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There is a crying need for an accessible, comprehensive guide to John Milton for the thousands of students who make their way through his poetry every year on literary survey and seventeenth century literature courses. Where many previous guides have dragged their way through Paradise Lost, Richard Bradford brings Milton to life with an overview of his life, contexts, work and the relationship between these, and of the main critical issues surrounding his work.
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THE COMPLETE CRITICAL GUIDE TO JOHN MILTON Is Paradise Lost an affirmation of faith, a dramatisation of doubt or even a political allegory? Are Milton’s writings misogynistic or egalitarian? So many questions surround the key figures in the English literary canon, but most books focus on one aspect of an author’s life or work, or limit themselves to a single critical approach. The Complete Critical Guide to John Milton is part of a unique series of comprehensive, user-friendly introductions which: • offer basic information on an author’s life, contexts and works • outline the major critical issues surrounding the author’s works, from the time they were written to the present • leave judgements up to you, by explaining the full range of often very different critical views and interpretations • offer guides to further reading in each area discussed. This series has a broad focus but one very clear aim: to equip you with all the knowledge you need to make your own new readings of crucial literary texts. Richard Bradford is Professor of English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He is the author of Stylistics (Routledge 1997) and Lucky Him: The Life of Kingsley Amis (Peter Owen 2001). THE COMPLETE CRITICAL GUIDE TO ENGLISH LITERATURE Series Editors RICHARD BRADFORD AND JAN JEDRZEJEWSKI Also available in this series: The Complete Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett David Pattie The Complete Critical Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer Gillian Rudd The Complete Critical Guide to Alexander Pope Paul Baines Forthcoming: The Complete Critical Guide to Robert Browning The Complete Critical Guide to Charles Dickens The Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence The Complete Critical Guide to William Wordsworth Visit the website of The Complete Critical Guide to English Literature for further information and an updated list of titles www.literature.routledge.com/criticalguides THE COMPLETE CRITICAL GUIDE TO JOHN MILTON Richard Bradford London and New York First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2001 Richard Bradford All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-99588-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-20243-4 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-20244-2 (pbk) To Helen and Gerard Burns And Amy, Cork’s Eve CONTENTS Series editors’ preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations and referencing Introduction Part I LIFE AND CONTEXTS Part II WORK Part III CRITICISM Chronology Bibliography Index