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Milton to the Millennium Seminars
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Lecture notes of 14 pages for the course Milton to the Millenium at UU (Notes)
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Seminar Week 1 06/02/2019Restoration:
- Monarchies restored.
- Theaters reopened.
- Women were allowed to act and write plays.
- Milton wanted to become the best writer.
- Worked for government, secretary of foreign letters, before the restoration.
- Wrote pamphlets, propaganda, defending the choices the parliament mad (killing the
king).
- He went blind, he had to dictate everything out loud.
- Epic (EXAM!!)
- Invocation to a muse.
- Epic question
- Dignified language usage
- Important subject
- Great scope, lots of characters, time, space.
- Multiple digressions.
- Epic simile
- Starts in medias rest
- Written about 12 books.
Paradise Lost Book 1:
- Satan talking to his best friend, now they’re both in hell.
- God will not take his power away.
- (Satan) I’m not winning but I’m not losing either.
- Epic question:
- Milton sides with Satan (which is a problem for a religious poem).
- Why humans are born with sin (and not in the garden of eden).
- Satan caused it, because god kicked him out of heaven.
- Throughout the text Satan gets to defend his point, and he’s assigned traits that evoke
sympathy and are viewed as virtues.
Paradise Lost Book 9: line 463
- Satan is preparing to go into paradise.
- He wants to seduce eve to eat from the tree.
- He wants to destroy paradise, that gives him pleasure, he doesn’t know other forms of joy.
- Eve is approachable, pretty but not as pretty that it scares him.
Paradise Lost Book 9: line 560
- Eve says why can you talk to me —> Satan says he ate from the tree and it was delicious.
- He’s the only animal (snake) that ate from the tree because only he could reach it.
- He’s flattering her so that she won’t ask as many questions.
Paradise Lost Book 9: line 643
- He would not let you eat from the tree, because you’ll be as good as god and he won’t mind.
Seminar Week 1 08/02/2019
The imperfect enjoyment - John Wilmot:
- He’s screwed every whore in the streets and now that he’s with a girl he loves, he came
before he could satisfy her and she’s a bit disappointed.
- Iambic pentameter.
- AABBCCDD —> couplets.
- Heroic couplets: rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter.
- Elevated style.
- The epic uses couplets.
- It mocks the person who fails (himself).
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, - Metaphors:
- Elevated:
- Sperm: liquid raptures, his soul is transported to her heart through her balmy
brinks.
- Vagina: balmy brinks of bliss, cunt.
- Thunderbolt
- Angry:
- Mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey —> he wishes tuberculoses on his
penis.
- Weeping —> symptom of gonorrhoea
- He’s angry that his penis doesn’t perform, he wishes diseases on his penis as it’s
worthless now.
- He wishes for her to have someone else, someone better.
- He’s generous towards his partner, in terms of enjoyment.
- She’s not blamed for this unfortunate event.
- He wishes lots of good sex for her.
- This poem supports Libertinism, a lot of free sex.
- Corinna says you came so fast because you love me so much, but is there not a debt to pay.
- “don’t you owe me an orgasm now”.
- They try, but it doesn’t work.
- His poems are dirty and a bit weird. Corinna is the object of his love, not like the whores he
tends to screw.
Puritanism: no fun, no pleasure, very strict.
Libertinism: group that opposed calvinism (strict rules should apply to everyone on how to
behave) —> freedom from restrictive moral principles, more freedom, less judgement.
Charles II brought Libertinism to England, as he spent a lot of time in France and was heavily
influenced by it.
The disappointment - Aphra Behn:
- Anti-slavery poem.
- Aphra Behn: poet & play writer.
- Based on French poem, but modified.
- Cloris: physically interested, but she’s holding back:
- Virgin.
- Not married.
- If I have sex with you I’ll be in so much trouble afterwards, you might as well kill me —>
Stanza 3
- Unused to fear: he seems to be unused to the fear that she has, he won’t be in trouble after
sex like she would (male privilege) —> Stanza 4
- They’re going to have sex anyway.
- He’s “readying the altar for sacrifice” —> genitals.
- Short-breath-signs —> Cloris has an orgasm.
- Pleasant “half-deadness”.
- He’s lost his erection, it’s destroying his pleasure.
- He’s blaming her.
- Whose soft bewitching influence, Had Damn'd him to the Hell of Impotence.
- Elevated language.
- Libertinism doesn’t apply to male and women equally.
- Disappointment:
- He’s disappointed because he’s lost his excitement, erection.
- She’s disappointed because she hasn’t lost her virginity, he has lost his erection.
- He’s passed out from pure self-pity —> moping.
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