Why Milton Matters A New Preface to His Writings [Hardcover]

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.Illustrations Preface Citations Reading Milton: The Death (and Survival) of the Author Horizons of Expectations: Represssions, Receptions, and the Politics of Milton's Last Poems Critique and Questioning: The Formation of a New Milton Criticism

'Wittreich's brilliant and richly learned analysis gives us a Milton who does indeed matter, a Milton whose ever-radical approach to politics and religion offers new perspectives on post-9/11 global dilemmas and new ways of thinking about good and evil, freedom and oppression. Particularly in the three great poems (Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and Paradise Regain'd), Wittreich finds 'a compendium of rival interpretations' that invite a thoughtful re-consideration of the Bible and human history. He persuades us that these poems are 'apt companions as, confronting global hatreds and anger, we are haunted by images of hubris flaunted only to be followed by stunning defeat.' The moral dilemmas of Samson Agonistes, especially, are 'meant to worry our humanity.' Magisterial in its knowledge of Milton's contexts and reception history, this book draws on seventeenth-century biblical commentary, recent literary theory, and a great deal in between to persuade us of a complex, provocative, and breathtakingly relevant Milton.' - Susanne Woods, Wheaton College

''Man,' said W. B. Yeats, 'can embody truth but he cannot know it.' What Wittreich shows, in this eloquent, passionate, and beautifully argued study, is that Milton's late poems - Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes - are unique in their embodiment of scenes of ideological, theological, anlc