"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." John Milton
Acting Out John Milton's Paradise Lost: Now that the students have made summaries of their excerpt from Milton's Paradise Lost - it is time to get them up on their feet and have them act it out. The truly great thing about this two-day process is that by the end of it (including a very short discussion after today's activity) they will have an excellent understanding of Milton's text. In order to make yesterday's summaries - they needed to understand what was going on in the text. Today - by acting out their summaries - they will not only be checking on yesterday's work - they will also be showing another deep understanding of Paradise Lost. I always found that it was important to get the students to an Epic Setting for this Epic Poem - and we were so blessed to have access to a bridge that connected two of our buildings and crossed Jackson Boulevard and that overlooked Chicago's magnificent downtown. As a bonus I told the students that they could kindly and respectfully try to corral other students (not in our class) as wayward souls.
As I said above - now that they've made summaries of the different parts of their Paradise Lost excerpt - it's time to get them up and acting it out. Essentially, there are five parts to today's lesson: 1) getting them into groups 2) moving to a place they can practice and perform (the more dramatic the space, the better) 3) rehearsing their section 4) putting it on for the class 5) an after-performance discussion of what they did, Paradise Lost, and Milton in general. There should be no quiz today - as you've already quizzed them in the previous lesson.
You will need a total of 5 groups (A-E) to put on today's activity. You should try to keep partner's from the previous lesson's summarizing activity together - and if it all possible, also keep the two sets of partners together (see the lesson) so they can build on what they've already done and come to understand. For instance, if you have 20 students - well, that's perfect. The double partners will each form one of the 5 groups.
This is actually quite important. Milton's Paradise Lost is epic - and if you can find an epic peformance space - it will really add to the lesson. I was fortunate enough to have a very dramtic bridge that crossed over a busy street and that had Chicago's gorgeous skyline as its backdrop. The bridge location also allowed the students - once we started performing - to good-naturedly snatch other students and try to drag them into "hell". Once you get to your Performance Space - you'll need to get the students started right away.
REMEMBER: The students will need the summaries that they made in their previous lesson on Paradise Lost. Here are the instructions that I give to the students for their rehearsal. It is up to you as the teacher, to prompt them, prod them, and keep reminding them that the bigger the actions - the more over-the-top, the better. We need to see in the most clear way possible what is happening in their "scene". Remember - they've done two plays by now (Macbeth, Twelfth Night) and we started performing texts way back in Beowulf.
· you must use at LEAST 6 actual lines from Milton (though you may use more) Make sure you include not only the important, but the “beautiful” (ie “better to reign..”, “in our minds make a heaven of a hell…”).
· you should use your summaries you generated yesterday, but you must have at least 6 lines of actual text.
· make your words come alive through action – the more action the better.
· You may have a narrator, but FAR better is to split up the lines and summaries among the pertinent characters.
· you must interact with the group before and the group after (for group E, the group after is group A; for group A, the group before is group E). This interaction may mean having one character stay behind for the next group or devils may confront each other – or whatever but you must make a fluid and creative transition (just like in your research paper).
· humans walking across the bridge (or any other acting space) during the actual performance should be considered as lost souls and may be incorporated into your scene. Be nice.
· above all – illuminate the text, making it clearer for those watching it.
· you will have 15 minutes – NO SITTING – this is a standing activity – spend more time moving through the scene than talking about it.
You will need to set a few minutes aside to give groups time to work out an interaction between 1) the group that went before them 2) the group that follows their performance. I usually gave 3-5 minutes to each of those - sometimes subtracting it from the total 15 minutes for rehearsal - sometimes tacking it on after the groups had the full 15 minutes (depending on how things were going).
Before you begin, remind your students that 1) They are an audience (unless they're performing of course) now - no more planning, no more whispering - give each group your full attention. 2) The group (section) that is going on next should be ready for their appearance (and planned interaction) on whichever side (or wherever) is best. Tell students you will applaud once the entire Epic Play of the Epic Poem is done.
Either at your site or back at your classroom use whatever time is left to discuss what just took place. Cover whatever you feel is important but I always made sure that I talked about:
Why did William Blake (someone we will soon run into in this class) call Lucifer the unintentional hero of this epic?
Link that last question to Milton's quote about it being better to "reign in hell than to serve in heaven".
You can have a very long talk about the quote that says we can make - in our minds - "a hell out of heaven" and a "heaven out of hell". Get the students to explain what that means - then have them relate it directly to their own lives.
The back of the handout also includes a quote from Russ McDonald's critical essay on Macbeth, which we looked at when we did Literary Criticism. What McDonald says about that play's characters can be directly connected to Milton's quote about our minds.
Milton Alive! - Handout Docx PDF
The handout has the instructions for the students (see above - the instructions are given in full). REMEMBER: The students will need the summaries that they made in their previous lesson on Paradise Lost. The back of the handout contains some very useful quotes for the discussion that will follow their performance.
As described above, this audio includes my general directions, the rehearsing, and the ultimate performance (and it was really good!). However, rather than having a discussion at the end of the period - after the performance - I worked the questions and quick answers into the performance itself.
During the Pandemic - when we were remote - we watched a video of the students rehearsing and performing this exercise. It was not only a wonderful lesson in itself - but it gave us an opportunity to talk about some of the ideas that Milton brings up in his Epic Poem - and a chance to reflect on what we lost during those Pandemic Years.
After leaving the Renaissance, it's time to begin the Enlightenment (the Restoration in England). For this class, the progression really fit in well as the students are just beginning their Research Papers (a Unit that will be added somewhere down the line to this website). This unit, however, is rather short. A kind of breathing space between The Renaissance the The Romantic Era. Some years, due to scheduling, Macbeth plays, testing, and the like - these lessons would end up insterspersed with Renaissance Lessons - but here in this "ideal" world of AwaytoTeach - I'm happy to give them their own space. If the Renaissance was a "Rebirth", the Restoration/Enlightenment is a Reflection. A reflection on science, progress, and the place of man in the universe.
John Milton & "On His Blindness": Making the Most of your Talents
It's very cool to have two lessons (today's and the previous making summary lesson) so different - and yet, so dependent on each other. It really is a microcosm of what I'm trying to do all year - one lesson depends and builds on the previous one. Each text we cover - can give us insight into something later, which, when you think about it, is the reason that we are reading this very old literature to begin with.