Poet of revolution : the making of John Milton / Nicholas McDowell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McDowell, Nicholas, 1973- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Milton, John, 1608-1674.

Milton, John.

Poets, English--Early modern, 1500-1700--Biography.

Poets, English.

Poets, English--Early modern--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvi, 485 pages : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2020]

Summary:

A biography of Milton's formative years, Nicholas McDowell draws on recent archival discoveries to reconcile at last the poet and polemicist. He charts Milton's development from his earliest days as a London schoolboy, through his university life and travels in Italy, to his emergence as a public writer during the English Civil War. At the same time, McDowell presents fresh, richly contextual readings of Milton's best-known works from this period, including the "Nativity Ode," "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," Comus, and "Lycidas." Challenging biographers who claim that Milton was always a secret radical, Poet of Revolution shows how the events that provoked civil war in England combined with Milton's astonishing programme of self-education to instil the beliefs that would shape not only his political prose but also his later epic masterpiece.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I LONDON AND ST PAUL's SCHOOL, 1608-25

1. Londiniensis

`Chief of Cities'

The ABC of Salvation

`Excellent Father'

Humanism and Puritanism

2. Pure Chaste Eloquence

The Grammar of Things

Blotterature

That Sublime Art

3. The Pursuit of Universal Learning

Eloquence and Erudition

Accelerated Humanism

pt. II CAMBRIDGE AND CHRIST's COLLEGE, 1625-9

4. Philology and Philosophy

`Whip'tHim'

"Vehement Study and Emulation'

`Blind Illiteracy'

`New Rotten Sophistrie'

5. Beginning as a Poet

Fatal Vespers

`That Little Swimming Isle'

The Nature of a Composition

Satire and Libel

6. Heroes and Daemons

Miscellany Poet

A Monument More Permanent

Living with the Daemons

Domina

7. The Poetics of Play and Devotion

`His Hand Unstained'

Melancholicus

`A Synchronism of Prophecies'

`The Lars, and Lemures Moan'

pt. III CAMBRIDGE AND HAMMERSMITH, 1629-35

8. Laudian Poet?

`Tenet of the Apocalyptical Beast'

`Arminianized under his Tuition'

Mystics in Hammersmith

Above the Years He Had When He Wrote It'

Water and Wine, Tears and Blood

9. In Search of Patronage

`Pluto's Helmet'

Genius of the Wood

`Notorious Whores'

Some Other Circe

10. Many Are the Shapes of Things Daemonic

Pagan Virtue

`How Charming Is Divine Philosophy!'

Apollo's Lute

The Beauty and The Bacchae

pt. IV HORTON AND ITALY, 1635-9

11. The Circle of Studies

Identity and Belief in 1636

`Subdivisions of Vice and Virtue'

`Censored by the Inquisitor'

A True Poem

Wotton, Hales, and Eton College

12. Love and Death in `Lycidas'

Two Sorts of Shepherd

`Bacchic Howlings

Digression and Desire

13. Writing and Society in `Lycidas'

`Run Amarillis Run'

Index Expurgatorius

Genius of the Shore

14. Come un Virtuoso

In Circe's Court

`Flattery and Fustian'

Non Angli, Sed Angeli

Be Our Daemon

pt. V LONDON AND ALDERSGATE STREET, 1639-42

15. Becoming a Polemicist

The Method of History

`Brittish of the North Parts'

`Tearing of Hoods and Cowles'

Ancients and Moderns

16. The Poetics of Polemic

`Struggle of Contrarieties'

A Calvinist Suit of Armour

`Inquisitorious and Tyrannical Duncery'

Ignorance of the Beautiful.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 421-461) and index.

ISBN:

9780691154695

0691154694

OCLC:

1151193476