Studies in the English Renaissance
2
Spring 2011
English 331.1
STUDIES IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE:
PARADISE LOST
Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve
William Blake (1808)
TuTh 2:35-3:50 pm, Williams 224
Course Instructor: Dan Breen
Office: Muller 302
Phone: 274-1014
Office Hours: TuTh 11-12; Fri. 3-5
Email:
Course Texts:
The following texts are REQUIRED for this class:
Available at the Ithaca College Bookstore:
--Jason P. Rosenblatt, ed., Milton's Selected Poetry and Prose (W.W. Norton and
Company, 2010), ISBN: 978-0-393-97987-9.
--Gordon Teskey, ed., Paradise Lost, by John Milton (W.W. Norton and Company,
2004), ISBN: 978-0-393-92428-2.
Available at the English and Politics Administrative Office, 309 Muller:
--Course reader
You MUST purchase the course reader for this class. Course readers
are available in 309 Muller at times TBA. 309 Muller is not equipped to handle electronic transactions, and so you must bring either cash or check.
Aims and Goals:
Milton has long been recognized as one of the pre-eminent poets in Western literature. The influence of his most well-known poem, the Biblical epic Paradise Lost, has been wide-ranging in Anglophone cultures since shortly after its initial publication. Eighteenth-century critics praised its formal achievements; Romantic poets of the nineteenth century expressed fascination with the intricate psychologies of the poem’s characters; and twentieth- and early twenty-first-century readers and writers admire Paradise Lost because of the complex thinking in which the poem engages on subjects as diverse as theology, sexuality, and political, social, and intellectual history. Indeed, the poem’s interests are so comprehensive that a prominent school of literary criticism identifies Paradise Lost—and through it Milton himself—as a textual pedagogue, educating us vigorously as we read. We will begin to build familiarity with Milton by reading closely and carefully through a wide selection of his work, with an emphasis on generating a series of intellectual contexts through which to approach Paradise Lost. Ideally, we will gain an understanding of the status of Paradise Lost as a development within Milton’s social, political, theological, and poetic thinking, broadly construed.
Requirements:
Your written work will consist of two major essays (6-8 pages) and two short papers (3-4 pages). You will also have a comprehensive take-home final exam, and will be required to post regularly to the course’s online discussion forum (see below, “Class Participation,” for details). It is important to understand that each of these assignments is required in order to receive credit for the course. The full version of the essay policies will be handed out in class along with the topics for the first essay assignment.
Essay Policy (the basics):
1) Revisions
You may revise either of the major essays for full credit (ie, the grade on your revision will replace the grade on your initial version). The shorter papers are ineligible for revision.
2) Due Dates
Essays are due in class on the date stipulated below in the Class Schedule.
You may request a one-week extension in advance of the essay’s due date; however, essays for which extensions are granted may not be revised.
3) Plagiarism and academic misconduct
Plagiarism is the condition in which someone else’s work appears in your own with
inappropriate documentation. It is a very serious form of academic misconduct. Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to:
--Quoting directly from another source without attribution OR without
using quotation marks
--Paraphrasing from another source with no in-text attribution, even if
you’ve listed the source on your Works Cited page
--Handing in an essay that was written either partially or entirely by
someone else
--Comparing responses to exam questions during the exam itself
Any incident of academic misconduct will result in expulsion from the course and
immediate referral to the Office of Judicial Affairs. For information on the
College policies on academic misconduct and plagiarism, please see the Ithaca College Student Policy Manual, sections 7.1.2.6. and 7.1.4.1. Volume 7 of the Policy Manual is
available online at http://www.ithaca.edu/attorney/policies/vol7/index.htm.
Class Participation:
This is an advanced class, and so most of this should go without saying. The course is designed as a seminar and as such the bulk of each meeting will consist primarily of our discussions of the assigned reading. It is therefore essential that each of us comes to class having read the material carefully and prepared to discuss it thoughtfully.
Your class participation grade will be based on your contributions to our classroom
discussions and to the discussion forum on the course’s Blackboard website. In addition, there are certain basic standards to which students must adhere in order to maximize their class participation grades. Students must attend class regularly (see the attendance policy below for clarification), and must bring to every class a text of the essay or poem we’ll be studying. Students who do not bring a text will be considered to be unprepared for class.
