Credit Hours: 3 Professor: Noralyn Masselink

Spring 2005 Office phone: 753-2068

Location: OM G-24 Office: 111D Old Main

Office hours: M 10-2

Email: masselinkn@cortland.edu

Textbooks:

John Milton: Complete Poetry and Major Prose. Ed. Merrit Y. Hughes. Reprint edition. Hackett Publishing Co., 2003. ISBN: 0872206785Packet of Supplementary Materials

The Bible (preferably King James Version)

Bibliography:

The Age of Milton: Backgrounds to Seventeenth-Cenutry Literature. Ed. C.A. Patrides and Raymond B. Waddington. NY: Barnes & Noble, 1980.

The Cambridge Companion to Milton. Ed. Dennis Danielson. Cambridge:Cambride UP, 1989.

A Milton Chronology. Ed. Gordon Campbell. London: Methuen. 1997.

John Milton: An Annotated Bibliography 1968-1988. Comp. Calvin Huckabay and ed. Paul Klemp. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1996.

Klemp, Paul J. The Essential Milton: An Annotated Bibliography of Major Modern Studies. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989.

Parker, William Riley. Milton: A Biography. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1968. Rev. ed., ed. Gordon Campbell, 1997.

Shawcross, John. John Milton: The Self and the World. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1993.

Course Description: Poetry and prose of John Milton

Course Attendance Policy: Attendance is mandatory. Your grade will be negatively affected for every hour after three which you miss. Frequent tardiness is inexcusable. Please make every effort to be in class before we begin.

Evaluation of Student Performance:

Choice of project(s) described below 40%

Final exam 30%

Class participation, study questions, discussion questions 30%

Goals/Objectives: In this course we will be studying the major poetry and selected works of prose by John Milton (3.5.1.2). We will concentrate on close readings of the text as opposed to focusing on critical responses to Milton's work. At the same time, you will be expected to broaden your understanding of Milton's art and the seventeenth-century literary, political, religious, and intellectual contexts by reading selectively from the vast body of Milton criticism available (3.5.1.6). Our point of reference will be the prevailing view of Milton as a Christian humanist rooted in the classical tradition (3.5.1).

Course Requirements:

1) Read to comprehend, not to finish the assignment. While that might sound obvious, you may find at first that you read whole pages of Milton only to realize suddenly that your mind has wandered and you haven't understood a thing. For that reason, I strongly recommend that you underline, take notes, and raise questions as you read, especially if I haven't asked you to answer study questions. When I do provide study questions, I'd like you to jot down your answers.

2) Please bring to each class one or two typed questions for discussion or a paragraph of specific reaction to one of the assigned readings. Your questions and responses will determine, in part, the direction of our class discussions and your active and critical reading will be demonstrated through your input.

3) Class participation is paramount. If you aren't in class, you can't participate and can expect your grade to reflect that fact.

4) You must choose one of the following five options below for your major course project:

a) A formal paper of approximately twelve-fifteen pages. The paper should be a critical analysis in which you present your own reading of Milton while responding to the arguments of at least five or six secondary sources.

b) M.A.T., M.S.Ed. or MA students who are teachers may write a detailed two- to three-week unit of lessons (complete with vocabulary lessons a la AED 662/668, study and/or discussion questions, sample writing assignments, and tests) showing how you might teach selected works of Milton at the secondary level; you must include at least some of Milton's prose and should provide some kind of link between Milton's work and world and ours.

c) In the Renaissance tradition, if you are a creative writer, you may write a poem(s) in the tradition of Milton's "Lycidas," or "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." The poem or pair of poems would need to be at least 200 lines long and would be accompanied by an explication highlighting how the work is, in fact, "in the Miltonic tradition."

d) Two shorter papers as described below, one due before Spring Break and the other before the final class period, with a ten-minute oral presentation of one:

-i- a review of three works of Milton criticism on a single work.

-ii- a critical analysis of Milton's poetics/prosody in one short work or a selected passage of one of his longer works.

e) Response to critical questions for "On Shakespeare, 1630"

Please return the tear-off sheet at the back of this packet indicating your intentions for the project no later than the second week of class (4.0).

If you are a student with a disability and wish to request accommodations, please contact the Office of Student Disability Services located in B-40 Van Hoesen Hall or call (607) 753-2066 for an appointment. Information regarding your disability will be treated in a confidential manner. Because many accommodations require early planning, requests for accommodations should be made as early as possible.

English 539 - Syllabus and Daily Activities: The readings assigned below represent a wide variety of genres (3.5.1.2) and will be interpreted in number of different ways (3.3) beginning with the individual responses of each student in the class (2.1, 2.4, 3.2.2, 4.7, 4.10). Be sure to read all introductory materials since these will give you an overview of pertinent literary theories and criticism (3.5.1.6). I have built in ONE snow day.

