John Milton Prose - Annotated (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Regarded by many as the equal of Shakespeare in poetic imagination and expression, Milton was also a prolific writer of prose, applying his potent genius to major issues of domestic, religious and political liberty. This superbly annotated new publication is the most authoritative single-volume anthology yet of Milton's major prose works.

• Uses Milton's original language, spelling and punctuation
• Freshly and extensively annotated
• Notes provide unrivalled contextual analysis as well as illuminating the wealth of Milton's allusions and references
• Will appeal to a general readership as well as to scholars across the humanities

From the Back Cover

Regarded by many as the equal of Shakespeare in poetic imagination and expression, Milton was also a prolific writer of prose who explored, with great acuity and originality, his frequently dissenting and controversial views on religion, politics, and liberty. This new and extensively annotated edition of his major prose works presents them in their original language, spelling, and punctuation, and demonstrates Milton's continued relevance. It shows why Milton's rich, varied prose works are justly reckoned among his greatest achievements, analyzing such major topics as freedom of the press, religious toleration and liberty of conscience, gender, marriage, the dangers of tyranny, and the significance of political debate and dissent.

The exhaustive notes compiled for this edition illuminate the complexities of the shifting contemporary political and religious contexts in which Milton wrote and published his major prose works, even as they elucidate the wealth of Milton's biblical, classical, and topical allusions. Most crucially for contemporary readers, his prose writings address the meanings and consequences of different kinds of liberty: religious, political, domestic, and individual.

Review Quotes

"....will ensure that Milton's prose continues to challenge and reward the kind of active, discerning readership that Milton himself courted."
(Renaissance Quarterly, 1 July 2014)

"Milton's extraordinary prose, extensively represented in David Loewenstein's ambitious edition, has gained many new readers in recent years, and it may be true that some students, at least in British schools and universities, read Tenure of Kings and Magistrates before, or even instead of, the great poetry."
Times Literary Supplement (June 14 2013)

About the Author

David Loewenstein is Helen C. White Professor of English and the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. His books include Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Puritanism (2001), which received the Milton Society of America's James Holly Hanford Award for Distinguished Book. He is the author of Treacherous Faith: The Specter of Heresy in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2013). He has co-edited The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (2002), Early Modern Nationalism and Milton's England (2008), and The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley (2009). He is an Honored Scholar of the Milton Society of America.