SAMLA

I went to SAMLA on Friday night and sat through the Milton panel. It was the first conference I've ever been to (other than New Voices), so it was quite illuminating. The first paper was given by an older woman who I assume was a professor somewhere. She spoke about the Miltonic influences on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which we have a short unit on later in the semester in my Milton II class. Most pertinent to my research was her split-second mention of "nature as a spiritual force" in Frankenstein. I asked her to expand on that idea and how it connected to Paradise Lost in the question and answer portion at the end, but she was a bit disappointing because she didn't really answer the question. It wasn't really her focus though; she was much more interested in a detailed chronology of Mary Shelley's life and how those events inspired her philosophy in the text--which was not so much about Milton anyway.

Meredith Zaring gave a great talk about Miltonic influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Particularly interesting to me about Meredith's ideas were Adam and Eve's roles as "beacons in the garden" and "Eve's inexperience with sin." In my last Proseminar class, I heard a good amount about this paper as it is the fodder for Meredith's thesis, and, after hearing it out loud at this conference, I am definitely interested in reading the final product.

I missed the next paper in the panel because I ran over to the Petrarch panel to hear Michelle Golden's talk. I was quite pleased to find myself familiar with the subject matter. My favorite section of the paper was the comparison of Wyatt's "Who so list to hunt" with Petrarch's version and (I believe) Spenser's version. I thought Michelle did as well as Meredith--both very poised and confident while presenting polished, professional work.

I returned to the Milton panel after Michelle because I wanted to ask that aforementioned question, and arrived in time to hear a paper that had nothing to do with Milton by an independent scholar. This paper was supposed to be about Milton's Satan adapted in modern films, but she never established who exactly Milton's Satan is. Instead, it was a paper of about five or six movie reviews. Her talk was about ten minutes longer than everyone else's and totally weird.

After my first experience at a "real" conference, I feel far more confident about submitting my work. I think I could very well have made a fine addition to that panel and I am excited about not being afraid of submitting anymore.