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In early modern culture and in Milton's poetry and prose, this book argues, the concept of hope is intrinsically connected with place and land. Mary Fenton analyzes how Milton sees hope as bound both to the spiritual and the material, the internal self and the external world. Hope, as Fenton demonstrates, comes from commitment to literal places such as the land, ideological places such as the "nation," and sacred, interior places such as the human soul. Drawing on an array of materials from the seventeenth century, including emblems, legal treatises, political pamphlets, and prayer manuals, Fenton sheds light on Milton's ideas about personal and national identity and where people should place their sense of power and responsibility; Milton's politics and where he thought the English nation was and where it should be heading; and finally, Milton's theology and how individuals relate to God.
Engendering the Fall argues that early seventeenth-century women's writing influenced Paradise Lost, while later seventeenth-century texts reworked central aspects of Milton's epic in order to reconfigure the politically resonant gendered hierarchy laid out by the story of the Fall.
Inherit the Holy Mountain puts religion at the center of the history of American environmentalism rather than at its margins, demonstrating how religion provided environmentalists with content, direction, and tone for the environmental causes they espoused.
This bible commentary looks at how Exodus has influenced and has been influenced by history, religion, politics, the arts and other forms of culture over the ages. A bible commentary tracing the reception history of Exodus from Old Testament times, through the Patristic and Reformation periods, to the present day. Considers the ways in which Exodus has influenced and has been influenced by history, religion, politics, the arts and other forms of culture in Jewish, Christian and secular settings. Looks at how Exodus has served as a tool of liberation and tyranny in a variety of settings. Shows how Exodus has been used to shape the identities of individuals and groups. Discusses the works of c...
Short, accessible essays from fifteen recognized Milton specialists touching on the most important topics and themes in Paradise Lost.
Faithful Labourers surveys and evaluates existing criticism of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost, tracing the major debates as they have unfolded over the past three centuries. Eleven chapters split over two volumes consider the key debates in Milton criticism, including discussion of Milton's style, his use of the epic genre, and his references to Satan, God, innocence, the fall, sex, nakedness, and astronomy. Volume one attends to questions of style and genre. The first three chapters examine the longstanding debate about Milton's grand style and the question of whether it forfeits the native resources of English. Early critics saw Milton as the pre-eminent poet of 'apt Numbers' and 'fit qu...
What is the role of providence in Paradise Lost? In Looking into Providences, Raymond B. Waddington provides the first examination of this engaging subject. He explores the variety of implicit organizational structures or ‘designs’ that govern Paradise Lost, and looks in-depth at the ‘trials,’ or testing situations, which require interpretation, choice, and action from its characters. Waddington situates the poem within the context of providentialism’s centrality to seventeenth-century thought and life, arguing that Milton’s own conception of providence was deeply influenced by the theology of Jacob Arminius. Using Milton’s Arminian conception of free will, he then looks at the providential trials experienced by angels and humans. Finally, the work explores the ways in which providentialism infiltrates various kinds of discourse, ranging from military to medical, and from political to philosophical.
This book examines the way in which early modern women writers conceived of grief and the relationship between the dead and the living.