Reading Milton: Subtleties and Anxieties in Paradise Lost - AAALA024A

• Title: Reading Milton: Subtleties and Anxieties in Paradise Lost
• Guaranteed by: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2022
• Semester: summer
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 5
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:0/2, C [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Is provided by: ATAPVP001
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: Mgr. Šárka Brotánková, D.Phil.

Annotation

Last update: Mgr. Šárka Brotánková, D.Phil. (03.02.2023)

Reading Milton: Subtleties and Anxieties in Paradise Lost
Šárka Brotánková Tobrmanová, MA (Prague), D.Phil. (Oxford)

The course will be held at the Faculty’s Institute of Translation Studies in Hybernská: Wednesday, 10:50-12:20, room 202

OBJECTIVES

This is a close-reading course. It aims to illuminate Milton’s Paradise Lost and show how innovative Milton is in his use of language and poetic form, as well as in his treatment of the simple Genesis story. We shall analyse selected passages and discuss the textual subtleties and anxieties that the text raises, particularly as they relate to Satan, the presentation of God, and Adam and Eve’s union and sexuality.<br>
The course is primarily intended for MA students and 3rd-year BA students, but it is open to anyone who wishes to discover how intricate Milton’s poem is and learn about the greatest epic poet in the English language – a controversial figure whose example and ideas have not ceased to inspire poets, writers and thinkers more than three hundred years after his death.

ASSESSMENT

Students will be required to read about 500-700 lines per week before they attend the class (!) and participate actively in seminar discussions.
Regular attendance (3 absences are tolerated), active participation (50%) and required readings (50%).

MA students of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures will receive 5 credits in return for a final essay of about 3,000 words on a Milton topic of their choice (discussed with the teacher).

MA English Literature, elective seminar, 5 credits - includes a 3,000-word essay

Literature

Last update: Mgr. Šárka Brotánková, D.Phil. (03.02.2023)

Primary literature:

 FOWLER, ALASTAIR, ed., John Milton: Paradise Lost. 2^nd ed. Harlow, Essex: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1998.

 HUGHES, MERRITT Y., ed., John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. New York: Odyssey Press, 1957.

 LEONARD, JOHN, ed., John Milton: Paradise Lost. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2000.

Thomas H. Luxon, The John Milton Reading Room (https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/contents/about_mrr.shtml).  

 

Handouts including selected prose and criticism will be provided.

 

 Secondary sources:

 DANIELSON, DENNIS, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Milton. 2^nd ed. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999.

 MCDOWELL, NICHOLAS and NIGEL SMITH (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Milton. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2009.

LEONARD, JOHN, The Value of Milton. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2016.

 KEAN, MARGARET (ed.), John Milton’s Paradise Lost: A Sourcebook. Routledge: London and New York 2005.

 NOAM REISNER. John Milton’s Paradise Lost: A Reading Guide. Reading Guides to Long Poems. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2011.

SCHWARTZ, Louis (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2014.

Further reading for individual essay topics - to be discussed and recommended 

Teaching methods

Last update: Mgr. Šárka Brotánková, D.Phil. (02.02.2023)

A close reading seminar, based on a detailed textual analysis of selected passages from Milton's Paradise Lost

Syllabus

Last update: Mgr. Šárka Brotánková, D.Phil. (28.01.2016)

See http://www.english-department-prague.cz/