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Reading Group

Seminar: Donald McDonough, The Early Milton (December 7 session)

Thursday, December 7, 2017 - 12:00 PM | For Members Only | Whitridge Room | $60 for all sessions (recommended); $15 per session | Advance registration required

Aiming to be an epic poet like Homer and Vergil, but amidst the religious and political struggles of seventeenth-century England, John Milton read his Bible, his classics, and contemporary poets. He translated psalms and classical lyrics, wrote sonnets, mirror poems, an ode, a pastoral, a masque, a closet drama, and one very bad (unfinished) Passion poem.

Before Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, his master poems dealt with temptation, religious ecstasy, the joys of learning, with grief and loss. His shorter works reveal Milton’s high poetic achievement as clearly as do his epics. In this seminar, we will begin with psalms and elegies, and move on to sonnets and more.

A reading list and copies of the items for discussion will be available for registrants to purchase.

This seminar takes place over four Thursdays:
September 28
October 19
November 16
December 7
all at 12:00 PM in the Whitridge Room.