The Cambridge Introduction to Milton

The Cambridge Introduction to Milton
Author: Stephen B. Dobranski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2012-01-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0521898188

This book makes Milton's works accessible and enjoyable by providing engaging and lucid explanations of his life, times and writings.

The Cambridge Companion to Milton

The Cambridge Companion to Milton
Author: Dennis Danielson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1999-07-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107494184

An accessible, helpful guide for any student of Milton, whether undergraduate or graduate, introducing readers to the scope of Milton's work, the richness of its historical relations, and the range of current approaches to it. This second edition contains several new and revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Milton's politics, the social conditions of his authorship and the climate in which his works were published and received, a fresh sense of the importance of his early poems and Samson Agonistes, and the changes wrought by gender studies on the criticism of the previous decade. By contrast with other introductions to Milton, this Companion gathers an international team of scholars, whose informative, stimulating and often argumentative essays will provoke thought and discussion in and out of the classroom. The Companion's reading lists and extended bibliography offer readers the necessary tools for further informed exploration of Milton studies.

The Cambridge Introduction to Milton

The Cambridge Introduction to Milton
Author: Stephen B. Dobranski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2012-01-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316025683

John Milton is one of the most important and influential writers in English literary history. The goal of this book is to make Milton's works more accessible and enjoyable by providing a comprehensive overview of the author's life, times and writings. It describes essential details from Milton's biography, explains some of the cultural and historical contexts in which he wrote, offers fresh analyses of his major pamphlets and poems - including Lycidas, Areopagitica and Paradise Lost - and describes in depth traditional and recent responses to his reputation and writings. Separate sections focus on important concepts or key passages from his major works to illustrate how readers can interpret - and get excited about - Milton's writings. This detailed and engaging introduction to Milton will help readers not only better understand the author's life and works but also better appreciate why Milton matters.

The Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost

The Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost
Author: Louis Schwartz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107029465

Short, accessible essays from fifteen recognized Milton specialists touching on the most important topics and themes in Paradise Lost.

Milton and Gender

Milton and Gender
Author: Catherine Gimelli Martin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2005-01-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139442813

Milton's contempt for women has been accepted since Samuel Johnson's famous Life of the poet. Subsequent critics have long debated whether Milton's writings were anti- or pro-feminine, a problem further complicated by his advocacy of 'divorce on demand' for men. Milton and Gender re-evaluates these claims of Milton as anti-feminist, pointing out that he was not seen that way by contemporaries, but espoused startlingly fresh ideas of marriage and the relations between the sexes. The first two sections of specially commissioned essays in this volume investigate the representations of gender and sexuality in Milton's prose and verse. In the final section, the responses of female readers ranging from George Eliot and Virginia Woolf to lesser-known artists and revolutionaries are brought to bear on Milton's afterlife and reputation. Together, these essays provide a critical perspective on the contested issues of femininity and masculinity, marriage and divorce in Milton's work.

Paradise Lost: Introduction

Paradise Lost: Introduction
Author: John Broadbent
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1972-03-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780521080682

In this, the first introductory volume of the Cambridge Milton for Schools and Colleges, Professor Broadbent, the general editor of the series, presents background and introductory material essential to students for a proper understanding of Paradise Lost. Chapters on mythology, the epic, the writing, publication and subsequent editing of PL and on Milton's ideology and world-view, provide the background to the poem as a whole. The second half of the book engages with the poetry at a more detailed level and examines themes, structures, allusion, language, syntax, rhetoric, similes, rhythm and style, always showing the reader how he can best understand and appreciate Milton's usage. Extensive quotation from PL and other works by Milton and others helps to make all clear.

The Value of Milton

The Value of Milton
Author: John Leonard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2016-06-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107059852

Leading critic John Leonard explores the writings of John Milton from his early poetry to his major prose.

Milton: Political Writings

Milton: Political Writings
Author: John Milton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1991-02-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521348669

John Milton was not only the greatest English Renaissance poet but also devoted twenty years to prose writing in the advancement of religious, civil and political liberties. The height of his public career was as chief propagandist to the Commonwealth regime which came into being following the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The first of the two complete texts in this volume, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, was easily the most radical justification of the regicide at the time. In the second, A Defence of the People of England, Milton undertook to vindicate the Commonwealth's cause to Europe as a whole.This book, first published in 1991, was the first time that fully annotated versions were published together in one volume, and incorporated a new translation of the Defence. The introduction outlines the complexity of the ideological landscape which Milton had to negotiate, and in particular the points at which he departed radically from his sixteenth-century predecessors.

Milton's Languages

Milton's Languages
Author: John K. Hale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 1997-08-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0521583535

Milton's poetry is one of the glories of the English language, and yet it owes everything to Milton's widespread knowledge of other languages: he knew ten, wrote in four, and translated from five. In Milton's Languages, John K. Hale first examines Milton's language-related arts in verse-composition, translations, annotations of Greek poets, Latin prose and political polemic, giving all relevant texts in the original and in translation. Hale then traces the impact of Milton's multilingualism on his major English poems. Many vexed questions of Milton studies are illuminated by this approach, including his sense of vocation, his attitude to print and publicity, the supposed blemish of Latinism in his poetry, and his response to his literary predecessors. Throughout this full-length study of Milton's use of languages, Hale argues convincingly that it is only by understanding Milton's choice among languages that we can grasp where Milton's own unique English originated.

The New Milton Criticism

The New Milton Criticism
Author: Peter C. Herman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2012-04-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107379563

The New Milton Criticism seeks to emphasize ambivalence and discontinuity in Milton's work and interrogate the assumptions and certainties in previous Milton scholarship. Contributors to the volume move Milton's open-ended poetics to the centre of Milton studies by showing how analysing irresolvable questions – religious, philosophical and literary critical – transforms interpretation and enriches appreciation of his work. The New Milton Criticism encourages scholars to embrace uncertainties in his writings rather than attempt to explain them away. Twelve critics from a range of countries, approaches and methodologies explore these questions in these new readings of Paradise Lost and other works. Sure to become a focus of debate and controversy in the field, this volume is a truly original contribution to early modern studies.