January 24 - Introduction to the course

"On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (p. 43)

Sonnet 7, "How soon hath time" (p. 76)

January 31 Read passage 449 on chastity in packet

A Maske (Comus) (p. 86)

Of Education (p. 630, just the paragraph beginning "The end then of learning")

February 7 Note on Milton's "Lycidas" in packet

"Lycidas" (p. 116)

Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (pp. 696-712)

Answer study questions on DD&D and read page in packet

Sonnets 11, 12 (p. 143)

February 14 Aereopagitica (p.716)

"On the New Forcers of Conscience" (p. 144)

Sonnet 16 (p. 160)

February 21 The Second Defense, pp 817 through column 1, p. 832

Sonnets 19 (p. 168), Sonnet 23 (p. 170)

"To Mr. Cyriac Skinner Upon his Blindness" (p. 170)

Judges 13-16 (from the Bible)

Materials in packet on Tragedy and SA; study questions

Samson Agonistes (p. 531 to line 710)

February 28 finish Samson Agonistes (refer again to the study questions)

Introduction to Paradise Lost, p. 173

Genesis 1-3

"Foreward" in packet/Information on epic

SPRING BREAK

March 14 Paradise Lost, Books 1 and 2 (answer study questions)

March 21 PL, Books 3-4 (answer study questions)

Last Day to hand in preliminary thesis and bibliography of potential sources for paper OR Teaching objectives and reading list including supplementary materials for unit (4.0)

March 28 PL Books 5-6

April 4 PL Books 7-8

April 11 PL Book 9

April 18 Book 10

April 25 Books 11-12 **PAPER/UNIT OF LESSONS DUE** (4.0)

May 2

The final exam will be written at home.

Due Date: May 9

English 539 - Formal Paper Grading Sheet (Note: This sheet must be turned in with your paper.)

A. Understanding of Literature and Literary Analysis

Paper demonstrates your ability to do the following:

_______explicate the text or texts without undue reliance on secondary sources

_______interpret the underlying ideas through systematic analysis

_______take relevant historical, biographical, and philosophical contexts into account in your interpretation

_______recognize the relationship between form and content

_______understand, summarize, and synthesize critical arguments of other scholars

_______evaluate varied critical views

_______produce effective prose (as described below)

B. Competence in Writing

STRUCTURE

_______identifiable thesis

_______logical organization

_______sensible paragraph divisions (unified paragraphs)

_______transitions between and within paragraphs

_______effective sense of closure

SUBSTANCE OF ARGUMENT

_______significant thesis

_______appropriate evidence

_______sufficient evidence

_______thorough development of thesis

_______appropriate documentation

STYLE

_______appropriate voice/tone

_______varied sentence pattern

_______appropriate diction

_______clarity of presentation

_______conciseness

EDITING

_______punctuation

_______grammatical correctness

_______standard usage

_______spelling

_______typographical correctness

Formal Paper

1. Begin your research early since you may need to request many of your sources via interlibrary loan.

2. You will need to state an arguable claim (thesis statement). Your opening paragraph should establish quickly the topic of the paper and give a very clear indication of what you are trying to persuade the reader of. Briefly summarize the position of critics whose arguments you will be refuting or supplementing. The paper will then develop your thesis statement (and nothing else) in detail. By the close of the paper, you should have provided an explicit and detailed argument for your thesis.

3. Plot summary should be kept to the bare minimum (a sentence or two should be sufficient). In quoting or summarizing the opinion of another critic, you must introduce the idea with the critic's whole name and name of article for a first reference. After the first reference, you may use just the critic's last name. The page reference comes in parenthesis after the paraphrase or quotation (Parker 29). (Note that the period comes after the close of the parenthesis).

4. Each time you cite other critics, be sure that you evaluate their arguments rather than simply reporting them. Make it clear why you are mentioning these critics' ideas by showing how their arguments supplement your own or how your own reading is more plausible than theirs. Don't just cite secondary sources for the sake of citing them.

5. Each paragraph should contain a topic sentence and should contain only information directly related to the established topic. Don't quote at length, unless you intend to take up and dissect for some purpose every single part of that quotation. Do cite lines to which you refer specifically in your argument. Quotations longer than four typed lines must be block indented without quotation marks and, in this case only, the period comes before the parenthetical documentation.

In quoting from Milton's text, tailor your quotations to fit grammatically into your own sentence. Capitalize and punctuate as in the text. Use slash marks (/) to indicate the end of a line of verse. When citing PL, indicate book and line number in parenthesis (9. 125-127); for other works, simply refer to line numbers (43-45).

6. In your closing paragraph, avoid saying such things as "Thus, we see that. . ." or "In this paper I have shown. . ." or "This paper has demonstrated. . ." or "I hope I have made clear that. . ." Try to suggest questions for further inquiry.

