ENL6236: Milton and Pope M6-8 Tur 2341

Craddock Tur 4332 Office Hours WF 5th & 6th and by appointment
Email craddoc@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu or pcraddoc@english.ufl.edu
web page address http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pcraddoc

Texts:

Milton, Complete Poems, Areopagitica, and Of Education, ed. Gordon Campbell

Pope, Poems. One Vol. Twickenham, ed. John Butt (Available at Goerings)

In this course the poetry, some of the prose, and the careers of Milton and Pope will beexamined as a pair of case studies in poetic tradition and in changing and unchanging ideas of the poet and "his" role in the world of politics. Sharing a literary heritage (the classics, the Bible, the English masters), an idea of the poet's career derived from Virgil, a capacity to make enemies, an irritable idealism, a mastery of poetic craftsmanship, and the challenge of physical disability, the two writers differed in religion, politics, attitudes toward women, preferred genres, European influences (France vs. Italy), socio-economic position, education, marital status, among other things. Pope was literally influenced by Milton, of course, but in larger sense, both poets are enriched by an examination of the implicit dialogue between them, about the world, the past, and poetry.

We will not examine the authors or questions seriatim; rather, each class meeting will be devoted to a comparison of specific works by both authors. The course will be very much concerned with formal as well as thematic features of the works.

Students will be responsible for two-four reaction papers through the semester; that is, given the large amount of reading, they can choose to write four small, informal papers; or they can choose to write two
and then develop one of them, or another topic, into a scholarly article. Other options:

SMALL: review of a critical book, preparation of a teaching plan for a particular poem,annotated bibliography for one year's work on one of the poets; 10-15 minute conference paper

LARGE: proposal for a critical book on one or both of the authors (addressee: a publisher or something like the NEH); plan for a course for undergraduates on one of the authors; introduction to a small anthology of the works of one of the poets

The course will include reading of selected background and/or critical texts related to specific poems, but the emphasis will be on the poems themselves.

Schedule

JAN 6 Introduction and Juvenilia

JAN 13 Preparations: Milton: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; Pope: Pastorals, Windsor Forest

JAN 20 MLK Holiday--no class

JAN 27 Poets on Occasions: Milton: Lycidas (and Epitaphium Damonis); Pope: Eloisa to Abelard, Elegy to the Memory of the Unfortunate Lady, Milton's sonnets and "On the New Forcers of Conscience," Pope's other epistles and epitaphs. Project 1 of 4 due.

FEB 3 Poets as Educators:Milton: Areopagitica, Of Education; Pope: Essay on Criticism, Rape of the Lock

FEB 10-Mar 3: Epic and Anti-Epic Milton: Paradise Lost; and Pope: The Dunciad Variorum and Dunciad in Four Books

MAR 3 Project 1 of 2, or 2 of 4 due

March 10 no class: SPRING BREAK

MAR 17-24 Speaking to Humankind. Milton, Paradise Regained, and Pope: The Essay on Man

MAR 31-Apr 7 Morality Plays: Milton: Arcades and Comus; Pope's Moral Essays and To Arbuthnot

APR 7 Project 3 of 4 due

APR 14 Action and Despair: Milton, Samson Agonistes; Pope, Horatian imitations, Epilogues to the Satires

APR 21 What have we missed?

APR 28 LAST DAY to turn in final writing assignment:

Initial Bibliography