Milton Among the Romans: The Pedagogy and Influence of Milton's Latin CurriculumIn the 1640s, John Milton led a group of students through an extensive curriculum of ancient Latin authors. Together, they read works by ten Roman authors, including the four major agricultural writers (Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius), the naturalist Pliny, the architect Vitruvius, and the epic poets Lucretius and Manilius. While scholars have long known about Milton's academy, no one, until now, has undertaken to thoroughly examine the implications of its curriculum for our understanding of Milton's poetry. Here, Richard J. DuRocher provides the first such scholarly study of Milton's Latin tutorial. DuRocher's analysis works on at least two levels. First, this study establishes the pedagogical innovation of the curriculum itself. DuRocher argues that Milton's choice of the Roman texts indicated his emphasis on teaching practical skills, such as how to raise crops or build dwellings. However, at the same time, Milton followed the Romans in subordinating technical training to an encompassing moral vision, most notably of respect for the living Earth. Moreover, Milton's curriculum supported his twin educational aims as set forth in Of Education: to prepare students for lives of public service, and to lead them to knowledge of the divine by "orderly conning over" discreet elements of Creation. Second, Milton Among the Romans uncovers fresh sources and contexts for passages--many of them crucial ones--in Milton's own writings. For example, Roman agricultural manuals illuminate Milton's baffling depiction of the undying heavenly flora, "immortal Amaranth," in Paradise Lost. Reading Vitruvius may account for the surprisingly positive architectural features of the demonic temple, Pandemonium. Astrological metaphors drawn from Manilius's neglected epic, the Astronomica, provide heavenly precedents for both divorce in Milton's divorce tracts and for the mysterious spiritual marriage of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost. Drawing upon this previously unexamined evidence from Milton's classical curriculum, Milton Among the Romans takes a genuinely new approach to Milton as a teacher, scholar, and poet. |
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Page 34
... Rome . Satan in Paradise Regained shows the Son a panorama of imperial Rome : [ T ] here the Capitol thou seest , Above the rest lifting his stately head On the Tarpeian rock , her citadel Impregnable , and there Mount Palatine Th ...
... Rome . Satan in Paradise Regained shows the Son a panorama of imperial Rome : [ T ] here the Capitol thou seest , Above the rest lifting his stately head On the Tarpeian rock , her citadel Impregnable , and there Mount Palatine Th ...
Page 154
... Rome that takes place in the fourth book of Paradise Regained ( “ Classical , " 409 ) . While she points out that it is the empire and not the republic that is being de- nounced and that it is not Milton but a literary character ( al ...
... Rome that takes place in the fourth book of Paradise Regained ( “ Classical , " 409 ) . While she points out that it is the empire and not the republic that is being de- nounced and that it is not Milton but a literary character ( al ...
Page 156
... Rome under Tiberius . Only those who practice self - rule can oppose the corruption of the current regime , Milton indicates . For those few , training in the art of civility is essential , and the old Romans , who still speak to ...
... Rome under Tiberius . Only those who practice self - rule can oppose the corruption of the current regime , Milton indicates . For those few , training in the art of civility is essential , and the old Romans , who still speak to ...
Contents
Reading the Romans | 1 |
ONE Conning the Creature | 35 |
Two Careful Plowing | 54 |
Copyright | |
2 other sections not shown
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