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This book examines the unresolved tensions in Milton's writings, as he grapples with the paradox of freedom in a universe ruled by an all-powerful God.
List of contents
Introduction. Free to fall: Milton and the Old Testament God; 1. Milton's post-Calvinist theology; 2. 'Providence their guide': providence in Milton; 3. The unpolluted temple of the mind: virtue on trial; 4. Classical and Biblical Republicanism: Milton and some contemporaries; 5. Victory's crest: Milton, the English nation, and Cromwell; 6. Monarchy and servitude: the politics of Paradise Lost; 7. God's just yoke: power and justice in Paradise Lost; 8. 'Tyrannie must be': Milton and the Restoration; Postscript.
About the author
Warren Chernaik is Emeritus Professor of English, University of London. He was the founding Director of the Institute of English Studies (IES), University of London, and is now a Senior Research Fellow of IES. He is the author of The Myth of Rome in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Cambridge, 2011), The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's History Plays (Cambridge, 2007), a study of The Merchant of Venice (2005), Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature (Cambridge, 1995) and The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1983). He has also published essays on such authors as Marvell, Milton, Shakespeare, Jonson, Herbert, Traherne, Rochester, Pepys, and Behn, and has co-edited books on topics as diverse as detective fiction, changes in copyright law, and Andrew Marvell.
Summary
Wide-ranging in its treatment of Milton's works in verse and prose, with particular attention to Paradise Lost, Milton and the Burden of Freedom examines the unresolved tensions in Milton's writings, as he grapples with the paradox of freedom in a universe ruled by an all-powerful, demanding God.
