English 201
John Milton: Paper Topics
1. Milton is often considered, especially by beginning readers of poetry, to be a difficult poet, but even those who find him difficult sometimes find him enjoyable. Using the poems we have read by Milton as examples, discuss the relationship between understanding and enjoyment in poetry. (If your view is that Milton is completely incomprehensible and thus cannot be enjoyed on any level, you probably should choose another question to write about.) Your essay should have something substantial to say about at least one of Milton's poems.
2. Milton is often thought of as a religious poet (and the thought does indeed seem applicable to poet who claims to "justify the ways of God to men"). What seem to be the religious ideas that Milton is primarily concerned with, and what is the importance of religion in Milton's poetry?
3. Similarly, Milton is sometimes thought of as a political poet, and therefore one can also ask about the political ideas in his poetry and about their importance. In approaching the question, you might want to take a rather broad view of politics, and you might want to begin by defining what that view is.
4. Milton writes fairly often and significantly about blindness and his own blindness. What meanings does blindness have in Milton, and what is gained by his depiction of himself as blind? Discuss the relevant passages, and include a discussion of Samson's blindness in Samson Agonistes.
5. Are L'Allegro and Il Penseroso successful in creating moods and images of cheerfulness and pensiveness? What means create these moods? Consider the material Milton presents in the poems, their structures, their language, and their verse form. If we think of the pair as one poem, what conclusions do we come to about the importance of happiness and seriousness? Are we supposed to accept their apparent mutual exclusion?
6. A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle (or "Comus") is a dramatic and argumentative work. Consider the arguments between the elder and second brother and between Comus and the Lady, both as representations of intellectual positions and as statements made by dramatic characters. How does Milton resolve the two arguments, and does he resolve them in the same way?
7. Analyze one of the assigned Milton sonnets as completely as you can within the limits of a 3-5 page paper. Consider the structure of its ideas, but also its language, sound, sentence structure, verse form, allusions, and implied comparisons. How successful is it as a poem, and how does it achieve that success?
8. Compare Adam and Eve (in Book IV of Paradise Lost) to Samson and Delila. What are the important similarities and differences between the two pairs? What ideas about marriage, the relationship between men and women, sexual roles, and the relationship between human beings and God are implied by Milton's treatment of the two pairs?
9. Compare (perhaps the emphasis here should be on contrast) Satan (in Book IV of Paradise Lost) to Samson. Consider in particular their reactions to the issues of repentance and responsibility. Do they have anything positive in common? Can they be seen as positive and negative versions of the same individual?
10. Compare Milton's Samson to the biblical Samson (Judges, chs. 13-16). How are the two characters different, and how are the two works different? Does Milton seem to expect that his readers will be familiar with the biblical version of the story? What does Milton add to or subtract from the original. Do Milton's changes help to define the nature and purpose of his poem?
11. Come, come, no time for lamentation now,
Nor much more cause, Samson hath quit himself
Like Samson, and heroically hath finished
A life heroic . . . (Samson Agonistes, lines 1708-11).
Is Milton's Samson a hero? If so, wherein does his heroism lie? Does his heroism rest on
past accomplishments, or is the play about his present heroism? What is the nature of his
heroic character, and what is its relationship to his accomplishments? What is the
relationship of his heroism to his sense of divine mission?