[English-undergrad] ENGL 161 Winter 2026: course information

[James Tobias]

Hello English majors,

Happy finals week! (Is there such a thing?)

I hope you’re holding up and doing well. Let me know if there is anything I can help with.

Meanwhile, thinking about next quarter, I wanted to bring a course to your attention. ENGL 161 is a course on seventeenth-eighteenth century British literatures, and this winter it will be on John Milton’s Paradise Lost - a work of epic poetry that has been extremely influential in the history of world literature (beyond even English language literatures).

The course description is below, so consider this course if you’re still looking for courses. And perhaps - tell a friend!

Best,

jt
 
English 161 Winter 2026: Milton 

 

     This is a course about one of the most famous and important poems in the history of English and American literature.  Is it possible for a great poet, even a great inspired poet, to explain the ways of God to human beings?  That is the task John Milton sets for himself in Paradise Lost.   Who is this extraordinary figure in English Literature and the American imagination?  What is the poet’s power to “explain”?  What does his epic poetry do and what form does it take in its encounter with biblical and mythological accounts of creation, suffering, evil, redemption, and the history of the world?  Why does Milton devote so much of his imaginative energy to unfallen Eden? Why does he think Eden still exists? What do we learn and experience about poetry, pain, evil, happiness, and the human prospect as we immerse ourselves in Milton’s work, from his earliest and to his most mature poems?   

Text:  John Milton: The Complete Poems (Penguin paperback) and selected texts and secondary materials online.  Complete Poems is available in the bookstore.


—
James Tobias, Ph.D.
Professor 
Chair, Department of English

https://ucr.zoom.us/j/95465985946?pwd=Z1A4Yk1UZDhBTjY5UkJ5R1VQTWUvQT09

"We at UCR would like to respectfully acknowledge and recognize our responsibility to the original and current caretakers of this land, water, and air: the Cahuilla, Tongva, Luiseño, and Serrano peoples and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, including UCR faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands."

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