abstract:Orthodox theology generally holds that God is eternal, which means that he exists in a state of absolute timelessness. John Milton, however, believed that God experiences the passage of time just as angels and humans do, except that God has always existed and that time extends infinitely into the past. Both Milton’s Christian Doctrine and Art of Logic indicate that God exists in time. In Paradise Lost Milton tends to use the language of eternity metaphorically rather than literally, and he never uses such language to describe timelessness. His depiction of God the Father existing and acting in time is not a concession to the limitations of narrative; Milton believed that God actually exists in time. Milton’s conception of time and eternity is not widely acknowledged, but it is essential to his insistence on radical free will and to his mytho-poetic efforts to justify God’s providence.
{"title":"Eternal Duration: Milton on God’s Justice in Everlasting Time","authors":"Stephen J. Schuler","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0008","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Orthodox theology generally holds that God is eternal, which means that he exists in a state of absolute timelessness. John Milton, however, believed that God experiences the passage of time just as angels and humans do, except that God has always existed and that time extends infinitely into the past. Both Milton’s Christian Doctrine and Art of Logic indicate that God exists in time. In Paradise Lost Milton tends to use the language of eternity metaphorically rather than literally, and he never uses such language to describe timelessness. His depiction of God the Father existing and acting in time is not a concession to the limitations of narrative; Milton believed that God actually exists in time. Milton’s conception of time and eternity is not widely acknowledged, but it is essential to his insistence on radical free will and to his mytho-poetic efforts to justify God’s providence.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"163 - 185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49486392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:One of the most contested and arguably misunderstood aspects of Milton’s poetry is his use of allusion. The long critical tradition on Paradise Lost, in particular, has spent much of its labor not only identifying the poem’s allusions and their significance, but also teasing out the terminological differences between allusion, echo, imitation, topoi, reference, and pun. But rich, insightful, and complex disagreements among readers of Milton’s epic poem nevertheless remain. This article suggests that part of the difficulty of Milton’s allusions lies in the fact that he did not use allusion in the way most poets do. Rather than deploying allusion as a “learned gesture” intended for readers to recognize, Milton used it as a thinking mechanism, a mode of apprehending and creating poetry.
{"title":"“The heat of Milton’s mind”: Allusion as a Mode of Thinking in Paradise Lost","authors":"Steven Aaron Minas","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0009","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:One of the most contested and arguably misunderstood aspects of Milton’s poetry is his use of allusion. The long critical tradition on Paradise Lost, in particular, has spent much of its labor not only identifying the poem’s allusions and their significance, but also teasing out the terminological differences between allusion, echo, imitation, topoi, reference, and pun. But rich, insightful, and complex disagreements among readers of Milton’s epic poem nevertheless remain. This article suggests that part of the difficulty of Milton’s allusions lies in the fact that he did not use allusion in the way most poets do. Rather than deploying allusion as a “learned gesture” intended for readers to recognize, Milton used it as a thinking mechanism, a mode of apprehending and creating poetry.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"186 - 211"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42321542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:This article contextualizes Paradise Lost within Milton’s work for the Council of State during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Drawing on archival research and scholarship on the history of diplomacy, it argues that modes of angelic association in Milton’s heaven reflect emerging forms of international relations. As a post-Westphalian Europe began to negotiate new kinds of treaties and compacts, the role of communications in forming enduring alliances between sovereign entities became increasingly salient. Looking at angelic society from this perspective helps to explain the focus of Milton’s narrative; it also sheds light on the crucial but largely neglected question of why Satan’s followers join him in rebellion.
{"title":"Paper Angels: Paradise Lost and the European State System","authors":"J. Werlin","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0010","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article contextualizes Paradise Lost within Milton’s work for the Council of State during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Drawing on archival research and scholarship on the history of diplomacy, it argues that modes of angelic association in Milton’s heaven reflect emerging forms of international relations. As a post-Westphalian Europe began to negotiate new kinds of treaties and compacts, the role of communications in forming enduring alliances between sovereign entities became increasingly salient. Looking at angelic society from this perspective helps to explain the focus of Milton’s narrative; it also sheds light on the crucial but largely neglected question of why Satan’s followers join him in rebellion.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"212 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43967930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:While some scholars have claimed that Milton blocks feminine creativity, others have characterized his attitude toward gender as ambivalent and his self-representation as even possessing gender fluidity. This article examines how a contemporary female poet’s strong reading of Milton’s Sonnet 19 demonstrates an extensive poetic engagement with what she takes to be Milton’s autobiographical expression of his reaction to blindness. Monica Youn’s Blackacre meditates on Sonnet 19’s end rhymes and uses the legal term for hypothetical land, “blackacre,” as a metaphor for articulating the history of the female body as the unspoken transmitter of the masculinist power structure enshrined in law. Youn transforms Milton’s sonnet, merging the ordeal of her infertility with Milton’s experience of blindness. In so doing, Youn resituates Sonnet 19 as a vital part of a tradition of feminine creativity, discovering Milton’s potential significance for poets negotiating questions of gender and poetic making.
