When confronted with the description of a literal dark cloud of air pollution hanging over Coketown in Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times, many readers are immediately persuaded not only that our current environmental crisis has its roots in the nineteenth century, but that it was clearly making its appearance in the literature of the day. However, turn the clock back two centuries, to Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton, and many of the same readers are remarkably resistant to the notion that the roots of the crisis could reach back so far--at least with respect to issues such as urban air pollution. Nonetheless, air pollution, acid rain, deforestation, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism were all issues of great concern in Renaissance England. In this course we will consider a range of Milton's works, including Paradise Lost, against the backdrop of these environmental issues. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two very popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials, especially The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, "His Dark Materials" is a quote from Paradise Lost.) This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).