Paradise Lost Readathon, Spring 2021

Via Zoom

The Schedule:

Saturday, April 17, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Books 1-4

Sunday, April 18, 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. Books 5-8

Saturday, April 24, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. Books 9-12

All times EDT (UTC -4)

A Dr. Campbell Milton reading-aloud-together tradition since 1994. This year in three parts. All are welcome! Come when you can and leave when you want, on one or two or all three days.

If you don’t have a copy of the text, you can find it on the Web at the Dartmouth College Milton Reading Room: https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/book_1/text.shtml. Note: we don’t read the “arguments,” that is, the prose summaries at the beginning of each Book.

This will be quite the experiment. Here’s how I’m thinking it’ll work.

I’ll set up a recurring Zoom meeting for all of us readers. You’re welcome to come by anytime and stay for as long as you like. My only rule is that if you’re in the meeting, you must read aloud, at least a little! (And no fair ducking in and out to avoid the reading—Milton will shake his head, sadly, even in his beatitude.) I’ll us one Zoom link for all three sessions. I’ll have a waiting room—Zoom requires these—so when you join, you may have to wait a little bit for me to see that you’re there and click on the little “admit” button. I will be vigilant, so the wait shouldn’t be very long at all.

The biggest problem with this virtual experience will be how to know when you’re supposed to be reading. When we’re physically co-located, we sit in a circle and thus we know when we’re the next one to read. Each reader relies on a significant/substantial pause from the current reader as a signal that Now It’s My Turn.

Clearly that won’t work very well in Zoom, unless you like Zoom collisions followed by colliding apologies followed by … nervous silence. And of course we’ll all have different “orders” before us on our screens with regard to who reads next.

So we’ll do a different disruption, one that at least can become familiar and thus, I hope, less annoying as time goes on.

Each reader should read somewhere between 50 and 100 lines per turn. Fewer than that and you can’t get much momentum going. More than that, and there aren’t enough opportunities for other readers.

When you’re done reading, please either look up and nod or smile (if you’re on camera) or type “done” in the chat if your webcam is off. In a pinch, or if you’re on your phone, you can just give your last word a real big emphasis and then go silent—and we’ll get the message.

After a reader finishes, I’ll come on just long enough to call the name of the next reader. I’ll keep order based on the order on the Participants list. So be listening for when I say your name!

One more Big Ask: folks, please stop reading at a period, not just at the end of a line of verse. If the line ends with a period, that’s great. Often, though, the sentence (which ends with a period) does not end with the line, and if you stop at the end of a line and the sentence isn’t over, the next reader has to pick up in the middle of a thought, and That’s Very Awkward.

If you’re interested, shoot me an email (gardner.campbell AT gmail.com, with @ substituted for AT) or if you’re reading this on FB, send me a private message, and I’ll send you the Zoom link. I’d prefer not to put that link out too publicly, for reasons I won’t cite but I hope are obvious. (If not, I can explain in the email.)

I always ask participants to contribute to a Readers’ Journal during these readathons. This time I’ll invite comments, responses, reflections, etc. in the chat itself. I’ll be recording the sessions so I can keep the chat and have a memorial of the event itself. I will not circulate any part of the recording without the consent of the participants involved. The only exception is any part in which I’m speaking, in which case I’ll crop out or completely obscure everyone else’s face. That’s a promise.

I think that’s it. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

I do hope you’ll join us!