Milton: Political Revolution and Paradise Lost

Catalog description

Was Milton a revolutionary poet? During the English civil war, he wrote radical political pamphlets defending regicide, divorce, unlicensed printing, and religious dissent. Yet he also saw himself as the epic poet of English Protestantism. Modern readers tend to separate these two aspects of his writing but, for Milton, poetry was crucial to proper governance. In this course, we'll focus on how Milton reconciled the dual imperatives to resist illegitimate rule and to obey true authority. We'll learn about the poetic and rhetorical techniques that Milton used to distinguish paradox from contradiction, action from activity, and dissent from rebellion. And we'll consider the importance of this kind of thinking to political action and public life.