7. Normally, present tense is used to refer to a writer's strategy and what happens in the work.

Unit Plan

Work up a two- to three-week unit on the poetry and/or prose of Milton. You may pair the works with literature by other authors if you believe the pairing will make Milton more relevant and accessible to students, BUT the focus of the unit must remain on Milton. You are encouraged to incorporate projects requiring the use of technology as long as they are educationally meaningful and relevant. Your unit must include the following components:

List of supplies and copies of all handouts to be provided

Syllabus with daily assignments

Detailed description of teaching objectives for each day

Vocabulary list/lessons (incorporating techniques from AED 662/668)

Daily discussion questions

Group and individual assignments (seat work)

Link to the twenty-first century (a plan/activity for making Milton's work relevant)

Final writing project with grading sheet

Final evaluation (test)

Initial proposal identifying teaching objectives and works to be covered is due 3/21. Final unit plan (with grading sheet attached) is due in class on April 25. Late units will not be accepted, so please plan ahead.

GRADING SHEET FOR UNIT PLANS

1. Unit includes a realistic syllabus with appropriately grouped readings. Assignments follow some clear order/organizational pattern.

2. The teaching objectives reflect an accurate understanding of the artistry of Milton, as well as the religious and historical context in which he wrote. Appropriate attention is paid to both form and content of the works assigned.

3. Appropriate vocabulary words are assigned. Students are given opportunities to see how understanding these words is essential to interpreting the literature.

4. Discussion questions are designed to allow for student reflection. At the same time, questions indicate that the teacher has a clear sense of how to lead students towards an understanding of articulated objectives.

5. Seat work is intellectually challenging, varied in nature, and clearly relevant.

6. Final writing assignment requires careful analysis of the assigned works on the part of students. Students will do more than regurgitate what they learned in class. Grading sheet offers a checklist for students and covers such things as presentation of ideas, organization, vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling/mechanics.

7. Final evaluation reflect the breadth and depth of the unit as a whole. Questions stimulate thought rather than prompting recitation of memorized notes.

8. Overall, the unit seems likely to stimulate students' interest in and/or appreciation for the Milton.

9. Unit is written in Edited American English.

Critical Analysis

*You must read and review three full-length critical responses to a single work by Milton. You must provide me with a copies of the critical articles (with bibliographic information).

In your review, briefly summarize the various authors' arguments, indicating both points of agreement as well as points of divergence in their critical readings. Try to synthesize their interpretations rather than addressing/reviewing each critic separately. Take a critical stance of your own--either agreeing (or partially agreeing) with one or more of the authors and disagreeing (either in part or in whole) with the others. Make sure you support your position clearly with evidence from the work by Milton in question. If you choose to make your oral presentation from this paper, be prepared to do so at the beginning of class. You should think of your presentation as laying the ground work for further discussion. Make clear the critical issues at stake and present the class with your own questions that arise from having read the various critical responses. Please practice giving your presentation at home, so that you can stay within the ten-minute time limitation.

Length: five pages double-spaced maximum

Grading Criteria:

______Writer clearly states a thesis [partial or full agreement (defense of) or disagreement with (rebuttal of) author(s)' position] and somewhere indicates significance of argument [Answers question "So what?"] (2)

______Summary of articles is accurate and complete with due attention made to points of agreement and divergence (2)

______Writer defends his/her thesis with appropriate evidence from Milton's works (2)

______Writer offers sufficient evidence to make a convincing case(2)

______Review is clear and well organized; diction and tone are appropriate (2)

______Writer adheres to conventions of Edited American English (spelling, punctuation, usage, typographical accuracy) (2)

Note: excessive surface level errors will result in a loss of points beyond two.

_____Total

Poetics/Prosody Paper

You are to do no research for this paper. First, choose a sonnet or passage of about fourteen lines from one of Milton's poetic works. Discuss the poetic form of the work/selection as form has bearing on meaning. Consider such things as imagery, diction (word choice/etymology), figures of speech (metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, irony, and so forth), sound patterns (alliteration, assonance, consonance, repetition, rhyme, euphony, cacophony), syntax (the order of the words within a line or sentence), and meter (the rhythm--particularly any great deviations from the iambic pentameter norm). Don't simply note the occurrence of these elements (i.e. line 50 has five words that alliterate), but instead try to suggest how Milton coordinates structure, sound, and sense. The first page of your paper must be a copy of the poem (or passage) double spaced and scanned. You may also use any kind of color coding or other print enhancement to indicate other sound patterns you would like to address.

If you choose to make your oral presentation from this paper, provide a copy of the cover page for everyone in the class.

Maximum length: 5 pages following the cover page.

