Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, set a new standard for Milton criticism and established its author as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. How Milton works "from the inside out" is the foremost concern of Fish's book, which explores the radical effect of Milton's theological convictions on his poetry and prose. For Milton the value of a poem or of any other production derives from the inner worth of its author and not from any external measure of excellence or heroism. Milton's aesthetic, says Fish, is an "aesthetic of testimony": every action, whether verbal or physical, is or should be the action of holding fast to a single saving commitment against the allure of plot, narrative, representation, signs, drama--anything that might be construed as an illegitimate supplement to divine truth. Much of the energy of Milton's writing, according to Fish, comes from the effort to maintain his faith against these temptations, temptations which in any other aesthetic would be seen as the very essence of poetic value. Encountering the great poet on his own terms, engaging his equally distinguished admirers and detractors, this book moves a 300-year debate about the significance of Milton's verse to a new level.
poetry & poets.
Bringing together literary criticism, historical bibliography, and religious, political, and print history, this volume offers a definitive scholarly edition of John Milton's Paradise Regain'd and Samson Agonistes.
This edition is a consummate work of modern literary scholarship.
Or, as the philosophical poet John Davies of Hereford put it in Mirum in Modum (1602): The Body in the Elements is cloz'd; The Bloud within the body is confin'd; The Spirits, within the Bloud; the Soul's dispoz'd Within the Spirites, ...
This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode.
Most important is Miller's demonstration of more cogent texts, dates, and addressees supplied by Lünig's versions. 2. ... See Michael Lieb's “Milton's 'Dramatick Constitution': The Celestial Dialogue in Paradise Lost, Book III,” Milton ...
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 ...
This book makes Milton's works accessible and enjoyable by providing engaging and lucid explanations of his life, times and writings.
Milton's Messiah provides the first comprehensive book-length analysis of the nature and significance of the Son of God in Milton's poetry and theology.
A Concordance to the Poetical Works of John Milton