A. Milton's "On Shakespeare"

A1. By 1630, Spenserian archaism (see footnote 2 to the poem) was quite out of date, Spenser's Faerie Queene having been published in its second edition over three decades earlier. Why might Milton have indulged in this stylistic device, given the genre of the poem?

A2. What pun on "lines"(12) may there be, involving a second sense having something to do with tombs and sculpture, given lines 14-16?

B. Milton's "Lycidas"

B1. How is repetition effectively used to convey tone, emotion, or theme in lines 1-2 and 165?

B2. The editors of NAEL note (footnote 4) that "Blind mouths!"(119) is an "audacious metaphor." How in some respects is it a mixed metaphor* as well as an example of synesthesia? How and what does it convey about what it is applied to in the poem?

B3. How is the "audacity" of the metaphor in 119 continued in the remainder of lines 119 to 120, including the antecedent of the pronoun ("that scarce themselves know how to hold/ A sheep-hook")? What ideas or themes, what satire or criticism, may be conveyed here?

C. Milton's "How Soon Hath Time"

C1. How do the octave and sestet function as thematic or content units in the sonnet, and how is the volta or turn signalled?

C2. What is the primary relevant dictionary sense of "career" in line 3?

C3. How is the antonomasia (a kind of periphrasis or metaphor) for God in line 14 appropriate to the subject matter and content of the sonnet?

D. Milton's "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament"

Notes: "balk your ears"(17): reference to the treatment of a donkey's ears; "your charge"(19): charge against you.

The political background of this poem (see the NAEL intro to Milton's life) is that Milton's education at Cambridge University, a center of Puritan sympathy (in contrast to the Royalist, Anglican sympathies at Oxford University) plus his temperament, helped make him an ardent Puritan, who served in the Interregnum, or Commonwealth, or revolutionary government, at first headed by the General, Oliver Cromwell, who led military forces that, along with new sympathizers in Parliament, finally deposed King Charles I. Milton served as the Commonwealth government's Latin secretary, authoring letters and tracts defending it--even a tract defending the execution of King Charles I (this later put Milton in jeopardy after the Restoration in 1660; Milton remained under house arrest for the rest of his life, and this lonely isolation shows up as a motif in various forms in Paradise Lost). Milton was strong-minded, and so he did not unthinkingly or unquestioningly follow any movement or leader, expressing reservations or complaints, at times, even against "his own side," the Puritans. In this sonnet, Milton is complaining about a group supposedly in favor of the Puritan revolution that has ousted previous "corrupt" members of the loyalist, Anglican-oriented Parliament.

D1. (a) In this sonnet, how does Milton suggest or complain that the supposed allies of the Puritans have, in effect, betrayed the revolution? (b) How does Milton imply that these supposed allies of the Puritans have, in effect, allied themselves with perhaps the most hated religious denomination in Renaissance England (remember who Spenser persistently attacks in The Faerie Queene, Book I)?

D2. (a) How might the caudated* or tailed* form of this sonnet* (explained in NAEL, as well as HTL) relate to its content, theme, subject matter (including the sonnet's title), or imagery? (b) How does the caudated form relate thematically to Milton's punning, explained in D3? (c) How does the caudated form relate to the imagery in lines 15-17? (d) How might the length of the title relate to any of the poem's content?

D3. (a) Given the metaphor in line 7, what pun might there be on "A.S."(8), satirically suggesting something uncomplimentary about the group Milton is attacking? That is, how might "ride" lead to a pronunciation of "A.S." as a single word rather than the separate letters of initials. (b) How might the idea of a tailed sonnet (also in the word caudated) relate to the pun on "A.S."? (b) What is suggested about Milton's tone in the sonnet, via this pun? (c) How is the metaphor of "writ large"(20), which has often been alluded to in later times, appropriate to a criticism of members of parliament as well as men supposed to be devoted to principles derived directly from reading the Bible? How does this metaphor connect with the preceding reference to "phylacteries"(17)?

D4. (a) How does syntax (a) make the first eight lines of the sonnet a unit, as well as (b) contribute to Milton's meaning and tone? (b) How does the kind of sentence (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative) in lines 1-8 form a counterbalance or antithesis to the kind of sentence in lines 9-20? (c) Where else in the sonnet are balance or antithesis used to help convey satiric or ironic meaning?

