Milton and the Making of Paradise Lost / William Poole.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Poole, William, 1977- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Milton, John, 1608-1674.

Milton, John.

Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost--Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (385 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Milton and the Making of Paradise Lost tells the story of John Milton's life as England's self-elected national poet and explains how the single greatest poem of the English language came to be written. In early 1642 Milton--an obscure private schoolmaster--promised English readers a work of literature so great that "they should not willingly let it die." Twenty-five years later, toward the end of 1667, the work he had pledged appeared in print: the epic poem Paradise Lost. In the interim, however, the poet had gone totally blind and had also become a controversial public figure--a man who had argued for the abolition of bishops, freedom of the press, the right to divorce, and the prerogative of a nation to depose and put to death an unsatisfactory ruler. These views had rendered him an outcast. William Poole devotes particular attention to Milton's personal situation: his reading and education, his ambitions and anxieties, and the way he presented himself to the world. Although always a poet first, Milton was also a theologian and civil servant, vocations that informed the composition of his masterpiece. At the emotional center of this narrative is the astounding fact that Milton lost his sight in 1652. How did a blind man compose this staggeringly complex, intensely visual work? Poole opens up the epic worlds and sweeping vistas of Milton's masterpiece to modern readers, first by exploring Milton's life and intellectual preoccupations and then by explaining the poem itself--its structure, content, and meaning.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

PART ONE: MILTON

1. The Undertaking

2. School and the Gils

3. An Anxious Young Man

4. Ambitions

5. Milton's Syllabus

6. Securing a Reputation

7. Two Problematic Books

8. Systematic Theology

9. Drafts for Dramas

10. Two Competitors: Davenant and Cowley

11. Going Blind

12. The Undertaking, Revisited

13. Bibliographical Interlude: Publishing Paradise Lost

PART TWO: PARADISE LOST

14. Structure

15. Creating a Universe

16. Epic Disruption

17. Military Epic

18. Scientific Epic

19. Pastoral Tragedy

20. Contamination and Doubles

21. Justifying the Ways of God to Men

22. Becoming a Classic

Appendix: Milton's Classroom Authors.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Okt 2018)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780674983205

0674983203

9780674982673

0674982673

OCLC:

1054881381