Spring 2024

Prof. Thomas Austenfeld

Seminar: Milton in America

Last updated April 18, 2024

Description: This is a history-of-ideas class. John Milton never set foot on American soil…but what if he had? Peter Ackroyd’s novel, Milton in America (1986), imagines precisely this scenario and sees Milton becoming the leader of a Puritan colony. However, perhaps Milton did not even need to be physically present: his ideas, mediated through the Puritans, profoundly shaped American attitudes towards life and religion as well as the plots and preoccupations of American literary texts. It is difficult to imagine Hawthorne, Melville, or Robert Lowell—or even the American Revolution and American attitudes towards such contentious topics as regicide or divorce--without the background of Milton’s thought. Let’s look behind some putatively “American” assumptions and learn about their Miltonic provenance. This seminar can and should be fruitfully combined with Prof. Schindler’s lecture on Milton in the Early Modern English Literature module.

House Rules: Active class participation and occasional class leadership, as assigned, are expected and will find their way into the final grade. You must register separately for the paper associated with this proseminar. You may miss two meetings without excuse if it’s necessary, but additional absences must be explained and documented.

Key texts:

Peter Ackroyd, Milton in America (will be provided to you on MOODLE, to be read in excerpts)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” (provided)

Mark Twain, “Eve’s Diary, Translated from the Original”

Robert Lowell, “Benito Cereno.” “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket” and “Skunk Hour” (provided)

John Milton, “Lycidas,” “When I consider how my light is spent,” “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont,” Paradise Lost Books 1, 4, and 9 in excerpts; possibly sections from Areopagitica.

Robert Frost, “Never Again Would Birds’ Song be the Same”

Critical articles on the presence of Milton in American Literature by Greg Semenza, Stephanie Burt, Saskia Hamilton, and others.

Any reliable edition of the works of John Milton will be acceptable. The Norton Anthology of English Literature contains all the relevant texts. The remainder will be provided to you on MOODLE.

February 20	Introduction
February 27	Ackroyd, excerpts: 3-20, 97-118, 173-187, 231-237
March 5	Ackroyd continued And: Greg Semenza, “Temptations in the Wilderness: Freedom and Tyranny in Peter Ackroyd’s Milton in America”
March 12	Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” and Mark Twain, “Eve’s Diary. Translated from the Original”
March 19	Milton, “On the Late Massacre”; Lowell, “Children of Light”; Wanda Coleman, “American Sonnet 10” And: Stephanie Burt, “Rebellious Authority: Robert Lowell and Milton at Mid-Century” I recommend attending Prof. Schindler’s lecture tomorrow morning!
March 26	Paradise Lost Books I, III, and IV (excerpts!) PL Book One: “The Verse,” “The Argument,” lines 1-18, 83-125, 254-263 PL Book Three: lines 80-134 PL Book Four: lines 73-92, 358-511, 737-776 And: “Greta Gerwig’s Paradise Lost” by Orlando Reade
April 2	EASTER HOLIDAY
April 9	Critical essays and poems: Edward Simon, “What’s So ‘American’ about Milton’s Lucifer?”, in Atlantic, 2017 Robert Lowell, 3 pages from “Art and Evil” Lowell, “Rebellion” Lowell, “Anne Dick 1. 1936” Lowell, “Skunk Hour”
April 16	Paradise Lost IX (entire text) Special responsibilities: Elisa -178, Loic -318, Antigoni -472, Sihem -630, Muriel -779, Zahra -916, Dario -1066
April 23	1. David Urban, “John Milton on liberty, license, and virtuous self-government” (Sihem & Zahra) 2. Matthew Biberman on “Milton, Marriage, and a Woman's Right to Divorce” (Elisa) 3. Melissa Jenkins on "’The Poets Are with Us’: Frederick Douglass and John Milton” (Dario & Muriel)
April 30	Continued—Miltonic Echoes in American Culture
May 7	Lowell continued Saskia Hamilton, “Oh No”/“Yes Yes”: Lowell and the Making of Mistakes, in Robert Lowell in a New Century, ed. Thomas Austenfeld (2019) (Loic & Antigone)
May 14	Writing Workshop: Planning Seminar Papers
May 21	NO CLASS: Conference Absence
May 28	TBA