E. Milton's "To the Lord General Cromwell"

E1. (a) How is Milton's attitude toward Cromwell in this sonnet a mixture of the mostly favorable, with some reservations or mild criticism? (b) How do the octave and sestet form distinct content, thematic, imagistic, or stylistic units, and where is the volta signaled? (c) How does this sonnet compare and contrast with Marvell's Horatian ode on Cromwell? (d) What implications in denotation and connotation are conveyed by Milton's complimentary appositive "chief of men" (line 1), rather than, say, "head of state"? (e) What same concern does Milton express in this sonnet that he does in "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament"?

E2. (a) What complex (both favorable and unfavorable) implications are conveyed in Milton's almost mixed metaphor in the first quatrain of ploughing through a cloud? (b) How might the metaphor (and embedded personification) of lines 5-6 allude to or connect with the fate of Charles I in 1649? (c) How does the metaphor of the laureate wreath (9) simultaneously point back to the second quatrain as well as the remaining sestet? What conventional associations did laurel and laurel wreaths have from classical times to the Renaissance? (d) How does the metaphor in line 12 connect, respectively, with the imagery of lines 1-4, 9, and 13-14? (e) How do the several metaphors of lines 13-14 work individually, collectively with each other, and connectively with imagery elsewhere in the poem? What ironic role reversal, given Jesus' imagery of the Good Shepherd in the gospels, is there in the imagery of lines 13-14? (Cf. the repetition of this imagery in Lycidas 103-131.)

E3. (a) How might Milton's typical postpositional adjective in line 2 meaningfully describe in its grammar how detraction works? (b) What are the multiple implications of describing the triumphs as "God's trophies"(line 6)?

F. Milton's "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"

F1. How do octave and sestet form distinct content or thematicunits, and where is the volta signalled?

F2. What pun is there on "talent"(3), considering what Milton thought his main vocation to be?

F3. What relevant dictionary sense does the word "post" have in line 13?

F4. How did Milton's publication of Paradise Lost in 1660 and 1667 prove out the content of this sonnet?

G. Milton's "On the Late Massacre at Piedmont"

Notes: "our fathers"(4): the ancient inhabitants of Britain

See Robert M. Adams' NAEL footnote to the poem, which explains the Protestant (= Puritan) versus Catholic background of the sonnet; as far as Milton was concerned, the poem was occasioned by the slaughter of Protestants (= Puritans, for Milton) by Catholics. (It was a similar massacre that moved Sidney to do what he did that got him in trouble with Queen Elizabeth, earlier in the era; see the NAEL intro to Sidney.)

G1. (a) How do all elements of the poem contribute to Milton's purpose of criticizing the Catholics while eulogizing (cf. encomium) the Protestants (whom Milton considers near-Puritans)? (b) How does the marked assonance on a single vowel sound, particularly in the rhyme words, help express the speaker's tone or attitude toward the event described, as well as suggest the action in lines 8-10? (c) How does the opening line of this sonnet allude to some of the Psalms in the Bible? Of what thematic importance is this allusion? (d) What faint allusion to Ezekiel 37 is there in the sonnet? (e) How does Milton use pastoral imagery (with the literal, etymological root of pastor) in this poem, recalling that of "To the Lord General Cromwell"? (f) How does Milton's imagistic epithet for the Pope in line 12 recall Milton's imagery and concerns in lines 11-14 of "To the Lord General Cromwell" and generally in "On the New Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament"? (g) What propagandistic touches of pathos does Milton include in the sonnet?

G2. (a) With regard to the first quatrain and the Miltonic speaker's attitude toward Catholicism in the sonnet, how is the allusion to the Classical, pagan myth of Cadmus in lines 10-14 ironic? [From the American Heritage College Dictionary entry on Cadmus: "n. Greek Mythology. A Phoenician prince who killed a dragon and sowed its teeth [in a field], from which sprang up an army of men who fought one another until only five survived; with these Cadmus founded the city of Thebes."] (b) What relevant New Testament Parable or Parables might be relevant in these lines, as well as the Classical allusion?

H. Milton's "Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint"

H1. How are the imagery and symbolism of red and white in this sonnet used in a quite different way from their usual use in Renaissance secular amorous poetry?

