As
a renowned authority on the 17th-century poet, Dr. Kristin Pruitt says
the experience of reading Milton still “becomes richer and richer.”
BY MARTY PRIOLA
(’93)
"I was
not at all sure I wanted to take a Milton course in college,” says
Dr. Kristin A. Pruitt, dean of the CBU School of Arts and professor of
literature. “It just happened to fit into my schedule.”
Her college Milton course, taught by Dr. John Quincy Wolf at Southwestern
at Memphis (now Rhodes College) would prove to be a life-changing experience
for her.
At that time, Dr. Wolf was in his fifties and suffering from a degenerative
muscle disease. Because of his condition, says Dr. Pruitt, he sat in a
large red La-Z-Boy that was placed on a platform in the classroom. “He
mostly kept his eyes closed; sometimes when they were open they’d
roll around in his head, not focusing on anything. But when he leaned
back in that big red throne of a recliner, closed his eyes, and began
reciting…”
Dr. Pruitt’s eyes sparkle, and she pauses, recalling the moment.
“I was hooked.”
Pruitt received her B.A. from Southwestern and was awarded her Ph.D. in
English from the University of North Carolina, where she concentrated
in Renaissance Literature.
Though she had taken a Milton seminar in graduate school, her path would
more memorably intersect with Milton’s writing again in 1988, before
she took her first sabbatical. She attended the Arizona Milton Institute.
“For six weeks, in the blistering summer heat of Tucson, 25 Milton
professors became students again,” she recalls. There, she took instruction
from, among others, Dr. John Shawcross, one of the most prolific and eminent
Milton scholars now living.
In 1990, Pruitt, together with Dr. Charles Durham, who had taught Milton
at Middle Tennessee State University for close to thirty years, decided
to begin a biennial conference on Milton. Asked why, she responds, “We
realized that there was no conference in the U.S. focused exclusively
on Milton’s work that was open to anyone.”
The First Southeast Conference on Milton was held at Middle Tennessee
State University in 1991; Professor Shawcross was the keynote speaker,
and close to 50 papers were accepted for presentation. The conference,
now affectionately known as “the Murfreesboro Conference” has
produced four books, with two more books in the wings. Pruitt and Durham
share editing credits on the volumes, which are published by Susquehanna
University Press.
The second book in the series, Arenas of Conflict: Milton and the Unfettered
Mind, won the Samuel Prize for scholarship from the Milton Society
of America in 1997. (The others are Spokesperson Milton: Voices in
Contemporary Criticism, All In All: Unity, Diversity, and the Miltonic
Perspective, and Living Texts: Interpreting Milton.)
At CBU, Dr. Pruitt teaches Milton in regular rotation (approximately every
two-and-a-half years) with other classes in subjects ranging from “17th
Century Poetry and Prose” to the “19th Century British Novel,”
which she taught last semester. But her wide range of teaching interests
has not quelled her passion for Milton.
“The Milton class has evolved,” she says. “We used to cover
other 17th Century poetry and prose in the class; now, we focus on Paradise
Lost.”
Asked about the experience of reading and teaching Milton, Pruitt insists
that Milton is “not at all the stodgy, archaic, dead white male poet”
she’d once imagined him to be. “Every time I reread Paradise
Lost, it becomes richer and richer. The more that you as a reader
bring to the poem, the more you take out of it. Now, when I teach Paradise
Lost, there’s so much I want to say that it’s hard to get
through the poem.”
Teaching Milton is difficult, she says. “He’s intimidating to
students because he knew so much. Milton spent seven years of his life
doing nothing but reading. He’d read everything that was important,
and he brings all of that knowledge to Paradise Lost.”
Also, Pruitt explains, readers bring their own baggage to the poem. “You
have to take Milton on his own terms; these characters are biblically
based, but they’re also creatures of Milton’s imagination.”
Dr. Pruitt’s continuing attempts to bring Milton to life for her
students at CBU have lately included a marathon reading of the poem by
students and faculty during semesters in which she teaches the class.
Last October, participants began reading the poem at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday
morning, finishing the poem by 6:30 in the evening. Last year’s reading,
the third such event Pruitt has organized, was also marked by the attendance
of Professor Shawcross, who had “come out of retirement to be here.”
Asked why Milton is still relevant to today’s students, Dr. Pruitt
reflects, “He deals with spiritual longings, gender problems, relationships,
war, violence, the environment. Those are all contemporary issues. We’re
still trying to answer the same questions that the poem raises. There’s
a reason that writers like Milton have endured. They’re part of our
heritage, an essential part of our culture.”