English 2283.X1 - Fall 2020

T, Th: 4:30 - 6:00 PM
Room: BAC 207
Professor: Richard Cunningham
"Office" Hours: M, W 3:30 - 4:30^*, or by app't

( ^*'"Office" Hours' rather than 'Office Hours' because any contact between us will be mediated through MS Teams, email, or telephones.)

Acknowledgement of Traditional Territory:

We are in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognized Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations.

Accessible Learning Services Blurb

If you are a student with documentation for accommodations or if you anticipate needing supports or accommodations, please contact Ian Ford, Accessibility Resource Facilitator at 902-585-1520, disability.access@acadiau.ca or Marissa McIsaac, Manager, disability.access@acadiau.ca. Accessible Learning Services is located in Rhodes Hall, rooms 111-115.

The Acadia Writing Centre

(Could also be called "your best friend" if your plan is to get good grades by writing well.)

The Writing Centre offers free help to students wanting to improve their writing skills. You can sign up online today:

· To book a one-to-one appointment with a trained writing tutor, click here: writingcentre.acadiau.ca/writing-tutorials.html

· To see which helpful presentations and workshops you’ll want to attend this year, click here: writingcentre.acadiau.ca/workshops-and-presentations.html

Course Description

This is a course devoted to the 1674 edition of John Milton's Christian epic, Paradise Lost.

The course is designed to allow us to shift to an online model if we need to do so. That said, your attendance in every class is required, and this is reflected in the grading scheme. In the event we are required to abandon the classroom, attendance grades will be based on that portion of the term we shared prior to being forced out. [So don't miss any classes unless you absolutely must.]

You may want to have your computer with you in every class so you can move independently through your classmates comments. On this, see Commentaries, below.

You must turn your phone off and put it away during class. This is the professor's rule. The professor assigns your grade for this course. You do not want to generate animosity between you and the person who assigns your grade.

Course Texts

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Hackett Publishing: 2003.

The Oxford English Dictionary, a.k.a. the OED.

To access the OED from off-campus, you'll need to install the Acadia University VPN.

Supplemental

Ramm, Benjamin. "Why You Should Re-Read Paradise Lost." BBC Culture, April 19, 2017.

"Sympathy for the devil: Milton's Satan as political rebel," CBC Radio, Ideas, Mar 13, 2020.

"Milton's Paradise Lost: a survival guide for a fractured world," CBC Radio, Ideas, Apr 20, 2020.

Grading

Attendance:
  Required. Each student should expect to be called on to speak during every class period.

Commentaries:
  As for the comments: Generally . . .

1. Your written comments are due on Sunday, for Tuesday classes, and by 10:00 AM on Wednesday for Thursday classes.
2. In class, you will be called on to orally paraphrase, expand upon, or riff off of your written comments. In no circumstances should you merely read in class what you've already posted for us to read ourselves.


3. Once the basics of who and where have been addressed, then you might turn your attention to more thematic issues or to more literary qualities.
4. Remember that more than half your grade is dependent on this assignment. Submitting your written comments on time and being present in class to comment on the poem are both significant components of this assignment.

  And specifically . . .

How to make comments:

• Start by skimming down this page to find the lines on which you are expected to comment.
• Read the entire book, in your course text (the Hughes edition, hopefully).
• Read and study the examples I’ve provided for the first seven groups of lines. Use them as examples for your own responses.
• Compose your comment in the space beneath your name.
• ATTENTION: you’ll be expected to paraphrase your comment in class. You ARE NOT permitted to read your comment to the rest of us. Your grade for commenting will be based on a rough apportionment of half for the written comment and half for what you say in class. Failure to significantly differ one from the other will lead to a low overall grade.

• Comments must inform your reader who is speaking and to whom they are speaking in the section of poem on which you are commenting; and they must also contribute something to our understanding of the passage under examination.
• Comments might make connections to things outside the poem (you might explain classical or biblical references, for example, or suggest that the passage reminds you of something else you have read or experienced [don't get too far from what's accessible to the rest of us, though).
• Comments might make connections to other parts of the poem (this is likely to happen more often in the latter parts of the poem [when you can look back with familiarity] than in the earlier parts).
• Comments might question anything that is unclear (either to you personally, or more generally).
• And of course comments can offer any relevant thought(s) that enlightens.

Final Arguments:

  Answer all questions. In every answer, include quotations from the poem. All questions must be answered or the assignment mark will be zero. Each question will count as much as all others toward your mark.
  No submissions longer than seven pages will be graded. Use 12-point Times New Roman font, and margins on all four sides of 2.5cm.

1. The thesis of Paradise Lost is an attempt to “justify the ways of God to men.” Argue that the poem succeeds.
2. The thesis of Paradise Lost is an attempt to “justify the ways of God to men.” Argue that the poem fails.


3. Argue in favour of the assertion that Eve is most culpable for humanity’s Fall in Paradise Lost.
4. Argue against the assertion that Eve is most culpable for humanity’s Fall in Paradise Lost.


5. Argue that God can foreknow and humans can have free will.
6. Argue that if God foreknows, humanity does not have free will.


7. What did you learn from reading Paradise Lost?