A Brief History of the International Milton Symposia

They started in 1981, under the direction of Ronald Shafer (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and Albert Labriola (Duquesne). The First International Milton Symposium took place at the very evocative settings of the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey and in or near Milton's cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire. Sessions met at Old Jordans, the Quaker meeting house where Thomas Ellwood and William Penn are buried, and there was a trip to the village of Horton, where the Miltons lived and where in the parish church Milton's mother Sara is buried. Members of the Symposium also went on an excursion to Althorpe, the Spencer family estate associated with both the Countess Dowager of Derby and with Lady Di. The proceedings were published in Ringing the Bell Backwards, edited by Ronald Shafer and published by Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Imprint Series in 1982.

The Second International Milton Symposium met in 1983 at Cambridge University, at Christ's College, Pembroke College, and Trinity College. There was a memorable production of Milton's masque in which, as I remember, the Lady was indeed played by a fifteen-year-old. Again, Ron Shafer directed. Robert Ellrodt had the burdensome task of giving an after-dinner speech to a group of rowdy Miltonists who had been let into a college wine cellar just before we sat down to eat.

The Third Symposium met in 1988, very memorably, in Florence and Vallombrosa, Italy, using the monastery at Vallombrosa as one base, a Petrarchan villa as another, and with the Palazzo Strozzi and the Palazzo Gaddi as other meeting places. We were all invited to the U.S. consulate for a reception. The Third Symposium was directed by the "four hims," Gordon Campbell, Neil Harris, Mario Di Cesare, and Roy Flannagan, and a prize-winning book of essays, Milton in Italy, was the product of the papers given; it was edited by Mario DiCesare for MRTS.

The Fourth Symposium, directed by Paul Stanwood, met in August 1991, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It produced Of Poetry and Politics: New Essays on Milton and His World, edited by Stanwood and again printed by MRTS, in 1994.

The Fifth Symposium traveled to Bangor, Wales, not far from the isle of Mona and the sad site of Edward King's shipwreck. Tom Corns was our gracious host, and we heard the music of Milton's father beautifully performed in Bangor Cathedral. Abstracts of the papers for the Bangor Symposium were stored on the Milton Quarterly Web site.

The Sixth Symposium moved north in England to the Viking and medieval city of York and the University of York. Graham Parry directed and Nigel Smith was Program Director. For its side trips, the Symposium visited the magnificent Castle Howard, where Milton certainly did not go, and the church where bits and pieces of Cromwell might be buried. Participants lived on campus, ate fine English breakfasts, and sat listening to the fountain or drinking in the campus pub at night.

Beverley Sherry adds this information concerning the publication of papers from the 1999 York Symposium: "Cambridge University Press is going ahead with Milton and the Ends of Time: Essays on the Apocalypse and the Millennium. This came out of the 1999 York Symposium. Juliet Cummins has edited it and both Juliet and I have chapters in it, as also Barbara Lewalski, Sarah Hutton, Bill Hunter, John Shawcross, Stella Revard, Malabika Sarkar, Ken Simpson, Catherine Gimelli Martin, Claude Stulting, Karen Edwards and David Loewenstein."

A second volume came from the large pool of excellent papers from the Sixth Symposium: Milton and the Terms of Liberty, ed. Graham Parry & Joad Raymond, Boydell & Brewer, 2002.