Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Is there a schedule for this yet?

Cynthia wrote: "Is there a schedule for this yet?"

Starts June 9. I haven't quite decided on a schedule, but probably one book a week. I'm thinking maybe of allowing a bit more time for the first book or two to give time for background, but I'm leaning toward not, since we seem to be able to cover background in the general discussion, and I think people will want to get on with the story. I also thought about less than a week per book, but there's so much richness here that I want to allow enough time to explore the poem in depth and allow time for reading the text more than once -- the first time for the general content and story, and then again for the nuances, classical allusions, Biblical references, etc. that make the story so densely packed and fascinating. This may well be the only time that some people here ever read the poem, so we should allow enough time for thoughts to develop, I think.

Anybody is welcome to share thoughts on the timing issue. At the moment, it's still a flexible question, though I'll need to make a final decision soon!

I'd vote for at least a week per book. I'm one of the troglodytes(sp) who will be reading it for the first time :(. I've only read the first book but feel completely lost. In fact I'm wondering if a thorough knowledge of the bible is necessary to understand it....and that's sure not me. On Laurel's suggestion I'm reading Lewis' 'a prefact to paradise lost' and getting a LOT out of it not just about PL but Homer and Beowulf as well.

One book as week isn't really enough - more like one book a month is necessary, although I realise that is impractical!

Cynthia: Most copies of PL have a good Glossary wherein Bible references are given. You might also find this link useful:-

http://bible.org/seriespage/paradise-...

I am sure that Laurel will give us plenty of Biblical guidance as we non-biblical scholars trundle along together:).

Everyman: As I want to concentrate on historical and political references in PL relating to the 'fall' and then restoration of the Charles II and the establishment then 'fall' of the Commonwealth etc, I wonder if there should be a separate thread for this so that I do not clutter up the story? There are also interesting references to the colonisation of America which may be of interest to those here.

Cynthia wrote: "I'd vote for at least a week per book."

I second Cynthia's request and think that maybe two weeks may be better.

Hmmmmm Mine doesn't have a glossary though it does have Blake's drawings.

Yep Laurel needs to take us to Sunday school.

I am a full time student, and for anyone who works full time and has other obligations, I believe that two weeks to a month is necessary - especially Milton - whom the English professor at my University suggested the necessity of reading aloud.

Cynthia wrote: "I've only read the first book but feel completely lost. In fact I'm wondering if a thorough knowledge of the bible is necessary to understand it."

I think a knowledge of Bible (and of classical myth and literature) certainly enriches one's appreciation of the poem, I don't think that knowledge, beyond the basic Genesis story, is necessary to get a great deal out of the poem. But I have definitely found that the more I get into the references, the richer my understanding becomes.

But fortunately we do have Laurel (and others) to explain the Biblical background and references, and Madge (and others) to give us the historical context, and Zeke (and others) to give us the philosophical nuances, and together we will come out with a much richer reading experience than any of us could reading it on our own.

And Amanda, who has volunteered to co-moderate, and I will enjoy the marvelous contributions of all these posters and many others and maybe give a nudge or ask a question here or there and then manage to take the credit for moderating a fantastic discussion. :)

Yes, Milton is challenging. But definitely yes, he is worth it!

One book a week sounds perfect. When I read this in college we took less than two weeks and skipped certain parts, so I'm looking forward to a slower and more holistic approach.

I think someone may have mentioned this already, but John Rogers's Milton lecture is available as an open course through Yale. Very rewarding if you happen to have the time or inclination.

Cynthia: Here is another useful link about the relevance of the Bible to PL:-

http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darkness...

David: Reading PL aloud is an excellent idea and will get you into the rhythm of the poetry. To get you in the mood you could download Anton Lesser's reading (Laurel's favourite I think) - a powerful extract from Part I here:-

http://www.audible.co.uk/aduk/site/pr...

Or you could listen to the great actor Ian Richardson reading these three extracts:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbOAz2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqnvWQ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tltyF...


Thomas: Several of John Rogers' Milton lectures are on Youtube:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62G9y...

I highly recommend this brief book: Milton: Paradise Lost . It is available in either Kindle or dead tree form.

Here's a brief but powerful book that is worth your time: . My mini review:
"An excellent discussion of Milton's epic. I especially appreciated the perspective on Milton's Satan and on the unfortunate nature of the Fall. I highly recommend this brief book to anyone who is reading or has read Paradise Lost." It's available for Kindle as well as in dead tree form.

Laurele wrote: "I highly recommend this brief book: Milton: Paradise Lost . It is available in either Kindle or dead tree form."

I got it whenwe first decided on PL, haven't gotten far in it yet but concur that it looks quite good.

Thanks Laurel - I've ordered it. This Yale lecture on Youtube also deals with Milton's revision of the epic tradition, his retelling of the Fall and the heresy of his concept:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62G9y...

(Love the idea of saying books are in 'dead tree form'!:O)

MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks Laurel - I've ordered it. This Yale lecture on Youtube also deals with Milton's revision of the epic tradition, his retelling of the Fall and the heresy of his concept:-

http://www.youtube..."

Those Milton lectures by Roberts are fabulous. I highly recommend them to everybody. The full set, with the syllabus, class handouts, assignments, and transcripts of the lectures can be found here:
http://academicearth.org/courses/milton

The insights from this lecture 9 on Book 1 are fascinating in Milton's poetic style (his is the first poem written in English that didn't rhyme, which was a major issue for his first readers) to his further violations of traditional poetic form to his rather challenging theology of the creation of the earth and the form of angels to ... but listen to it yourselves!

The only thing missing from a complete Yale course education for free is taking the exams and getting to stop in at the professor's office. Otherwise, you're there in the classroom.

