Dr. Yoder
English 4370.01     Milton & Blake
Fall 2008     MW 1:40-2:55pm     Stabler Hall 401

Office: Stabler Hall 501V     Office Hrs.: MWF 9:30-10:30am; also by appt.
Office Phone: 569-8321        email: rpyoder@ualr.edu       webpage: www.ualr.edu/rpyoder

Texts:
Blake, William. Blake's Poetry and Designs, 2nd ed. Edited by Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant. (Norton Critical Edition, 2008)
Milton, John. Paradise Lost Edited by Gordon Teskey. (Norton Critical Edition, 2005)

Three websites will also provide crucial resources:
The Milton Reading Room
The William Blake Archive
The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, sometimes known as the "Electronic Erdman" or "eE"

Goals:

1. Students will read major and minor works by John Milton and William Blake, considering those works both separately and intertextually.
2. Students will increase their skills in close reading and literary interpretation.
3. Students will explore Blake's response to Milton in both his writing and his painting, using the online William Blake Archive to examine Blake's own illuminated books and his illustrations to Milton's works.
4. Students will examine the impact of Blake's response to Milton on literary theory in, for example, Harold Bloom's notion of the "anxiety of influence."
5. In class discussions students will come to see the flexibility of interpretation and subjective response to literature, while still basing interpretation in the text and its historical/social context.
6. Using the Milton / Blake relationship students will develop a sense of literary history and the way that writers read and respond to the work of earlier writers.

Objectives:

1. Students will read cool stuff that will force them to question their sense of the human, the divine and the relationship between the two.
2. Students will write formally about literature as a way of recognizing that at some point the interpretive process must stop (however briefly), so that one's understanding can be assessed by others.
3. Students will write informally about literature as a way of learning that writing itself helps in the reading process.
4. Students will participate in class discussions in order to share their insights and questions, and to compare their readings with other people.
5. Students will conduct research on topics of their own choosing as a means of extending their readings and discussion to the world outside of the classroom.

Course Assessment:
This course will include an ongoing assessment of my teaching in the form of weekly
journals. These journals consist of a 250 word (minimum requirement) written response to the
class readings or discussion. These journals allow me to assess how well students are
understanding what I think I am teaching them, and I make adjustments to my class
presentations and assignments accordingly. Taken as a whole, the journals count for 15% of
the student's final grade, thus insuring that the students take this assessment seriously.
The journals also serve other classroom purposes outlined on the "House Rules" page.

Secondary Education Assessement:
See "For Secondary Education Majors" page.

Reading Schedule
House Rules
For Secondary Education Minors
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