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ENGL 220 - Lecture 17 - Paradise Lost, Book IX

Book Nine and the depiction of the Fall are presented. Adam and Eve’s dialogue – especially their perspectives on labor, temptation, and the nature of the garden – is examined. Satan’s strategic temptation of Eve is closely analyzed. At the lecture’s conclusion, Adam and Eve’s new fallen sight is discussed, with particular emphasis placed on the reference to the “veil” of pre-fallen innocence. Overall, the tension between doctrinal and subversive perspectives on the pre-fallen hierarchy of Eden is underscored.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 16 - Paradise Lost, Books VII-VIII

This lecture on Books Seven and Eight of Paradise Lost focuses on Milton’s account of the Creation. The poet’s persistent interest in the imagery of digestion is explored with help from the proto-scientific theories of the seventeenth-century philosopher Paracelsus. The moment at which Milton names and assigns a gender to his muse is examined.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 15 - Paradise Lost, Books V-VI

The description of human sexual hierarchy in Book Four of Paradise Lost is contrasted with the depiction of angelic hierarchy in Book Five. Both the Archangel Raphael’s and Satan’s accounts and theories of creation are examined. The poem’s complex and vacillating endorsement of arbitrary decree, on the one hand, and egalitarian self-determination, on the other, is probed. The nature of matter and physical being in Heaven and Eden are explored with particular emphasis placed on the poem’s monistic elements.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 13 - Paradise Lost, Book III

In this second lecture on Book Three of Paradise Lost, the dialogue between God and the Son in heaven is explored with particular attention paid to Milton’s modification of the Calvinist theory of predestination. The terms and implications of Milton’s attempt to justify the ways of God to man are considered. Milton’s misgivings regarding the doctrine of the Trinity are examined, and the relationship between his theology and seventeenth-century political movements is expounded upon.

ENGL 220 - Exam - Midterm Exam

The midterm exam consists of ten brief IDs of poetry, prose, names, and terms, drawn from all assigned material up to and including the first 55 lines of Paradise Lost, Book III.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 12 - The Blind Prophet

This lecture focuses on the invocation to light at the beginning of Book Three of Paradise Lost. Milton’s factual and figurative understanding of his blindness is traced through his letters, Sonnet XXII, and the later epic Samson Agonistes. Particular emphasis is placed on the transformation of blindness in the corpus from a spiritual punishment to a poetic gift. The implications of biographical interpretations of literature are also touched upon.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 11 - The Miltonic Simile

Milton’s characteristic use of simile is explored in Books One and Two of Paradise Lost. Particular attention is paid to how Milton’s similes work to support, undermine, and complicate both the depiction of Satan and the broader thematic concerns of the poem, such as the ideas of free will and divine providence. The critical perspectives of Geoffrey Hartman and Stanley Fish are incorporated into an analysis of Satan’s shield and spear and the simile of the leaves.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 10 - God and Mammon: The Wealth of Literary Memory

This second lecture on Paradise Lost looks at hell and its inhabitants, as depicted in Books I and II. Milton’s struggle both to match and outdo his literary predecessors is examined by way of allusions to the works of Homer and Edmund Spenser, particularly the cave of Mammon episode in Book Two of The Faerie Queene.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 9 - Paradise Lost, Book I

The invocation to Paradise Lost is read and analyzed. Milton’s tenure as Latin Secretary under the Puritan government, his subsequent imprisonment upon the restoration of the monarchy, and his blindness are all briefly discussed. The poet’s subsequent choice of a religious subject, rather than a nationalist one, for his epic is considered in light of the failure of the Puritan regime. His radical poetics, including his stance against rhyme and his unique use of enjambment and double syntax, is closely examined.

ENGL 220 - Lecture 7 - Lycidas (cont.)

In this second lecture on Lycidas, moments of intrusion and revelation are closely examined. Saint Peter’s protracted sermon is connected with the wider context of Puritan practices and controversies. The poem’s tendency to suggest pairs and substitutions is duly noted. Finally, its conclusion is read as a triumphant moment in the young Milton’s poetry, at which point he parts with the claims of ill-preparedness and little experience that dominated the early poems and assumes instead a prophetic voice for himself akin to Isaiah’s.

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