John Milton’s Vision
December 17, 2008
Theo Hobson has posted his reflections on the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth on the Open Democracy web site.
Celebrate Milton’s 400th With a Visit to the Milton Reading Room
December 8, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article recommending a visit to Thomas Luxon’s Milton Reading Room. The story also has a link to a recent Chronicle article on marathon readings of Paradise Lost.
Be sure to stop by the Milton Reading Room if you haven’t – it’s a great resource!
Milton in America
December 8, 2008
Announcing a special issue of University of Toronto Quarterly
Milton in America, edited by Paul Stevens and Patricia Simmons, offers a series of fresh new perspectives on the presence of Milton in American literature and culture. It seeks to investigate and complicate the received wisdom implicit in the old claim that ‘Milton is more emphatically American than any author who has lived in the United States.’ This important collection of seven new essays by leading international scholars from Britain, Canada, and the United States offers insight into both the ways Milton was re-shaped by his reception into American culture and, conversely, the ways the great poet’s writings often stimulated opposition to conventional American norms.
Articles:
Milton in America: Introduction
Paul Stevens
Cold War Milton
Sharon Achinstein
Milton among the Pragmatists
David Hawkes
Un-American Milton
Christopher Kendrick
Milton and the Pursuit of Happiness
Catherine Gimelli Martin
Liberty Before and After Liberalism: Milton’s Shifting Politics and the Current Crisis in Liberal Theory
Feisal G. Mohamed
Contemporary Ancestors of de Bry, Hobbes, and Milton
Mary Nyquist
Limited quantities available Order via e-mail your copy of UTQ 77.3, Milton in America, today! Also available ONLINE now!
University of Toronto Quarterly
Acclaimed as one of the finest journals focused on the humanities, University of Toronto Quarterly is filled with serious, probing, and vigorously researched articles spanning a wide range of subjects in the humanities. Often the best insights in one field of knowledge come through cross-fertilization, where authors can apply another discipline’s ideas, concepts, and paradigms to their own disciplines. UTQ is not a journal where one philosopher speaks to another, but a place where a philosopher can speak to specialists and general readers in many other fields. This interdisciplinary approach provides a depth and quality to the journal that attracts both general readers and specialists from across the humanities.
Discover Canada’s best-kept literary secret!
Since 1936, University of Toronto Quarterly has devoted an entire issue to Letters in Canada. This annual winter issue of UTQ offers probing evaluations of work by Canadian scholars and by international scholars on Canadian issues. Not restricted by language, reviews include coverage of the year’s creative work by both established and emerging writers in poetry, fiction, drama, and translation, in both English and French. In recent years, the Letters in Canada issue has encompassed over 650 pages and featured the work of more than 200 reviewers, whose informed and thoughtful reviews provide an extensive record of current research in the humanities in Canada. The coverage is complemented with notice of work published internationally on Canadian literature, history, politics, culture, and the arts.
Milton’s 400th at Sewanee
December 8, 2008
Kemmer Anderson writes of a celebration at The University of the South:
2:00 PM CST — December 9, A reading of “On the Morning of Christ’s
Nativity” in All Saints Chapel… Lecture follows later.
Milton 400 in Middletown, CT
December 8, 2008
Susan Allison writes of Quatercentenary celebrations in Connecticut:
John Milton Birthday Celebration – Friedberg Talk
Harris Friedberg: John Milton – Revolutionary Poet
Date: Monday, December 08, 2008
Time: 08:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Location: Usdan University Center 110
Sponsor: Sponsored by the Wesleyan Dean of the Arts and Humanities, Friends of the Wesleyan Library, and the Buttonwood Tree
John Basinger: A Recitation from memory of Books I and II of Paradise Lost Book I: 11:00 – 12:15 | Light Lunch 12:15 – 12:45 | Book II: 12:45 – 2:00 Feel free to bring a copy of Paradise Lost and follow along!
Date: Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Time: 11:00 AM – 02:00 PM
Location: Russell House – Russell House Neumann Lounge
Sponsor: Sponsored by the Wesleyan Dean of the Arts and Humanities, Friends of the Wesleyan Library, and the Buttonwood Tree
John Milton Birthday Celebration – Olin Open House
Open House: Rare Editions of Paradise Lost in Wesleyans Special Collections & Archives and John Basinger: Informal Comments on the Milton Memorization Project
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008
Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Location: Olin Library, 252 Church Street, Davison Rare Book Room
Sponsor: Sponsored by the Wesleyan Dean of the Arts and Humanities, Friends of the Wesleyan Library, and the Buttonwood Tree
Marathon Weekend of Paradise Lost! To celebrate John Milton’s 400 birthday,JOHN BASINGER will recite the entire PARADISE LOST over this weekend at The Buttonwood Tree!
John Basinger performs Paradise Lost from memory!
Date: December 13, Saturday
Time: Beginning at 10 AM on Saturday. The schedule is presently this: Books I and II from 10 AM to 1 PM. One hour refreshment break. Books III and IV from 2PM to 5PM. One hour refreshment break. Books V and V! from 7PM to 11PM.
Location: The Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main Street, Middletown CT 06457– www.Buttonwood.Org
December 14, Sunday,
John presents Books VII and VIII from !2 Noon until 2 PM. One hour refreshment break. Books IX and X from 3PM until 7PM. One hour refreshment break. Then we will be ending with Books XI and XII from 8PM to 11PM.
NPR: John Milton, 400 Years of “Justifying God To Man”
December 8, 2008
National Public Radio has a story on the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth. Duncan Kiely, an exhibit curator at New York City’s Morgan Library, and William Kerrigan are interviewed.
In additon to a web page with a summary and images of Milton and Paradise Lost, there is the audio of the story itself (6 min., 42 sec.). At the bottom of the web page you’ll find links to audio exerpts of Anton Lesser’s reading of Paradise Lost.
Milton 400 in Germany
December 8, 2008
Martin Kuester shares news of Milton Quatercentenary celebrations in Germany:
Another Milton birthday party will take place at the University of Goettingen in Germany next Tuesday:
http://www.english-literature.uni-goettingen.de/
Milton in Alaska
December 8, 2008
Herb Berkowitz shares Quatercentenary news from Alaska on Milton-L:
My wife Kathryn, a Milton-L lurker of several years standing,
volunteered to create a Milton 400th birthday display in the
Consortium Library at Alaska Pacific University where she received her
M.A. in English Literature with a focus on Milton in 2004. The
display contains some Milton-related items she has collected over the
years. A small photo gallery of the exhibit:
http://handk.smugmug.com/gallery/6733241_L9AKh/1/430013567_AWQqw
In conjunction with the display there will be be a modest birthday
gathering for Milton at APU on December 9. I wish I could say that
Kathryn and I were traveling there by dog sled, but, in reality, it
will be by Subaru.
Southern Celebrations
December 8, 2008
John Hale shares events from New Zealand on Milton-L:
Greetings from the deepest south.
Inspired by the news from Alaska, here’s news about two events happening at the Milton world’s southernmost bastion, Dunedin, NZ First, a meeting of the city’s poets at which I held forth in varying
idioms to these mainly free-verse-writing bards, back in October. Go to Deep South: The English Department Ezine, Otago University
Then, tomorrow, at 6.30 pm, which approximates (given our longitude)
to the hour of Milton’s birth, we shall read his life through his
poems, cut a birthday cake and drink a toast to him. This is at the
Dunediin Public Library, which is very big on poetic and other
literacy-promoting events.
Milton Quatercentenary
December 7, 2008
Cambridge has a wonderful page with information about exhibitions, lectures, performances, and more celebrating the Milton Quatercentenary. Many events are still ongoing.