H2. How is Milton's blindness referred to in line 10, and how does it give the sonnet's final six words multiple meaning
 

Study Questions on Milton's Paradise Lost

General

G1. In one amusing scene from the movie National Lampoon's Animal House, a college English professor (played by Donald Sutherland), in his lecture on Milton's Paradise Lost to a large class, proceeds, while conspicuously munching an apple (an implicit joke about the subject of the lecture), in reaction to the class's lack of enthusiasm, to admit the irrelevance of the work as well as its pointlessly difficult language. (As the class begins to file out, in response to the his increasingly dispirited mumbling, the English professor shouts "But this is my job! There will be a test on this!") Actually, many of this English epic's main themes are as relevant today as they were in 1667 and 1674 when the work was published. How are the following subjects as pertinent today as they were three centuries ago, or for that matter, as they were for the ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, or Sumer: (a) the individual versus the group; (b) good versus evil; (c) humanism; the concern for the fate and status of humanity; (d) technology and science; (e) theodicy (the presence of evil or misfortune and unhappiness in the world, and the relation of this to God)?

G2. Milton's language and style are similarly defensible. (a) How does Milton show mastery (making him a poet's poet) of blank verse? What is the difference between blank verse, rhymed verse, and free verse? (b) What use does Milton make of the verse paragraph? (c1) What, exactly, makes the word choice and grammar of Milton's style difficult or ornate? (c2) Where does Milton use words from the formal level or ceremonial register of usage (look up levels or registers of usage in a composition handbook)? (c2a) How are "Abyss" (I.21), "transgress" (I.31), "impious"(I.43), "Ethereal"(I.45), "perdition"(I.47), and "Adamantine"(I.48), "penal"(I.48), "Omnipotent"(I.49), "horrid" (I.51, 83), "baleful"(I.56), "affliction"(I.57), "obdurate"(I.58), "Deluge"(I.68), "tempestuous"(I.77), and "weltering"(I.78) examples of the formal level or ceremonial register of usage? (c2b1) After consulting in your collegiate dictionary the etymologies of "transgress," "adamantine," "horrid," and "obdurate," how would you say that Milton draws on these words' Latin or Greek roots to contribute to their meaning, as they are used in the passages cited? (c2b2) How do their etymologies as well as surface definitions connect "adamantine" and "obdurate"? (c2b3) How does this linkage help to ironically contrast God and Satan? (c2b3) Where does Milton repeat favorite words like "horrid" and "dire"? How does this repetition contribute to any of the work's themes? Which of these favorite words will Alexander Pope, the Neoclassical British poet of the eighteenth century (represented by The Rape of the Lock and The Essay on Man in NAWM), pick up and gently mock in his poetry? (c2b4) Why could and would Milton count on his readers to recognize these words' root as well as surface meanings? How does the level or register of usage of such words relate to the work's literary genre as well as question 2c4? (c2b5) How are the words "thrice"(I.74) or "confounded"(I.53) either archaic or used in an archaic sense? How is this archaism related to when the work was written? (c2b6) What figures of speech does Milton use in lines 8, 13-16, and 22-24 of Book I? In these and the numerous other instances, how does the particular figure of speech help define, describe, or express what it does? (c2b7) How does Milton's pervasive figurative language relate to the literary genre as well as question 2c4? (c3a) Where, and how, is Milton's fondness for the postpositional adjective or modifier ("dress red" instead of the normal English "red dress") manifested in Book I, lines 16, 18, 20, 27, 43, 60, 61, 69? (c3b) In the phrase "Battle proud" in line 43 of Book I, which word tends to receive the emphasis, and how does this emphasis reflect or express (a) what's wrong with and has motivated Lucifer's "impious War," as well as (b) how the actual psychological personality trait portrayed operates (what it puts first or emphasizes)? (c3c) How is the postpositional modifier Latinate, and how might this Latinate quality connect to the literary genre of the work as well as question 2c4? (c3d) How does Milton use inverted sentence order or inverted sentence structure in I.1-6, I.22-23, I.34-36, I.44-49, I.50-53, I.76-78, etc.? (c3e) In I.44, how does the inverted sentence order help suggest Satan's pride, the idea of what the proud put first? (c3f) How does the inverted sentence order in I.44 help distribute the alliteration of h's over several lines, and how does this alliteration help to express in sound the content or meaning of the lines (I.44-49)? (c3g) How is sentence order inverted in "round he throws his baleful eyes"(I.56), and how does the inversion help express the amount of physical effort involved in Satan's action? (c3h) How is inverted sentence order or inverted sentence structure Latinate, and how might this Latinate quality connect to the literary genre of the work, as well as question 2c4? (c4) How does Milton himself, as narrator, explain the reasons for the ornateness of his style in I.1-16? How is his style related to the literary genre and Milton's idea of the tradition of this genre? Why must Milton, as a Christian poet, show a grand style, (a) with comparison to other literary works in this genre, and (b) with reference to the specific subject of this literary work? (c5) How is the ornateness of Milton's poetic style related to the art of the Baroque period?