{"title":"“Lodged with me useless”: Blindness in John Milton’s Sonnet 19 and Infertility in Monica Youn’s Blackacre","authors":"Teri Fickling","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0007","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:While some scholars have claimed that Milton blocks feminine creativity, others have characterized his attitude toward gender as ambivalent and his self-representation as even possessing gender fluidity. This article examines how a contemporary female poet’s strong reading of Milton’s Sonnet 19 demonstrates an extensive poetic engagement with what she takes to be Milton’s autobiographical expression of his reaction to blindness. Monica Youn’s Blackacre meditates on Sonnet 19’s end rhymes and uses the legal term for hypothetical land, “blackacre,” as a metaphor for articulating the history of the female body as the unspoken transmitter of the masculinist power structure enshrined in law. Youn transforms Milton’s sonnet, merging the ordeal of her infertility with Milton’s experience of blindness. In so doing, Youn resituates Sonnet 19 as a vital part of a tradition of feminine creativity, discovering Milton’s potential significance for poets negotiating questions of gender and poetic making.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"141 - 162"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45705863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:Milton's Lycidas is often placed in the context of Milton's career, but scholars have put less emphasis on its original print setting: the 1638 university miscellany Justa Edouardo King. By attending to the ways the poem may have been received by readers of the 1638 volume, this essay reads Lycidas as a response and counter to the other poems in the volume—the work of a poet attuned to his immediate social circumstances and reception. In Lycidas Milton is simultaneously engaged and at odds with his fellow contributors, and the poem expresses a tension between individual and collective impulses that would come to characterize much of Milton's future writing.
{"title":"The Multivocal Monody: Milton and the Poetics of Justa Edouardo King","authors":"John R. Ladd","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0000","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Milton's Lycidas is often placed in the context of Milton's career, but scholars have put less emphasis on its original print setting: the 1638 university miscellany Justa Edouardo King. By attending to the ways the poem may have been received by readers of the 1638 volume, this essay reads Lycidas as a response and counter to the other poems in the volume—the work of a poet attuned to his immediate social circumstances and reception. In Lycidas Milton is simultaneously engaged and at odds with his fellow contributors, and the poem expresses a tension between individual and collective impulses that would come to characterize much of Milton's future writing.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"23 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43887009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-13DOI: 10.5325/miltonstudies.61.1.0086
Jorge Bastos da Silva
abstract:This article highlights important aspects of the reception of Milton's work in Portugal between the year 1789, when the first translation of Paradise Lost was published, and c. 1850, when the Portuguese "liberal" regime achieved consolidation. Close textual analysis of translations of Paradise Lost as well as of Areopagitica is complemented by an examination of the social and ideological context. Finally, the article draws a parallel with the situation in Spain in the same period and suggests a comparative study of the reception of Milton in the two countries by raising various research questions.
{"title":"From Portuguese to Iberian Milton? A Selection of Facts and Questions","authors":"Jorge Bastos da Silva","doi":"10.5325/miltonstudies.61.1.0086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/miltonstudies.61.1.0086","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article highlights important aspects of the reception of Milton's work in Portugal between the year 1789, when the first translation of Paradise Lost was published, and c. 1850, when the Portuguese \"liberal\" regime achieved consolidation. Close textual analysis of translations of Paradise Lost as well as of Areopagitica is complemented by an examination of the social and ideological context. Finally, the article draws a parallel with the situation in Spain in the same period and suggests a comparative study of the reception of Milton in the two countries by raising various research questions.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"110 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46252037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:John Milton's Paradise Regained is typically contextualized within the politics of the Restoration; this article, however, argues that his 1671 poem recapitulates his antiliturgical arguments of the 1640s. Juxtaposing Milton's antiliturgical pamphlets, Eikon Basilike, and Eikonoklastes, I show the common interest in the language of "constancy" amid the debate over the use of the Book of Common Prayer. This language resurfaces in Paradise Regained, where the "constant" Son belatedly counters Eikon's cooption of constancy in the prayer book debates. The Son's famously interior, inward understanding of faith—expressed as neostoic "constancy"—rebuts arguments for the use of external forms of liturgy, rehearsing language and imagery from Milton's 1640s prose. Milton consequently emerges as a figure both retrograde and innovative, using old arguments and royalists' own terms in an unprecedented generic context to assert his defiance against the restoration of the English liturgy.
