Milton and the art of rhetoric / Daniel Shore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shore, Daniel, 1980- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Milton, John.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 203 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Milton & the Art of Rhetoric

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Challenging the conventional view of John Milton as an iconoclast who spoke only to a 'fit audience though few', Daniel Shore argues that Milton was a far more pragmatic writer than previous scholarship has recognized. Summoning evidence from nearly all of his works - poetry and prose alike - Shore asserts that Milton distanced himself from the prescriptions of classical rhetoric to develop new means of persuasion suited to an age distrustful of traditional eloquence. Shore demonstrates that Milton's renunciation of agency, audience, purpose and effect in the prose tracts leads not to quietism or withdrawal, but rather to a reasserted investment in public debate. Shore reveals a writer who is committed to persuasion and yet profoundly critical of his own persuasive strategies. An innovative contribution to the field, this text will appeal to scholars of Milton, seventeenth-century literature, Renaissance literature and the history and theory of rhetoric.

Contents:

Milton in the public sphere

Constraint as a means of persuasion

Becoming a supplement

Why Milton is not an iconoclast

The uses of trembling

Instrumental reason and Imitatio Christi

Epilogue: the threat of Samson Agonistes.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-23156-6

1-139-50828-8

1-280-77417-7

9786613684943

1-139-51792-9

1-139-51534-9

1-139-10897-2

1-139-51442-3

1-139-51699-X

1-139-51885-2

OCLC:

796803965