G3. How are the following elements or components of Baroque visual art (especially painting) manifested in Milton's Paradise Lost: (a) drama or the dramatic; (b) emotionalism; (c) dynamism; (d) striking lighting effects, especially chairoscuro; (e) ornateness; (f) open form; (g) in-out, off-center, spiral-upward movement; (h) monochromatic color; (i) diffused vs. distinct line; [for music, only:] (j) the longer work; (k) the concerto grosso form of an individual instrument vs. the mass of other instruments?

G4. (a) How are the work's Renaissance components manifested? (b) What role does learning or scholarship have in the composition and reading of the poem? (c) How is the work linked with the Reformation, and specifically Puritanism, Protestantism, and religion? (d) How is Christian Humanism manifested in the work -- the importance and dignity and elevation of humanity, within a religious framework or context?

G5. (a) Besides his Latinism, postpositional adjectives, and inverted sentence order, how does Milton use some other favorite stylistic devices of pun, oxymoron, periphrasis, antonomasia, and epic (or extended) simile to suggest themes or describe persons or places? (b) What ironic puns does Milton repeatedly make on the words vain (and vainly), raise (and rais'd), and light (or lights -- both of these as verbs)? Who or what does Milton satirize with these puns, and how do they reveal an often-missed component of Milton's work: a sense of humor? (c) How does Milton use oxymoron in "darkness visible"(I.63) and "precious bane"(I.692)? What does Milton suggest about hell, Satan, and evil through this device? Why must hell be illuminated, for symbolic and theological reasons, by "darkness visible," rather than any other kind of light, considering the associations of light? (d) How does Milton use periphrasis repeatedly, as in "Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night/ To mortal men"(I.50-51)? Why doesn't Milton just say "nine days"? How does Milton's periphrasis, in contrast to the simple "nine days," better incorporate the crucial concepts of (d1) magnitude, (d2) distance and space, as well as time, (d3) measurement (and hence God, and the standard by which Satan was measured and against which Satan rebelled), (d4) the contrast between earthly and divine, and (d5) who, ultimately, is going to be affected by what went on in heaven? (e) Antonomasia is the substitution of a word, phrase, or name, for a proper name (e.g., the calling of Fortinbras "Norway" in Shakespeare's Hamlet). What does Milton convey about God through the repeated antonomasias for God or the Mount of Olives in Book I (e.g., "Almighty Power"[44], "opproprious hill"[ ], "Living Strength"[433] (e) How does Milton repeatedly use epic or extended simile, as in I.200-210? (f) How does the epic or extended simile in 200-210 suggest not only the deceptiveness of evil but one of the epic's main themes: how God transforms all of Satan's and evil's purposes and actions into something good?

G6. (a) In Books I-II, XI, etc., where does Milton use typological symbolism (that is, symbols that allude to events or persons in the Old or New Testaments)? Instances of typological symbolism occur throughout Dante's Inferno, as in Canto IX, in which the messenger-angel's striding dryshod over the marsh (76-81) (e.g., walking on the water) is reminiscent of a similar miraculous deed by Jesus, while the messenger-angel's reference to a retrieval mission to the underworld by Hercules (94-96), reads Hercules as a "type" or symbol of Christ coming down into Hell for the Harrowing of Hell. (Cf. this meaning of the word type in I.405 of Paradise Lost.) (This use is one of the fates of the Classical tradition in later eras: the adapting or application of details from Classical literature or mythology to the Judeo-Christian tradition. One technical name for this adaptation is "Ovid moralisé," the allegorizing or moralizing of Ovid, the great anthologizer of Classical mythology or religion in his epic poem Metamorphoses, excerpted in Vol. 1 of NAWM. Cf. the "Ovid moralisé" of the Titans' revolt against the Olympians in I.196-200. If in doubt about this Classical reference, look up Titan in your collegiate dictionary.) (b) What is the typological symbolism (what allusion to the Old Testament) of the repeated comparison of Satan to a tower (e.g., 499, 591, 733, 749 of Book I)? (c) What is the typological symbolism (what allusion to the Old Testament) in the periphrases describing the infernal lake as a "fiery Deluge"(I.68), and "floods . . . of fire"(I.77)?

G7. Throughout Book I and later books, how does Milton thematically use the following imagistic motifs: (a) vertical (high-low, rise-fall), (b) light-dark, (c) breath or wind, (d) details of Islam, (e) details of the recent Royalist/Cavalier vs. Puritan/Commonwealth conflict and Civil War in Britain (1639-1660)?