{"title":"Cuckoo Constancy? Paradise Regained and the Book of Common Prayer Debates","authors":"R. Zhang","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0005","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:John Milton's Paradise Regained is typically contextualized within the politics of the Restoration; this article, however, argues that his 1671 poem recapitulates his antiliturgical arguments of the 1640s. Juxtaposing Milton's antiliturgical pamphlets, Eikon Basilike, and Eikonoklastes, I show the common interest in the language of \"constancy\" amid the debate over the use of the Book of Common Prayer. This language resurfaces in Paradise Regained, where the \"constant\" Son belatedly counters Eikon's cooption of constancy in the prayer book debates. The Son's famously interior, inward understanding of faith—expressed as neostoic \"constancy\"—rebuts arguments for the use of external forms of liturgy, rehearsing language and imagery from Milton's 1640s prose. Milton consequently emerges as a figure both retrograde and innovative, using old arguments and royalists' own terms in an unprecedented generic context to assert his defiance against the restoration of the English liturgy.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"111 - 137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41348058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:Reading with a rich knowledge of agricultural praxis and the ways in which early modern readers understood the highly specific and uniquely Miltonic forms of labor that Adam and Eve perform in Paradise Lost, I argue that prelapsarian agrarian tasks, previously read as acts of diminution or (spiritual) discipline, are instead acts of material and spiritual increase. Adam and Eve knowingly and willingly set themselves an infinite, if pleasurable, task in their efforts to steward Eden through their lopping, pruning, and manuring. A closer examination of the material substance and the extent of Adam and Eve's efforts reveals new depth to their faith, a new form of georgic, and most importantly, a new vision of Milton's paradise as a place with the possibility, and the means, of expansion, change, and improvement. This more dynamic vision of prelapsarian life adds new poignancy to the Fall, and situates Milton's Eden within a constellation of experiments in rightful occupation without ownership, including those of Gerrard Winstanley, and countless writers of practical handbooks on agriculture.
{"title":"Milton's Manuring: Paradise Lost, Husbandry, and the Possibilities of Waste","authors":"S. Cornes","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0003","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Reading with a rich knowledge of agricultural praxis and the ways in which early modern readers understood the highly specific and uniquely Miltonic forms of labor that Adam and Eve perform in Paradise Lost, I argue that prelapsarian agrarian tasks, previously read as acts of diminution or (spiritual) discipline, are instead acts of material and spiritual increase. Adam and Eve knowingly and willingly set themselves an infinite, if pleasurable, task in their efforts to steward Eden through their lopping, pruning, and manuring. A closer examination of the material substance and the extent of Adam and Eve's efforts reveals new depth to their faith, a new form of georgic, and most importantly, a new vision of Milton's paradise as a place with the possibility, and the means, of expansion, change, and improvement. This more dynamic vision of prelapsarian life adds new poignancy to the Fall, and situates Milton's Eden within a constellation of experiments in rightful occupation without ownership, including those of Gerrard Winstanley, and countless writers of practical handbooks on agriculture.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"65 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47437138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:Milton's A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle has long been understood to engage an ethical debate about the proper use of nature, and this article establishes a previously neglected biographical context for understanding the literary, ethical, and historical contexts for that debate. By exploring the multiple geographies of A Mask (local, literary, and global), the article understands Milton's engagement with the moral discussion of the commercial enterprises of early modern Britain and thinks about ideas of geography as a means of interpretation.
{"title":"\"To the green earth's end\": Milton and the Geographies of A Mask","authors":"Sharon Achinstein","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0001","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Milton's A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle has long been understood to engage an ethical debate about the proper use of nature, and this article establishes a previously neglected biographical context for understanding the literary, ethical, and historical contexts for that debate. By exploring the multiple geographies of A Mask (local, literary, and global), the article understands Milton's engagement with the moral discussion of the commercial enterprises of early modern Britain and thinks about ideas of geography as a means of interpretation.","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"1 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43325408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
abstract:Milton famously claims that in Paradise Lost he will "assert eternal providence, / And justify the ways of God to men." Does he succeed? This article argues that Milton's epic, by the criteria of Immanuel Kant, for whom Milton was an immensely influential predecessor, inevitably fails as a philosophical theodicy. On the other hand, the article argues that Paradise Lost succeeds as a narrative of a fall that readers can experience as free rather than determined, and moreover that it succeeds as an example of what Kant termed "authentic theodicy."
{"title":"Narrative and Theodicy in Paradise Lost","authors":"S. Fallon","doi":"10.1353/MLT.2019.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MLT.2019.0002","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Milton famously claims that in Paradise Lost he will \"assert eternal providence, / And justify the ways of God to men.\" Does he succeed? This article argues that Milton's epic, by the criteria of Immanuel Kant, for whom Milton was an immensely influential predecessor, inevitably fails as a philosophical theodicy. On the other hand, the article argues that Paradise Lost succeeds as a narrative of a fall that readers can experience as free rather than determined, and moreover that it succeeds as an example of what Kant termed \"authentic theodicy.\"","PeriodicalId":42710,"journal":{"name":"Milton Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"40 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/MLT.2019.0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46797927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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