Class Recap 10/12

"Raphael Warns Adam and Eve," William Blake, 1807.

We began with a presentation from Katlin, who explained a critical controversy, focusing on William Empson's Milton's God and Dennis Danielson's Milton's Good Good, about the nature of Milton's God. This led to a discussion about present-day Christian beliefs about the fall and the nature of God and the afterlife. 

Next, Briana discussed Milton's epistolary tract Of Education, explaining key elements of Milton's philosophy of education. She divided the class into groups and asked each group to look at a specific passage from Of Education and find passages in Paradise Lost that expressed similar themes and images. An important idea to come out of this discussion was Raphael's role as a teacher.

The class then continued to discuss Raphael's various roles: as teacher, messenger, minister, therapist, friend, and substitute narrator. We considered the special challenge that both Raphael and Milton have: representing "to human sense th' invisible exploits / Of warring spirits" (5.565-66).

Students had selected, as requested, passages in which they saw a tension between spiritual instruction and aesthetic pleasure. We only had time to focus on one of these, 5.540-5.444, suggested by Jason. The class did a wonderful close reading/poetic analysis here, seeing how the verse embodies the emotional intensity of Raphael's teaching/warning to Adam in that moment. Ben also pointed out that the part of the beauty of the passage is in the way it brings closure to a longer speech.

Other passages we didn't have time to talk about:

Two passages were suggested that had to do with representational issues we had discussed earlier in the class period; the challenge to Raphael (and Milton) is both to instruct and to work with the human imagination. 6.909-912 (suggested by Nick) and 6.296-303 (Christy) exemplify this well.

Several students pointed to passages where some sort of doctrine or scientific information is incorporated into the action or dialogue:  5.435-440 (Josh), 6.723-732 (Jonathan), 4.877-884 (Brandon), and 6.330-333, 344-353 (Cody). This last example is interesting in that Raphael/Milton’s explanation of angelic injury interrupts the battle scene just as the wound itself interrupts Satan.
Finally, quite a few students identified passages that contained a complex intertwining of aesthetics and instruction: 4.159-171 (from Jennifer - we had a little time to discuss this one in class, remarking on the important role of both sensory imagery and simile in the passage); 5.275-279 (Ben, who noted the combination of pagan and Christian imagery; also notable about this passage is its status as a prayer and song); 7.449-504 (Jen, who pointed out that the passage combines instruction and poetic Biblical language, combining Genesis with the Song of Solomon); 8.79-99 (Sheridan); 8.500-520 (Karin; it's striking how many of these involve descriptions of nature - this one also refers to other kinds of pleasure besides aesthetic); 8.167-178 (Angela - this one is interesting in that it could be read as telling Adam to appreciate rather than to inquiry intellectually); and 9.1114-1118 (Jessica).