Synopses & Reviews
Written by two of the world's leading Milton scholars, widely praised as "illuminating" (Times Literary Supplement), "seamlessly written (Publishers Weekly), and "a book of permanent value" (Literary Review), and winner of the Milton Society's James Holly Hanford Award, this magnificent biography sheds fresh new light on the writings, the thought, and the life of poet John Milton. A more human Milton appears in these pages, a Milton who is flawed, self-contradictory, self-serving, arrogant, passionate, ruthless, ambitious, and cunning. He is also among the most accomplished writers of the period, the most eloquent polemicist of the mid-century, and the author of the finest and most influential narrative poem in English, Paradise Lost, which the book examines in detail. What Milton achieved in the face of crippling adversity, blindness, bereavement, and political eclipse, remains wondrous. Here is a fascinating biography of this towering literary figure--the first new serious study in forty years--one that profoundly challenges the received wisdom about one of England's leading poets and thinkers.
Review
"This substantial biography, seamlessly written by the editors of the Oxford Milton, draws chiefly on documentary evidence and an easy familiarity with the 17th-century English scene. With nearly 100 pages of notes and bibliography, this is a no-nonsense contribution to our understanding of a genius who, in many ways, is hardly remote from our times."--Publishers Weekly
"A magnificent achievement: anyone interested in the seventeenth century or its literature will enjoy it, eagerly read it through, and return to it again and again." --Milton Quarterly
About the Author
Gordon Campbell is Professor of Renaissance Studies at University of Leicester. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He is a former chairman of the English Association and of the Society for Renaissance Studies He has published widely on Milton and on art and architecture, mostly for OUP.
Thomas N. Corns is Professor of English at Bangor University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the English Association. He has published six books on Milton and other books on seventeenth-century literature.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I 1608-1632
1. Childhood
2. St Paul's School
3. Cambridge: the undergraduate years
4. Cambridge: the postgraduate years
Part II 1632-1639
5. Hammersmith
6. Horton
7. Italy
Part III 1639-49
8. The Crisis of Government
9. The First Civil War
10. The Road to Regicide
Part IV 1649-1660
11. The Purged Parliament
12. The Protectorate
13. From the Death of Oliver Cromwell to the Restoration
Part V 1660-67
14. Milton in 1660
15. Surviving the Restoration
16. Plague, Fire and Paradise Lost
17. The Sunlit Uplands
Part VI 1667 and after
18. Posthumous Life and Nachlass
Bibliography