Length: at least 5 pages, not including Works Cited List. Format: MLA (incl. font, spacing, margins) Special concerns: for this paper, you need to have at least 3 sources beyond the book. These need to be appropriate for a college level paper and as such cannot be general encyclopedias, websites aimed at schoolchildren studying for exams, etc. Directions: In a well-supported, properly-documented essay, please answer one of the following: 1) Milton often presents nature as a means of understanding God. Where does he do so, and why does this matter? How does this square theologically with ideas about the necessity of reason? Does this align him more with the strictest Puritans or more with the Cambridge Platonists? 2) How does Milton’s personal life seem to have affected his construction of marriage and the created natures of men and women? How does he attempt to justify this theologically? What was the official reaction of the people to whom he directed his arguments in Paradise Lost and in his discussion of the divorce laws? 3) What role does Milton assign to reason in postlapsarian human life? Where does this place him with regard to the Puritans, Arminians, and Cambridge Platonists? You must refer to AT LEAST two works. 4) What role does Milton assign to reason in love, particularly love of God? How does this square with the emphasis on reason of the stricter Calvinists vs. the Cambridge Platonists? 5) What is the difference between a priori knowledge and discursive reason, and why is this an issue for both theology/ politics and Milton’s construction of humanity? 6) How does the Fall change reliance on revealed truth, and what, for Milton, must that revealed truth consist of? How is this at once a theological concern, and what theology does it make use of? 6) How is Milton’s treatment of censorship explicitly theological? What notion of human beings does it advance, and where does that place him in the theological landscape? 7) How is Milton’s presentation of grace in Paradise Lost theological and, implicitly, political insofar as it marks his relationship to a political faction? Which faction is that? 8) This one is for our Biblical scholars, of whom there are quite a few. While Milton contends that he bases his doctrinal writings on Biblical precedent and that his literary epic is an extended metaphor (basically), some readers find that Milton writes some pretty unBiblical things in Paradise Lost. Select one such instance and explain how it diverges from the document (the Bible) that Milton treats as an authority. 9) In a similar vein, how does Milton’s writing sometimes get classified as Arian (NOT Aryan) or Gnostic. What evidence to validate this claim can you find, and do you support or reject this claim? Why? Note: the mere fact that someone said something is no guarantee he or she is right; careers have been made by arguing controversial viewpoints. 10) Based on what we have read this semester, how would you place Milton with respect to Latitudinarianism and High Church Anglicanism? Both have their Arminian soteriology. What differs between the two, and where does Milton fall? 11) What role does Milton assign to work, and how is this different from the traditional depiction of Eden as a place where there is no work? How is this a bit Puritan/Calvinist?
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|