: war in heaven, the temptation in the Garden of Eden, the relationship of Adam and Eve through which Milton explores the possibilities and the difficulties of marriage, the complications of the character of God, the exuberance of the biblical account of Creation. Paradise Lost was the work of Miltonıs age, after he had written other poetry--the greatest poetry of the seventeenth century--and had retired from decades of political life during the most turbulent period of Englandıs history, including its own Civil War. So we will occasionally interrupt our reading of Paradise Lost, with a look at some of the earlier poems and bits of Miltonıs huge output of passionate prose on everything from freedom of the press to the freedom to divorce to a countryıs legitimate right to execute its king, when these illuminate something about his revolutionary hopes for humankind, his activism, his struggles with gender issues, his wrestling with an authoritarian God, his poetic craft, the tragic events of his own life, his sense of vocation as a poet. There will be 2 essays and a final exam.

Spring 2004 Course Listings