Refining the Sublime: Edward Phillips, a Miltonic Education, and the Sublimity of Paradise Lost

Abstract

abstract:Edward Phillips is central to our understanding of Milton’s life due to his role as lead amanuensis during the composition of Paradise Lost. Yet Milton’s nephew has long been considered a failed product of his uncle’s educational method. This article recovers the intellectual dimension of Phillips’s literary and publishing activities and their neglected place in the reception of Paradise Lost as sublime. Enduring claims that Phillips was a Cavalier renegade to Miltonic principles and inveterate plagiarist are shown to be of less interest than how he can be seen to have applied the methods in which he had been schooled.