Milton, evil and literary history / Claire Colebrook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colebrook, Claire.

Series:

Continuum literary studies

Continuum literary studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Milton, John, 1608-1674--Criticism and interpretation--History.

Milton, John.

Milton, John, 1608-1674.

Good and evil in literature.

Life in literature.

Meaning (Philosophy) in literature.

Symbolism in literature.

Good and evil--Philosophy.

Good and evil.

Philosophy.

Criticism and interpretation.

History.

Physical Description:

158 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, 2008.

Summary:

Milton, Evil and Literary History addresses the ways in which we read literary history according to quite specific images of growth, development, progression, flourishing and succession. Goodness has always been aligned with a life of expansion, creation, production and fruition, while evil is associated with the inert, non-relational, static and stagnant. These associations have also underpinned a distinction between good and evil notions of capitalism, where good exchange enables agents to enhance their living potential and is contrasted with the evils of a capitalist system that circulates without any reference to life or spirit. Such images of a ghostly and technical economy divorced from animating origin are both central to Milton's theology and poetry and to the theories of literary history through which Milton is read. Regarded as a radical precursor to Romanticism, Milton's poetry supposedly requires the release of his radical spiritual content from the fetters of received orthodoxy. This literary and historical imagery of releasing the radical spirit of a text from the dead weight of received tradition is, this book argues, the dominant doxa of historicism and one which a counter-reading of Milton ought to question.

Contents:

Introduction: Life, Economy, Evil 1

1 Milton's History of Reason and Church Government 15

2 Capital Time, Production and Generation 44

3 Allegory, Analogy and the Form of the World 70

4 Gender and Contrariety 90

5 History, Becoming and Reason 104

Conclusion: Excremental Whiteness 122.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [127]-155) and index.

ISBN:

9780826484925

0826484921

OCLC:

156845897