Criteria:

Accuracy of analysis (3)

Breadth and depth of poetic devices considered (3)

Significance/Depth of Conclusions Drawn (3)

(Appropriate connections made between form and content)

Presentation (Clarity, flow, diction) (1)

Surface Correctness (usage/spelling/punctuation, etc.) (2)

Note: excessive surface level errors will result in additional loss of points.

Total

Creative Writing Project

Please do not choose this project if you have never before written poetry. Imitating Milton is NOT the place for novices to begin their careers as creative writers. Before choosing this project, the following should be true of you:

a) you are a voracious reader (remember that Milton spent five years reading nearly everything that had ever been written up to the present time).

b) you have a prodigious memory (Milton, though blind, could quote large sections of any number of literary works from memory)

c) you are adept at more than one language and/or feel very comfortably playing with words, roots, and etymology (Milton knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and French as well as English)

d) you've written poetry before

e) a grounding in the classical (Greek or Roman) or Christian traditions (Biblical literature and orthodox theology) would be extremely helpful although this requirement is optional

f) you can write poetry on a schedule (the poem will be due on Monday, April 25).

If you choose this project, you must write a poem in the tradition of either "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" or "Lycidas." Your topic, though it need not be identical to Milton's, should have some integral connection to the topics of these works. Before you begin, you should read as many articles on the poems as you have time for, so that you are absolutely sure you understand the works and the critical issues surrounding them. Please provide a bibliography of the critical works you've read when you hand in your project.

Then, you will write your "imitation" of the work(s), approaching the topic at least peripherally from the same perspective as Milton and in some way mirroring his choice of poetic form. What will be uniquely yours will be the diction, syntax, allusions, imagery, and every thing else that goes into the making of a poem. You will want your poem to have the same dense texture as Milton's as well as the richness achieved by allusion.

Your poem (or pair of poems) should be approximately 200 lines in length, and must be accompanied by a critical analysis of your poem, in which you both explicate your work and explain what makes it "Miltonic." You should also provide editorial footnotes to your poem highlighting word play, allusions, and other poetic devices, the knowledge of which will enrich readers' enjoyment and understanding of the poem.

If you are willing to read your work aloud to the rest of the class, we can arrange for that to happen on the last day of class. Since grading a poem is necessarily a more subjective experience, I will also be asking at least two other faculty members on staff (one of whom will be a published poet, and one of whom will know Milton's works) for their general assessment of your work, before I assign a grade. Your grade will also take into account the depth and clarity of the accompanying explication.

Critical Questions: "On Shakespeare, 1630" (Turn this sheet in with your responses.)

1. Which other of Milton's works does this poem remind you of? Why? In what ways are the works similar? How are they different? Consider at least two other works. (8)

2. Discuss the form and structure of this poem. What about Milton's choices seems significant? Why? At a bare minimum, identify the verse form in terms of rhyme scheme, meter, line length, and any departures from established patterns. How do these elements help convey or reinforce the meaning of the work? (10)

3. Discuss Milton's use of poetic devices (e.g. symbolism; sound patterns like alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia; allusion; paradox; hyperbole; irony; syntax; imagery) to convey meaning. (10)

4. Read two substantial journal articles (obtained from the library or via ILL) and a book which address this poem or Milton's work in general. Attach copies of the critical works (except for the book) you read. Then do/answer the following:

a) Provide full bibliographic information for each source using MLA format.

b) Summarize each critic's basic position or argument.

c) To what extent do the critics agree? How do their views differ?

d) Which critical view do you find most convincing? Why?

e) Identify an aspect of the work which you think these critics fail to consider (or consider only peripherally)? Why/How would further consideration be helpful? (14)

5. How might you teach this poem to someone familiar with Shakespeare but unfamiliar with Milton? What background information would you provide? What questions would you ask? Then, try teaching this poem to someone who's never read it before and who has had limited exposure to Milton. Describe the experience. What did you learn about yourself as a teacher? about Milton? about the poem? about your "student"? (8)

Note: Edited American English is expected. I will take off one point for every two different surface level errors left in your paper.

Name __________________________________

I intend to complete the following for my writing project:

a) formal paper _________ (thesis and initial bibliography due no later than March 21).

b) two shorter papers_________

I will prepare my papers in this order:

______critical review of __________________before Spring Break with poetics paper due on a section of Paradise Lost (after the break).

______poetics paper before Spring Break and the critical review on some aspect of Paradise Lost due after the break

I intend to give my oral presentation on the basis of my

______ critical review

______ poetics paper

(Be sure to notify me at least five days before the class period in which you plan to make your oral presentation, so I can make adjustments in the evening's activities.

c) the unit of lessons (teaching objectives and reading list due no later than March 21)__________

d) poem in the Miltonic tradition____________

e) response to critical questions: "On Shakespeare, 1630"_____________