Carmen Thorley--Final Research Paper

Posted on Google Drive!
Thank goodness this is done, right? Right? Ha.

Comparison of Milton's Portrayals of Eve and Dalila and so forth...

xoxo--carmen

John Milton as a Proto-Feminist Through the Heroization of Eve

Here's the link to my paper! https://docs.google.com/document/d/14L-lGfqynSR8vXS8hazW1OxcdMna4aLoKs4TL-JKQwQ/edit?usp=sharing

Sorry if the formatting is funny-I pasted from my Word document. I kind of changed my focus/thesis yesterday after talking with Dr. Johnson.

Final Milton Paper

First! Good luck with finals everyone!

The Dangers of Extreme Individualism in the Pursuit of Freedom

Library Adventures

        Hey, so here I am sifting through our posts to find any last minute nuggets for my paper, and I realize I didn't even post about my library visit.
        All cards on the table: I have never checked a book out of the HBLL in my life. (Also, I'm practically a senior) It's always been terrifying to me! There is just so much in there. So I moseyed on through the entire place (Unfortunately, I had gone when the help desks were closed for devotional). I moved some of those fun automatic shelves and eventually got up to the fifth floor where I found myself in the 17th-18th English Literature section that was just full of Milton goods.
        TONS of essays and criticism on Milton. I found most of the stuff I needed within the Milton Studies volumes that are published every once in a while with new essays on Milton and his works. There were fifty volumes of these, so I absolutely found what I needed, including:

--"Multiple Perspectives in Samson Agonistes: Critical Attitudes Toward Dalila"
--"Kinship and the Role of Women in Paradise Lost"
--"Milton on Women--Yet Once More"
--"Milton's Eve"

        I also found a copy of "Threshold Poetics" that I had thought would be useful when I came across a sample of it online. Turned out to not be what I needed though.
        But it was great to see real books again. I know that sounds silly, and it's probably a bit late for me to be singing praises to the library, but it's just incredible how quickly I found what I needed (once I discovered where it was located) as opposed to all the dead ends I came across online.
        Until tomorrow, my friends.

Social Proof Update!

So this was my email to Professor Insalaco and here is her response.

Elise,

Erasmus is a very good place to start, especially his work on the Praise of Folly. He employs a lot of classical allusions in that piece, as well as some allusions to the comedia del arte that was popular in the Italian middle ages and Renaissance. The mixing of those two tends also leads one to think of the passion plays that were also popular at that time. So, Erasmus definitely relies on both the Bible and the mythological tradition in his writing, using it to defend the Church.

I would also look at Montaigne's Essays. Although he leans more heavily on Classical models, he also combines Biblical and Classical references. He is interesting because his education was almost entirely humanistic, with little influence of the Church, which was rare at that time in France. So, he is at one extreme of the spectrum.

Another author is Thomas More and his Utopia. Many of the practices of the Utopian society can be seen in the Spartans of Greece. Again, his allusions are mainly Classical, but the story is being retold by Raphael Hythloday, so there are overtones of Christianity in his work. However, the Utopian society's religion, or lack thereof, is certainly far from Christianity. Although More's work is more Classical than Christian, More himself was a devout defender of the faith.

I would also look at some of the art at the time. Michelangelo's paintings of the Sistine Chapel are very interesting since they combine Classical and Biblical allusions simultaneously. He paints Sibyls next to Biblical prophets on the pendants of the ceiling. Moreover, Michelangelo paints many of his figures like Greek and Roman gods and goddesses in ancient statues. Also in the Vatican is a famous painting of the School of Athens by Raphael. Here there are no Biblical references, only pagan philosophers engaged in teaching and learning. Interesting that this painting appears in a chapel in the Vatican where Christian theologians were teaching, learning, studying and influencing Christian doctrine.

This topic is complex since there are no cut or dry answers. These artists and authors were mainly devout Christians who had studied the Classics and appreciated the ancient ideas. They also realized that art and literature have languages all their own. Much of that artistic language uses pagan symbols to convey ideas, even if they are Christian ideas.

Offhand I cannot think of anyone who is an authority on that subject, but a good place to start would actually be C.S. Lewis. His scholarly works cover the time period that you are talking about and he himself was a Christian dealing with the pagan tradition. I know that Bruce Young in the English department has done a lot of work on C.S. Lewis and Christian themes in English literature in general. I would contact him as well.

Good luck!

Sister Insalaco

And a second email a little bit later...

Elise,

I just looked at my copy of the Praise of Folly, and I found some authors who are experts on humanism during that time period. I would research the writings of Robert M. Adams as well as Paul Oskar Kristeller. Mikhail Bakhtin may also have some research on your topic as well.

