Milton - Video John Rogers
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- Arts
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(ENGL 220) This course is a study of Milton's poetry, with attention paid to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry. Throughout the course, Professor Rogers explores the advantages and limitations of a diverse range of interpretive techniques and theoretical concerns in Milton scholarship and criticism. Lectures include close readings of lyric and epic poetry, prose, and letters; biographical inquiries; examinations of historical and political contexts; and engagement with critical debates.
This course was recorded in Fall 2007.
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21 - Paradise Regained, Books I-II
This lecture treats the first two books of the sequel to Paradise Lost, Paradise Reqained. The difference in style and subject matter is described. The poem's depiction of the Son of God and Satan, specifically the characters' seeming inability to recollect any of the events of Paradise Lost or the Bible, is closely analyzed. At the lecture's conclusion, similarities between the Son's slowly developing sense of his identity and Milton's own narrative of his poetic development are examined.
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24 - Samson Agonistes (cont.)
In the final lecture of the course, the analysis of Samson Agonistes comes to a conclusion with an exploration of the poem's sexual imagery. Milton's choice of subject matter is puzzled over, as are the ethics of his tragic hero, particularly when compared to the heroes of Milton's previous epics. The poem is positioned as a means by which Milton ultimately resolves the poetic, religious, and career-related crises of his earlier poem, "The Passion," and the compelling relationship between the corpus and the poet's biography is revisited one final time.
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23 - Samson Agonistes
This introduction to Samson Agonistes focuses on a psycho-sexual reading of the poem, with particular emphasis placed on the poem's peculiar association of sexuality with violence. The characterization of Dalila and her similarity to Samson is discussed. The problems inherit in Miltonic heroism, especially self-sufficiency and the nature of heroic sacrifice, are expounded upon.
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22 - Paradise Regained, Books III-IV
In this second lecture on Paradise Regained, the three temptations are examined and Milton's unusual departure from their account in the Gospel of Luke is discussed. The poem's tacit assertion of the superiority of knowledge and ethics over action is probed. Considerable time is spent examining the Son's rejection of classical literature. Finally, Book Four's allusion to the riddle of the sphinx serves as a springboard to a consideration of the poem's Oedipal elements.
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20 - Paradise Lost, Books XI-XII (cont.)
In this final lecture on Paradise Lost, Book Twelve's justification for the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden is examined alongside the Genesis account. The nature of Milton's God, whether literal or liberal, is examined at length. The poem's closing lines are closely read, with substantial attention paid to Milton's final, complicated take on the poem-long consideration of Providence and free will.
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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. Overall, Milton's willingness to question accepted religious, social, and political doctrine, even that which authorities in his own poem seem to express, is stressed.
Customer Reviews
Excellent
Very well done. Thank you.
A very enjoyable course
The professor obviously enjoys Milton and communicates that joy as well. His enthusiasm and ease of lecturing make him another of the very nice Yale lecturers (and, no, I didn't go there). He criticizes when he feels Milton deserves it but overall the approach is very evenhanded and the emphasis is on the beauty of Milton's poetry, along with discussions of the prose works, especially Milton's Areopagitica and his justification of regicide.
And, rightly, about half the course is on "Paradise Lost". My small caveat (I would give it 4 1/2 if I could) is based on what I feel are occasional leaps of interpretation -- which the professor DOES often indicate as such -- that seem an academic's need to find "something" new. Other writers are also referenced which support similar leaps.
Anyway, we're all adults here and we can each decide to agree or not, to investigate further or to read the original again more carefully. And I suppose if it gets one to address the works with more attention to those other possibilities (however much I might tend to disagree with some of those possibilities) and widen our scope of accessibility to the works, then it can only help, even if in the end our original interpretations are generally reinforced. They are then stronger for having experienced the friction of alternate views. In any case, I found the course rewarding, sending me back in particular to "Paradise Lost" with a renewed enthusiasm and curiosity.
As with several other Yale courses, and those of many other universities as well, this is such a great opportunity for those of us unable for various reasons to have attended such schools or to have taken such classes, to get a taste -- many tastes! -- later in life of what we missed, and to do so basically for free.