Books 11 & 12 Handout

ENGL 513/622

Dr. Fike

I do not consider it fair to assign two books of PL (50 pages of poetry; more than that in ENGL 622) for a single day and expect students to come prepared to talk about all of that material. Therefore, I am assigning short passages to individual persons. Do not prepare a handout or a presentation. Instead, read your section two or three times and come prepared to share your discoveries. Help us identify some main points that are worthy of notice and possibly of further discussion. Take special notice of the statement by Fish below.

Passage	Topic	Student Personnel
11.429-65	Cain and Abel	Ben A.
11.466-555	Lazar house	Makayla
11.556-637	Tent dwellers	Kelsi
11.638-711	Towns at war	Cameron
11.712-end	Noah	Owen
12.1-bottom of page 692	Nimrod	Ben B.
12.113-371	Abraham et al.	Jessica

Our purpose tonight is to solve a problem that relates nicely to this quotation from Fish's Surprised By Sin 287: "Thus Adam's education, the nominal subject of XI and XII, is to be read simultaneously as an extension of his personal story, as an image of the racial experience, and as a conveniently concise summary of what the poem has taught diffusely."

1) How does your assigned passage illustrate this statement?

2) What other insights do you have about your passage? Why is your story here, and what do you make of the things that Adam and Michael say about them? WHAT DOES MICHAEL TEACH ADAM?

Other points to note:

The limitation of the law at 12.287ff. Gospel supersedes law on pages 698-99. This passage also mentions typology (303-06).
Felix culpa passage, lines 469-78. Illogical: Of course Adam must repent. Compare 11.86-89
The Holy Spirit is mentioned at 12.486 and 497.
Christians' tribulations at lines 485-573, including martyrdom at 569-70 and wolf stuff at line 508.
Christian heroism: "to obey is best" at 561-73.
Line 512: "superstitions."
Paradise within at 574-87.
Eve is restored to submission at 597.
Her statement on dreams at 611-12.
Eve's final word is "restore" at line 623 (cf. 1.4-5: "ill one greater Man / Restore us").
The last 5 lines of the poem.