Title: Seminar: Milton

PRQ:

This seminar will lead to very close attention to Paradise Lost, with discussions focusing on what the text reveals through its language, imagery, references, and allusions. Conversations may generate theories of reading and of language as well as theories of Milton’s “meaning.” The seminar will be discussion directed. Each student should have a reasonable background in Milton’s works (poetry and prose) so that these may be incorporated when/if possible. Primary attention will be given to this PL as it unfolds from beginning to end.

Our time together is for discussing, questioning, attempting to solve problems our reading raises, and for learning from/with one another as we explore together these materials and share our research.

(a) Each participant will be responsible for weekly in-depth explorations of PL and detailed discussions resulting from those investigations. It is expected that everyone will participate by sharing their own weekly findings as the narrative evolves. (b) Additionally, each participant will provide a short oral report (with appropriate handouts) on selected readings representing schools of criticism as applied to reading PL. (c) Each participant also will prepare a 15-20 page paper on a topic relevant to the seminar and presented, in summation form, to the seminar.

Course assessment will be on the basis of seminar contributions and the quality of the seminar paper.

Merritt Hughes, ed. John Milton. Complete Poems & Major Prose. (Available at NIU Bookstore, through Amazon.com, or from numerous other sources).

Other texts will be on library reserve or available online.