Blackboard Posts:
Milton is a particularly difficult poet for a number of reasons. Because of this,
it will be essential for us to think of our work this semester as a collective
endeavor. Invariably, the most useful way to work through difficult writing
is to discuss it as consistently and thoroughly as possible. As such, I’d
like us to think of these Blackboard posts as crucial components of our
larger conversation. They’ll provide a forum in which we can continue,
at our leisure, to consider problems and questions that we raise in class.
You will be required to write at least ten Blackboard posts this semester
(and yes, replies to other posts do count).
Midterm and Final Grades:
Your midterm grade will be calculated according to the following percentages:
First major essay: 50%
Class participation: 25%
Short paper: 25%
Your final course grade will be calculated according to the following percentages:
Major essays: 50%
Final exam: 20%
Class participation: 20%
Short papers: 10%
Attendance Policy:
You are allowed four absences, no questions asked—use them carefully. Beginning with the fifth, however, your final course grade will drop one full letter grade for each additional absence (eg, from B+ to C+, or A to B). Students who miss eight classes before the withdrawal deadline (Friday, April 8) will be automatically dropped from the course. Students whose accumulated absences total eight or more before the end of the semester will not pass the course. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. If you are seriously ill or need to attend to a personal emergency, you obviously won’t be penalized.
Class Schedule
*** An “R” next to an entry on the Class Schedule indicates that a
text is found in the course reader
***All reading assignments are REQUIRED unless otherwise designated
January:
Tues. 25—Course introduction
Thurs. 27—Introduction to Milton; Milton, Sonnets I-VI; Elegia Quinta (R)
Recommended: Ad patrem (Rosenblatt, pp. 210-15); “Milton, John,” ODNB
entry (R)
February:
Tues. 1— Milton, Elegia Sexta (R); “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (Rosenblatt, pp. 3-13)
Thurs. 3—Milton, “Lycidas” (Rosenblatt, pp. 68-75); Fish, “‘Lycidas’: A Poem Finally Anonymous” (R)
Tues. 8— Milton, “Lycidas”; Fish, “Anonymous”
***First Short Paper Due***
Thurs. 10—Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (Rosenblatt, pp. 380-419)
Recommended: Loewenstein, “Milton’s Prose and the Revolution” (R)
Tues. 15—Milton, The Ready and Easy Way (Rosenblatt, pp. 419-447)
Recommended: Dzelzanis, “Milton’s Politics” (R)
Thurs. 17—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books I-II
Recommended: Smith, “Paradise Lost from Civil War to Restoration” (R)
Tues. 22—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books I-II; Shelley, excerpts from On the Devil, and Devils (R)
Recommended: Carey, “Milton’s Satan” (R)
Thurs. 24—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books III-IV; Empson, Milton’s God, ch. 1 (R)
March:
Tues. 1—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books III-IV; Fish, excerpt from Surprised by Sin (R)
Thurs. 3—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books III-IV
Tues. 8—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V
***First Major Essay Due***
Thurs. 10—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VI
Tues. 15—NO CLASS
Thurs. 17—NO CLASS
Tues. 22—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VII
Thurs. 24—NO CLASS
Tues. 29—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VIII
Thurs. 31—NO CLASS (NCUR)
April:
Tues. 5—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX; Genesis excerpts (photocopy)
Recommended: Fish, excerpt from Surprised by Sin (R)
Thurs. 7—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX; Mary Nyquist, excerpts from “The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity in the Divorce Tracts and Paradise Lost” (Teskey, pp. 504-16);
Julia M. Walker, excerpts from “Eve: The First Reflection” (Teskey, pp. 516-20)
Recommended: McColley, “Milton and the Sexes” (R)
Tues. 12—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book X
Recommended: Danielson: “The Fall and Milton’s Theodicy” (R); Augustine, The City of God, Book XIV, chs. 10-16 (R)
***Second Short Paper Due***
Thurs. 14—Milton, Paradise Lost, Book X; Milton, excerpts from De doctrina Christiana
(photocopy)
Tues. 19—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books XI-XII
Thurs. 21—Milton, Paradise Lost, Books XI-XII
Tues. 26—Milton, Paradise Lost wrap-up
Thurs. 28—Milton, Samson Agonistes (Rosenblatt pp. 153-205)
Recommended: Bennett, “Reading Samson Agonistes” (R)
May:
Tues. 3—Milton, Samson Agonistes
Recommended: Rogers, “The Secret of Samson Agonistes” (Rosenblatt, pp. 650-72)
Thurs. 5—Loose ends, etc.
***Second Major Essay Due***
***There will be a TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAM in this class***