John Milton ● ● Education and Career ● Marriage and Family

Milton Continued ● Studied and taught at Cambridge ● Self study ● Three marriages and four daughters (one who died in infancy) ● Free speech, church reform, divorce, and divine rights of kings ● Blind ● Religious and ethical convictions ● Works: “Areopagitica,” “On the Tenure of Magistrates,” Paradise Regained,” “Samson Agonistes”

The History ● The Age of Rationalism: ● Humanism ● Neoclassicism ● Science ● Literature Galileo

The Age of Rationalism ● Challenge of tradition, folk wisdom, and unscientific beliefs ● Detachment of philosophy from theology ● Reason: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus ● Between Renaissance philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment

Humanism ● Sir Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus ● Individuality and creativity ● Importance of human beings ● Purification and utopia

Neoclassicism ● Greek and Roman authors ● Balance of style and subject matter ● Imitation of Virgil and Homer The Death of Socrates [1787] - Jacques-Louis David

Science ● Issac Newton: nature of gravity and motion of the planets ● Edmund Halley: heavenly bodies ● Invention of syringe, air pump, mercury thermometer, cotton gin... ● Notable Philosophers: Thomas Hobbes, Blaise Pascal, John Locke, Galileo

Literature ● Daniel Defoe: The Journal of the Plague Years and Robinson Crusoe ● Molière: The Misanthrope ● Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels ● Voltaire: Candide Voltaire

The Poem ● Epic ● Blank verse ● 10 books redivided into 12 ● Imagery ● Enjambment ● Anastrophe

Epic Conventions Review ● Invocation of Muse ● In medias res ● Hero ● Vast Setting ● Courage ● Elevated style ● Supernatural forces ● “Objective” narration “Aeneas Wounded” Roman painting from Pompeii

Some Themes ● God and Free Will ● Marriage ● Idolatry ● Pride ● Revenge Deceit ● Loyalty ● Disobedience ● Vanity ● Hope ● Redemption ● Repentance ● Infidelity ● Volition

Characters ● God the Father, God the Son ● Satan ● Adam and Eve ● Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel ● Beelzebub, Mammon, Belial, Moloch ● Ithuriel and Zephron ● Mulciber ● Sin ● Death ● Various angels and devils

Your Job ● Read the assigned excerpts of Paradise Lost carefully. ● Use the linguistic and figurative elements of the poem to formulate an argument about a theme or various themes which the poem addresses. ● Compare and contrast this argument with the arguments your have previously established through your readings of the Aeneid, the Inferno, and “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” ● Don't stray too far from the theme of this unit: images of paradise and the underworld.