Professor: Ron Strickland
Office Hours: 10-11, TWR
Phone: 438 3667
email: rlstrick@ilstu.edu 


Course Protocol: Below I have provided a week-by-week schedule of readings and written assignments. Where possible, I have included links to electronic versions of the texts we will read. Each week you will be expected to read the assigned texts and to respond with critiques, comments and/or discussion questions on the course webboard by Monday at 8:00 AM Central U. S. time. Subsequent responses to the initial postings can be made throughout the week. I have preserved the webboard postings from the last offering of this course for your examination.
 
Reading and Discussion Schedule:
 

Jan 13: Introduction to the course, conditions of modernity, historical contexts, selections from video documentaries on the English Civil War and Early Modern Europe

 

Jan 20: Milton and the Emergence of Rationalist Individualism: Excerpts from Areopagitica, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (Flanagan) (Micro-essay Response due Jan 19)

Flannagan, pp. 927-976; 987-1024; 1057-1075
Lawrence Stone, "The Decline of Kinship, Clientage and Community"
Francis Barker, from The Tremulous Private Body
Suggested further reading:
Matthew Jordan, "'Born to Command and not to Obey'"
Andrew Milner, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 from John Milton and the English Revolution
Nicholas von Maltzahn, "The Whig Milton, 1667-1700"
Miltonweb site: Synopsis of Aeropagitica
Miltonweb site: The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Miltonweb site: Synopsis of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

 

Jan 27 (Micro-essay Response Due Jan 26): Paradise Lost, Book I
Flannagan, pp. 18-30; 297-334

Suggested Further Reading:
Joseph Addison, Essays from The Spectator
Bernard Sharratt, "Appropriations of Milton"

  Feb 3 (Micro-essay Position Due Feb 2): Paradise Lost Book II

Suggested Further Reading:
F.R. Leavis, from Revaluation
 

Feb 10 (Micro-essay Due February 9): Paradise Lost, Book III

Suggested Further Reading:
T.S. Eliot, Milton: Two Studies

  Feb 17(Micro-essay Due February 16): Paradise Lost, Book IV
Suggested Further Reading:
Christine Froula, "When Eve Reads Milton"
Edward Pechter, "When Froula Reads Milton"
Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage," from Ecrits
 

Feb 24 (Micro-essay Position Due Feb 23): Paradise Lost, Book V

Suggested Further Reading:
Kenneth Gross, "Satan and the Romantic Satan"

 

March 2 (Micro-essay Due March 1): Paradise Lost, Book VI

Suggested Further Reading:
Carrol Cox, "Citizen Angels"
Matthew Jordan, "Individual Merit in Milton's Heaven"

Spring Break: March 6-14

 

March 16 (Micro-essay Due March 15): Paradise Lost, Books VII-VIII
Suggested Further Reading:
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, "Milton's Bogey
Mary Nyquist, "The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity"
  March 23 (Micro-essay Due March 22): Paradise Lost, Book IX


Herman Rapaport, "Milton's Epic Trauerspiel"
 

March 30 (Micro-essay Due March 29) Paradise Lost, Book X

Suggested Further Reading:
Stanley Fish, "The Miltonic Paradigm," from How Milton Works
  April 6 (Micro-essay Due April 6): Paradise Lost, Book XI

Suggested Further Reading:
Terry Eagleton, "The God that Failed," from Re-Membering Milton
 

April 13 (Micro-essay Due April 13): Paradise Lost, Book XII

Suggested Further Reading:

Excerpt from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
  April 20: Gods and Monsters Film Clip Festival
Film Clip Videos TBA on treatment of issues in Paradise Lost in contemporary popular culture

 
 

April 27: Discussions of Final Papers

Post abstract of final paper to Netforum by April 27
Post final paper by May 4