While it's not totally relevant to this discussion group, you can get the whole list of free Yale courses from this link:
http://oyc.yale.edu/
I'm especially looking forward to finding time for the course on Introduction to Ancient Greek History, to fill in a lot of gaps that my somewhat eclectic reading habits have left.

P.S.: Re the Milton course, be sure to check out the final exam. How do you think you would do on this exam? (Personally, I think I would be lucky to get 25 points out of a hundred.)

Everyman wrote: "I'm especially looking forward to finding time for the course on Introduction to Ancient Greek History, to fill in a lot of gaps that my somewhat eclectic reading habits have left. "

I've been downloading these lectures to my iPod and listening to them when I get the chance. Kagan is an authority on the Peloponnesian War, so his focus tends to be on things military. Reading the assigned textbook (which is quite good) helps fill in the blanks.

And it looks like success on the Milton exam assumes you've read all the supplementary material as well. But don't worry, I think at Yale they grade on a curve.

Haha, nice Thomas - Ok - did we figure out a timeline? I'm pushing for two weeks or three. Please correct me if it has already been decided :)
Happy Trails!

David wrote: "Haha, nice Thomas - Ok - did we figure out a timeline? I'm pushing for two weeks or three. Please correct me if it has already been decided :)
Happy Trails!"

No, it hasn't been finally decided. I worry that if we take too long, we'll lose people. But if we go too quickly, we lose the chance to go into real depth.

I'm certainly going to allow at least one week per book. That would be twelve weeks, or three months, for the whole poem. How much longer than three months do people think that we can sustain a rich discussion without losing people?

Oh - I get it.... it is 8 books - I apologize - I thought you meant one week for all 8 sections. Haha. One week per book sounds very reasonable. I misunderstood what was being suggested. Next time I will read the post more closely.

David wrote: "Oh - I get it.... it is 8 books - I apologize - I thought you meant one week for all 8 sections. Haha. One week per book sounds very reasonable. I misunderstood what was being suggested. Next time ..."

Uh, 12 books.

All of PL in one week? Heck, this group couldn't even resolve a discussion of what to eat for dinner in just one week!

I think one week per book would be just right.

I came across an interesting piece of Milton trivia while listening to public radio's show Radio Lab. According to a Toronto professor who studies computer generated concordances of authors' outputs, Milton never used the word "because" in his poetry.

Sorry.

Zeke wrote: "Sorry."

Why?

LOL. I wrote a post. Discovered I was wrong. Tried to delete it with the edit feature and discovered I had to have at least one character.

Now if you were a therapist, I could give a substantially longer answer. ;)

Zeke wrote: "LOL. I wrote a post. Discovered I was wrong. Tried to delete it with the edit feature and discovered I had to have at least one character.

Now if you were a therapist, I could give a substantially..."

You were supposed to say, "Because."

Listening to the Yale lecture on Areopgitica the professor quotes a passage:

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

I found this remarkable because it foreshadows what Emerson will be saying two hundred years later.

Its also something to keep in mind as we read PL. My sense is that Milton is a very confident and didactic narrator, but not an entirely reliable one. But I will save that for later.

'There is nothing new under the sun' and all that - what Milton wrote had been written by the Greeks when they were writing about 'truth'. Milton was indeed didactic and I think he intended to be so. (I see that 'the transformation of his famously sonorous verse into a more didactic mode' is discussed in No 19 of the Yale Lectures.)

Hesiod was known as the father of Greek didactic poetry and he influenced many major poets. Milton refers to lines from Hesiod's epic Theogony in several parts of PL and of course The Iliad, by Homer, also quoted in PL, was a didactic epic.

I'll throw in another quotation about the nature of Truth from the same lecture and the same Treatise.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on. But when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, [the wicked deceivers:] took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them....

We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming. He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

Not to argue against myself, but it strikes me that these are actually rather open minded assertions. And, from the lecture, I learned that the argument was decidedly anti-institutional. Still, it seems pretty remarkable to me that here, in the mid seventeenth century, and long before the Enlightenment, we have someone saying:

1. The only Truth that matters(indeed is "non-heretical" must originate in personal conviction independently arrived at.

2. There are multiple truths and no human can be sure that his/her truth is any truer than someone else's.

Zeke wrote: "I'll throw in another quotation about the nature of Truth from the same lecture and the same Treatise."

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of Milton, but I'll reserve substantive discussion of the issues until we get into the book discussion. This thread was primarily for process issues.

I know. And I'm not sure I even HAVE an interpretation about Milton. Eager for the real discussion to begin, and I just wanted to "document" what seemed like significant statements from another work.

What's really exciting for me is that two weeks ago I knew nothing about Milton except that he was blind and that the quotations from his work posted in other discussions were awesome.

Zeke wrote: "What's really exciting for me is that two weeks ago I knew nothing about Milton except that he was blind and that the quotations from his work posted in other discussions were awesome. "

Fascinating. I would never have guessed you for a Milton virgin. :)

I wonder how many others there are who are coming at Milton for the first time.

The words of Keats's experience with Chapman's Homer will probably apply to you:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.


http://www.bartleby.com/101/634.html

<-----------Milton Virgin here

Tom wrote: "<-----------Milton Virgin here"

This is going to be fun!

I hope y'all have your fig leaves at the ready, for you are about to taste the 'sacred fruit' of the tree of knowledge!:D.

MadgeUK wrote: "I hope y'all have your fig leaves at the ready, for you are about to taste the 'sacred fruit' of the tree of knowledge!:D."

Fig leaves at 40 paces, eh?

If you prefer to listen to your books, you might find it useful to know that Librivox have Paradise lost in their catalogue http://librivox.org/paradise-lost-by-...

you might also find this useful http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20