Milton: Books

Also available as e-book.

Includes the chapter: "Creating a national poetry : the tradition of Spenser and Milton" by David Fairer.

"In Divided Empire, Robert T. Fallon examines the influence of John Milton's political experience on his great poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This study is a natural sequel to Fallon's previous book, Milton in Government, which examined Milton's decade of service as Secretary for Foreign Languages to the English Republic."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In 2 volumes.

Shawcross has been called the unofficial dean of Milton studies. This titles is considered a major work that belongs in all academic library collections.

Published in 6 volumes. Originally published 1877-1896.

"A fresh and engaging account of the life, times, politics, loves, and letters of the great English poet John Milton on the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. John Milton is one of the world’s greatest poets, renowned author of the epic Paradise Lostas well as numerous sonnets and other works. But he was also deeply involved in the political and religious controversies of his time. Fully immersed in the new and rapidly changing print culture, Milton wrote a series of radical pamphlets on free speech, divorce, and religious, political, and social rights that proposed a complete rethinking of the nature and practice not only of government, but of human freedom itself. Having put his pen at the service of Parliament against King Charles, and his Latin at the service of Cromwell’s new commonwealth, when the Restoration came Milton was lucky to escape with his life. By then completely blind, he persevered, creating the majestic works that made him immortal. For centuries Milton has emerged from biographies either as a blind, saintly figure removed from the messy business of personal affections, or as a woman-hating domestic tyrant. Yet as Anna Beer shows, he was neither ogre nor paragon. Milton had intense and often troubled relationships with both men (such as his early, passionate friendship with Charles Diodati) and women (throughout his three marriages). By closely examining all aspects of Milton’s life—his poetry, his prose, his Latin writings, his careful editing of his own biography, the records of his government work, and the social and political history of England during one of its most tumultuous periods (an era that ran from Shakespeare’s plays to Samuel Pepys’s diaries)—Anna Beer succeeds in bringing a celebrated and enigmatic writer to vivid life on the four hundredth anniversary of his birth."

"Ranges over diverse topics - from the origins of evil and the relevance of witchcraft to the status of the poetic narrator, the epic tradition, the nature of love between the sexes, and seventeenth-century astronomy."

The author "challenges the assumption ... that PARADISE LOST consistently reflects Paul's view that salvation, impossible under Mosaic law, is received only by grace through Christ's sacrifical death." This titles is considered accessible to undergraduates and general readers.

"In this provocative study, the author offers a close reading of pivotal passages and critical concerns in 'Paradise Lost' and examines Milton's presentation of Adam and Eve's relationship through the intersections of theology and gender in the poem. Pruitt demonstrates the Miltonic 'marriage' of theme and structure through an emphasis on the dynamic and restorative power of relationships."

"Winner of the James Holly Hanford Prize given by the Milton Society of America An exporation into the mind of John Milton that probes deeper than previous biographical studies, John Shawcross's award-winning text examines the psychological underpinnings of Milton's decision to become a poet, the homoerotic dimensions of his personality, and his relationships with his father and mother. John T. Shawcross is professor emeritus of English at the University of Kentucky and the author and editor of many books. See other books in the series Studies in the English Renaissance.

"John Rogers here addresses the literary and ideological consequences of the remarkable, if improbable, alliance between science and politics in seventeenth-century England. He looks at the cultural intersection between the English and Scientific Revolutions, concentrating on a body of work created in a brief but potent burst of intellectual activity during the period of the Civil Wars, the Interregnum, and the earliest years of the Stuart Restoration. Rogers traces the broad implications of a seemingly outlandish cultural phenomenon: the intellectual imperative to forge an ontological connection between physical motion and political action."

Volume 151 of the DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY series.

Volume 281 of the DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY series.

A good source for viewing Milton within the context of his time.

A concordance provides a list of words used in a body of work along with their immediate contexts.

Contains entries for what some critics have had to say about Milton and his works.

A classic reference set in four volumes from 1903, volume three is subtitled: "from Milton to Johnson."
In Special Collections -- ask for assistance.

Lauded as an outstanding title for the year of its publication, THE ESSENTIAL MILTON is considered particularly valuable to undergraduate students studying the author and his works.

In 5 volumes:
v. 1. The man and the author
v. 2. The early poems
v. 3. Prose
v. 4. Paradise lost
v. 5. Paradise regained and Samson Agonistes.

Another title in the Gale Research literary series, and currently containing over 100 volumes in the set, vols. 9, 43, and 92 contain chapters on John Milton and his works, including criticism (additional later volumes may contain Milton criticism as they are published).

In six volumes. Includes Milton's contributions to to the discussion of some of the ideas that have occupied the minds of humankind.

Available as an e-book with over 30 of the first volumes in the series still available in print (Ref 809.1 P745Y7). As of last check vols. 19 & 29 contain chapters on John Milton and his works.

Volume 131 of the DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY series. Contains chapter on John Milton.

An 8 volume set, volume 3 contains a chapter on PARADISE LOST.