Hope that helps!

Sister Insalaco

Not all of this will work into my paper as I'm focusing on Milton but having ideas and examples from other people will definitely help to back my argument!

Professor Kerr is My Hero

I must admit I've been a bit pokey about getting my social proof for this paper. However, I recently heard back from Professor Kerr and his suggestions and thoughts were immensely helpful. I'd expressed my difficulties in finding secondary sources for my topic, as asked for his view on Christ's character in Paradise Regained. He responded:

For a thoughtful take on desire with respect to Paradise Regained, look at the Milton chapter in Ryan Netzley's Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist in Early Modern Religious Poetry. It's fairly theoretical, but quite good--and at minimum it should point you to other useful sources. 

As regards the Son in PR, I tend to think of him as the site of a complex meditation on the conditions of human freedom. Depth of character is not an analytic category to which I've given much thought with regard to this poem (which is not to say that doing so would be unworthwhile for you).

The book he mentioned isn't available at the library, but I found some excerpts on Google Books that were pertinent to my subject. Netzley writes, "In Milton's paradisal sinless Eucharist, the emphasis falls on desire, but not an achieved redemption or one forever repeatable ritual." I think this means that Milton intended the sacrament, and by extension other aspects of spirituality in the book, to be an act that could sate spiritual hunger. In addition, the phrase "achieved redemption" made me stop and think.

 I've been assuming that the characters I'm writing about all want redemption in their own way, and while I don't entirely agree with Netzley's assertion on this point I do see how the term is a little broad. Satan doesn't want redemption, he wants a kind of revenge. Christ has no need for it, and while Samson is placed in the text as a redemptive character he really yearns for forgiveness. I'm quite obviously still working it through, but Netzley's text has given me a few ideas for where to take my paper in its conclusion, as well as providing me with some excellent sources. So thank you Professor Kerr, I'd be lost without you.  

Publication/Presentation Venues for John Milton

I've been looking into various presentation venues for my research on John Milton's Satan figure, and I've found a few outlets that look like they could be really positive:

Milton Society of America General Session on John Milton — MLA Conference 2014

This is an open call for papers on all topics pertaining to John Milton. They are looking for papers of eight-page or twenty-minutes, which is a tad bit short of what we're working toward, but I could definitely shorten it down for the submission. Papers are due by March 15, 2013.

Fall Stories Conference — 18th-19th June 2014
This conference, hosted at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, addresses the Fall from an interdisciplinary perspective and invites submissions from a broad range of disciplines. The location will likely preclude my personal participation, but they might be willing to facilitate a digital presentation. I still hope to submit in any case. The submission deadline is listed as March 31, 2013, but I'm checking to see if the year is a typo.

British Society for Literature and Science Conference — April 10-12, 2014
This conference, held at the University of Surrey, accepts papers addressing all aspects of literature and science, and while it's kind of a vague outlet for my research, it still might be a good venue. It looks like it has accepted a number of papers on Milton in the past, so my hope would be that it would this time as well. The only problem is that the submission deadline is this Friday, the 6th, so I would need to get a proposal together by then. Not sure whether that will be possible, what with research papers and everything else going on.

**UPDATE** 12/6/2013
I just submitted my project proposal for the BSLS Conference. It was kind of rushed because of time constraints, but in any case, here it is:

It has often been argued among Miltonic scholars that Paradise Lost's Satan figure represents the most dynamic character in the epic and in some sense thus fills the role of the “hero.” A great deal of debate has, of course, erupted over the notion of the Judeo-Christian devil as a hero, a complex, contemplative character deserving at times the reader's sympathy. And if, as some have suggested, Milton's Satan is just Satan—simply a reinterpretation of and creative expansion upon the Biblical or archetypal figure—then certainly Milton has done the reader a great disservice in spending nigh on one third of the epic investigating a fiendish brute from whom man can learn nothing. The reality is, however, that Satan's complexity and dynamicity lend to his character a degree of humanity that ultimately allows the reader to see his own condition within Satan's experiences—struggles which in many ways parallel and build upon the struggles of Adam and Eve following their expulsion from Eden. In this paper, I argue for the 'humanity' of Milton's Satan figure. Although Milton draws upon strong religious and archetypal currents in crafting his Satan figure in Paradise Lost, truly understanding the arch-fiend's character (and thus, the epic as a whole) requires that the reader decouple Satan's character from that of the archetypal Biblical adversary and view him instead as a representation of one of the graduated stages of mankind's fallen condition.

There were a bunch whose deadlines had already passed, but otherwise, that's all that I've found for now. Hopefully the weekend will provide me with some more time to look into this more.