This lecture focuses on the invocation to light at the beginning of Book Three of Paradise Lost. Milton's factual and figurative understanding of his blindness is traced through his letters, Sonnet XXII, and the later epic Samson Agonistes. Particular emphasis is placed on the transformation of blindness in the corpus from a spiritual punishment to a poetic gift. The implications of biographical interpretations of literature are also touched upon.

1. Introduction: Milton, Power, and the Power of Milton
2. The Infant Cry of God
3. Credible Employment
4. Poetry and Virginity
5. Poetry and Marriage
6. Lycidas
7. Lycidas (cont.)
8. Areopagitica
9. Paradise Lost, Book I
10. God and Mammon: The Wealth of Literary Memory
11. The Miltonic Smile
12. The Blind Prophet
13. Paradise Lost, Book III
14. Paradise Lost, Book IV
15. Paradise Lost, Books V-VI
16. Paradise Lost, Books VII-VIII
17. Paradise Lost, Book IX
18. Paradise Lost, Books IX-X
19. Paradise Lost, Books XI-XII
20. Paradise Lost, Books XI-XII (cont.)
21. Paradise Regained, Books I-II
22. Paradise Regained, Books III-IV
23. Samson Agonistes
24. Samson Agonistes (cont.)

A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.