Milton

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
  
• Convenor: Professor Sue Wiseman
• Assessment: a 1500-word coursework exercise (35%) and 3000-word essay (65%)

In this module we set the poetry and prose of John Milton in its tumultuous mid-seventeenth-century context. Our reading will be based around Milton’s great epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667), but we will also examine his shorter poetry, including his sonnets, his masque and his prose (including his famous defence of the freedom of the press, Areopagitica (1644)). What function does writing acquire in a time of revolution?

By the end of this module, you will have:

• been introduced to the writing of John Milton
• situated these texts within their historical contexts
• built on your existing experience of Renaissance writing and culture
• engaged critically with Milton’s writing
• developed skills of close reading and the capacity to locate these close readings within broad historical and critical narratives.