En 133

‘Paradise Lost’

Autumn 2022

Prof. Kristine Haugen

Alert students will have noticed that this course is marked “pending approval” in the catalogue. Actually, all new courses are marked “pending approval” if they’re being taught in the fall, because our formal approval process will be finished only in mid-June. But not to worry, the class will definitely go forward.

As the material for this course, we spend the term reading just one book: John Milton’s epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ (1668), which many people including me regard as the best poem ever written in English.

We think it’s so good despite a myriad of problems with this story, in the eyes of the 21st century.

So, among other things, this course is a learning experience for you in grappling with viewpoints very different from our own.

Each week, we will read between 15 and 20 pages of poetry. Milton is harder than reading, say, a 19th- or 20th-century novel, but he’s much easier than Shakespeare.

Any other supplementary readings will be handouts that you’ll read and discuss in class.

There will also be a weekly 1- to 2-page homework, required discussion posts on Canvas, and required class discussion participation. On the other hand, there are no long papers or final or midterm projects in the course.

The single course book, of which you’ll need to buy a paper copy, is John Milton, ‘Paradise Lost,’ ed. David Scott Kastan, 3rd edition (Hackett, 2005), link to Amazon page here. On the morning of May 19, Amazon was charging $13.00, but now that a few students have apparently bought out those copies, you can either buy one for a slightly higher price from a 3rd-party seller or just wait until later.

Please do not buy a Kindle, which Caltech students historically and even very recently have found much harder to work with.

I don’t know whether I’ll still be applying my pandemic grading policy—which is that everyone gets an A for fulfilling the basic requirements of the course—but if students are still wearing masks and living under restrictions on the campus, then I definitely will.

My catalogue description for this class reads:

We will spend the term studying the famous and eccentric epic poem 'Paradise Lost' (1674) by the British poet and politician John Milton.  Each week we will read about 1,000 to 1,500 lines of difficult but beautiful poetry, looking especially for its visual images, literary and mythological references, and poetic sounds, as well as Milton's copious and paradoxical philosophical stances.  You will never forget the central character of Satan, the parliament of devils in Hell, the theological conversations in Heaven between God and Jesus, Eve being tempted by diabolical arguments to eat the forbidden fruit, and Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden at the point of an avenging angel's sword.

I can go into more details of the objectionable parts of the poem if you email me personally (haugen@caltech.edu). I will add my answers to this syllabus document.

But basically, the aim of the story is to imaginatively retell the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in order to “justify the ways of God to man”—that is, to prove that all of the evils and difficulties of human life are, not God’s malicious decisions, but our own fault for Adam and Eve’s eating the forbidden fruit.

That’s an especially maddening message when Milton goes to so much trouble to make Satan into a brilliant, interesting, and persuasive character.

One answer to the book’s problems—which also include Milton’s insistence that Eve was inferior to Adam because women are driven by emotion rather than reason—is to recognize that Milton’s arguments were also controversial during his own time. In fact, the entire history of Christianity is a history of debates and controversies! We will discuss this much more during the class.

But, fundamentally, the point of the class is to let you read some truly outstanding poetry that has stood the test of time. I regularly meet adults outside the university world who love ‘Paradise Lost’ and are eager to talk about it with me!

Again, please contact me (haugen@caltech.edu) if you have more specific questions.