17th century poet John Milton’s epic poem of over 10,000 lines, Paradise Lost, is returning for its fifth cover-to-cover marathon reading this Tuesday, April 7.
The Milton Marathon is organized and hosted by the students of ENG 4200. The reading will begin with Book I at 8:00 am in the Rathskeller 008 Student Union and will end with Book XII sometime around 6:00 pm.
Food, refreshments and copies of Paradise Lost will be available to participants who are allowed to enter and exit the reading on their whim. The book will be read aloud by the students of the Milton-centric class up to its completion.
The event began in 1999, and the class’ professor Henry Limouze is as excited to participate now as he was then.
“I’ve taught Milton before, but I’ve never heard of this Milton Marathon idea,” Limouze said. “At that time I was on an electronic discussion group of Milton scholars, and somebody mentioned having done something similar at a small private college where they did it as an all-nighter. I thought maybe we could to it as a one-day event.”
The first reading in ’99 was successful with over 100 people checking in. Limouze has since been helping his students organize the event every time he returns to teach the Milton class.
“I am always impressed as a teacher by seeing how much the students in the class have grown as readers,” Limouze said. “They can get through passages that are really very difficult. If we had done this at the beginning of the semester, people would have stumbled and struggled."
Limouze is also impressed at the amount of visitors who attend each marathon. “Outside community and faculty support is great, as is Wright State community support.”
Juli Poling, a student in ENG 4200 and participant in the marathon, believes it is a good opportunity to mingle an undergraduate experience with others who may not attend Wright State.
“As an English major, I’m happy there’s support and encouragement for a literary community here,” Poling said.
