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(1) Develop a critical
summary and evaluation of the merits of the argument between Christine
Froula and Edward Pechter over the character of Eve in Paradise Lost
in their exchange of essays in Critical Inquiry.
(2) Many scholars
have held that Milton's representation of the relationship between "faith"
and "reason" in Paradise Lost is sometimes problematic or
contradictory. But in a recent article William Walker argues that for
Milton, faith is not independent of reason; rather, he asserts, faith
is an expression of reason. In your essay summarize and evaluate the
merits of Walker's critique of one or more of his critical antagonists.
See Walker's article: "On Reason, Faith, and Freedom in Paradise
Lost." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 - Volume
47, Number 1, Winter 2007, pp. 143-159.
(3) One way to read Paradise Lost is to view the character of Satan
is as a literary version of a psychological case study in the destructive
power of pride. In an essay, explore the stages by which Satan destroys
himself through his commitment to evil by tracing his deterioration
from the haggard though still glorious Archangel of Book I to the monstrous
serpent of Book X. You might find Stanley Fish's book, Surprised
by Sin, useful in writing this essay.
(4) Another way of reading Paradise Lost is to view the character of
Satan as a hero… the so-called Romantic Satan of William Blake and Percy
B. Shelley. Here is Shelley's description of Satan:
Nothing can exceed
the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan as expressed
in Paradise Lost. It is a mistake to suppose that he could
ever have been intended for the popular personification of evil. Implacable
hate, patient cunning, and a sleepless refinement of device to inflict
the extremest anguish on an enemy, these things are evil; and, although
venial in a slave, are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed
by much that ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked by all
that dishonors his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil as a moral
being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some
purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity
and torture is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph
inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken
notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but
with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments.
Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged
to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue
to his God over his Devil.
P. B. Shelley,
from A
Defense of Poetry (see pp. 62-64)
Is Shelley right
about this?
(5) In a prefatory
poem (see handout) included in the first edition of Paradise Lost
Andrew Marvell wrote:
When I beheld
the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender Book his vast design unfold,
Messiah Crown'd, God's Reconcil'd Decree,
Reebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree,
Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument
Held me a while misdoubting his intent,
That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)
The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song.
Andrew Marvell,
from "On
Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost"
Focusing on the
allegorized representations of religious concepts in Books I-III of
Paradise Lost, was Marvell right to be worried? Did Milton succeed in
avoiding the danger Marvell foresaw? You might find Victoria Kahn's
essay "Allegory and the Sublime in Paradise
Lost" (from Annabel Patterson, John Milton [Longman: Harlow,
Essex, 1992]) helpful in thinking about these questions.
(6) Develop a critical analysis of any of the various appropriations
of Milton--including texts of theoretical intervention which take Paradise
Lost as a starting point or critical target. Some possibilities
that come to mind are Addison's and Johnson's readings of Milton in
the context of Neoclassicism and rationalist politics, Blake's and/or
Shelley's appropriation of Milton for Romanticism and revolutionary
politics, Eliot's and Leavis's dismissal of Milton and their high modernist
nostalgia for an organic society, C. S. Lewis's search for an ur-text
for Christian Humanism in Paradise Lost, Douglas Bush's attachment
to Milton as an historicist bulwark against the onslaught of new criticism,
the role of Milton in modern feminist debates over the canon and the
status of traditional literature (including the excerpt we will read
from Gilbert and Gubar), Georg Lukacs' Marxist argument that Paradise
Lost marks an historical shift in narrative and consciousness as
the first "novel" in Theory of the Novel; or Harold
Bloom's use of Paradise Lost to demonstrate his psychoanalytic metatheory
of authorship in The Anxiety of Influence. Note that I have suggested
certain biases in the construction of this topic--other approaches can
be substituted and/or the biases which inform my topics can be critiqued.
A good starting point for this essay would be Bernard Sharratt's "Appropriations
of Milton.
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