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: Political Writings

Milton: Political Writings
Author: John Milton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1991-02-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780521343947

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 the 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. They are central to an understanding both of the development of Milton's political thought and the climax of the English Revolution itself. This is the first time that fully annotated versions have been published together in one volume, and incorporates a wholly 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. Further aids to students include a full chronology of Milton's life and events, a select bibliography and biographies of persons mentioned in the text.

Areopagitica, and Other Political Writings of John Milton

Areopagitica, and Other Political Writings of John Milton
Author: John Milton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 496
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN:

As poet, statesman, and pamphleteer, John Milton remains one of the singular champions of liberty in the annals of history. Even in his mediations on theology Milton strove to demonstrate that liberty -- of conscience -- is one of the inviolable rights of free peoples. He published several revolutionary manifestos, two works defending regicide, and of course the famous Areopagitica, or defense of freedom of expression and the press against censorship. John Alvis has collected into a superb one-volume edition all of Milton's political writings of enduring importance. These include the entirety of Areopagitica, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, A Defence of the People of England, The Second Defence of the People of England, The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and Mr. John Milton's Character of the Long Parliament. John Milton (1608-1674) was the author also of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and served as Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth.

Why Milton Matters: A New Preface to His Writings

Why Milton Matters: A New Preface to His Writings
Author: J. Wittreich
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2015-12-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230601421

Wittreich demonstrates why Milton may prove to be the poet for the new millennium, in a book of interest to scholars and general readers. It engages the canonical Milton, as well as the Milton of popular culture, and uses the tools of theory- especially affective stylistics and reception history, to read Milton in his historical moment and our own.

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory

Milton's Political Ideas and Paradise Lost as a Political Allegory
Author: Volkan Kiliç
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2018-04-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1527509893

Although Milton wrote several poems and sonnets in his earlier career, he became known as a revolutionary and passionate political activist, beginning his political career with the pamphlets that he wrote on the current politics of his time, defending antimonarchical rule and republicanism, giving particular attention to the religious and civil liberties of the people and the necessity of a free commonwealth. However, following the restoration of monarchy, he had to stop writing political pamphlets because, as a republican and defender of regicide, Milton was in danger, and the new regime made it impossible for him to express his political thoughts safely. He embarked on a literary project which included his major poetical works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Considering his earlier reputation as an ardent republican, leading an active political life, it can be stated that Milton could not detach himself from the political controversies of his time. Hence, he wrote Paradise Lost as a political poem in which he reflected and inserted his political views in an allegorical manner. This book re-reads Milton’s Paradise Lost in the light of his political views as reflected in his earlier political pamphlets. It argues that, using literature as a medium of expression, Milton intentionally wrote Paradise Lost as a political poem, in which, by re-writing the Biblical story of the Creation, the fall of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve, he created a political subtext which reflected the social and political panorama of England of his time.

Literature and Politics in Cromwellian England

Literature and Politics in Cromwellian England
Author: Blair Worden
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2007-12-06
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 019152820X

In this book the pre-eminent historian of Cromwellian England takes a fresh approach to the literary biography of the two great poets of the Puritan Revolution, John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Blair Worden reconstructs the political contexts within which Milton and Marvell wrote, and reassesses their writings against the background of volatile and dramatic changes of public mood and circumstance. Two figures are shown to have been prominent in their minds. First there is Oliver Cromwell, on whose character and decisions the future of the Puritan Revolution and of the nation rested, and whose ascent the two writers traced and assessed, in both cases with an acute ambivalence. The second is Marchamont Nedham, the pioneering journalist of the civil wars, a close friend of Milton and a man whose writings prove to be intimately linked to Marvell's. The high achievements of Milton and Marvell are shown to belong to world of pressing political debate which Nedham's ephemeral publications helped to shape. The book follows Marvell's transition from royalism to Cromwellianism. In Milton's case we explore the profound effect on his outlook brought by the execution of King Charles I in 1649; his difficult and disillusioning relationship with the successive regimes of the Interregnum; and his attempt to come to terms, in his immortal poetry of the Restoration, with the failure of Puritan rule.

Milton and the Politics of Public Speech

Milton and the Politics of Public Speech
Author: Dr Helen Lynch
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-01-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1472415221

Using Hannah Arendt’s account of the Greek polis to explain Milton’s fascination with the idea of public speech, this book reveals what is distinctive about his conception of a godly, republican oratory and poetics. Setting Milton’s poetry and prose in the context of Civil War polemic; classical political theory and its early modern reinterpretations; and Renaissance writing on rhetoric and poetic language, the volume culminates in an Arendtian reading of his ‘Greek’ drama Samson Agonistes.

Historical Milton

Historical Milton
Author: Thomas Chandler Fulton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Books and reading
ISBN: 9781558498440

Examines the relationship between the manuscript evidence of Milton's thinking and its representation in his printed works

Milton and the Post-Secular Present

Milton and the Post-Secular Present
Author: Feisal Mohamed
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2011-08-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0804780730

Our post-secular present, argues Feisal Mohamed, has much to learn from our pre-secular past. Through a consideration of poet and polemicist John Milton, this book explores current post-secularity, an emerging category that it seeks to clarify and critique. It examines ethical and political engagement grounded in belief, with particular reference to the thought of Alain Badiou, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Gayatri C. Spivak. Taken to an extreme, such engagement produces the cult of the suicide bomber. But the suicide bomber has also served as a convenient bogey for those wishing to distract us from the violence in Western and Christian traditions and for those who would dismiss too easily the vigorous iconoclasm that belief can produce. More than any other poet, Milton alerts us to both anti-humane and liberationist aspects of belief and shows us relevant dynamics of language by which such commitment finds expression.