Haunted by Unnameable Doom
Course Description
Summary
Halfway through John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, he admits to the reader in his call to the Muses that he has "fallen on evil days" and into unwelcome solitude, caught "[i]n darkness, with dangers compassed round." Milton wrote Paradise Lost under epically gnarly circumstances -- jailed and fined for backing the failed removal and execution of the King, going blind, having lost his wife and son to illness. With little left for him to do, he turned to language and story and created in God's most beloved angel, Satan, a complex anti-hero who tried to launch a revolution, an upending of outdated and unequal social systems, and a narrative structure that continues to compel readers and audiences alike to this day; think Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, or Orion and D-16 (from Transformers One, aka Optimus Prime and Megatron), Darcy and Wickham, Magneto and Professor X. Best friends turned enemies, a tale as old as time, or at least as old as 1667, when the poem was first published. We'll be reading all of Paradise Lost (so much better than its sequel, Paradise Regained) as well as other work by Milton, looking, too, at the historical context surrounding the work's creation and the various Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian narratives and themes that form its grand mythology.
Learning Outcomes
- Read and analyze John Milton's Paradise Lost
- Examine and understand historical context of the English Civil War as a backdrop to the poem's creation
- Examine and understand various mythological and religious influences, the adopted structure of epic poetry, and strong narrative thread carrying throughout the poem