John Milton : life, work, and thought /

Many recent biographies of Milton have suffered because their authors, taking for granted certain unquestioned assumptions made by earlier biographers, did not sufficiently revisit the vast scholarship on Milton and the English Civil War. In their impressive, rigorous biography, Campbell (Univ. of Leicester) and Corns (Bangor Univ.) reexamine the writings of Milton and the records of his life, interrogating traditional notions of radicalism, republicanism, and Puritanism and offering a more complex and nuanced account of the man and his times. Tracing his development from an ideologically conformist youth through his religious and political radicalization, the authors reveal a more humane and conflicted Milton than has yet been recognized. In so doing, they provide the fullest portrait yet of this brilliant, controversial, and ambitious politician, theologian, and artist. Informed by an exhaustive engagement with a staggering amount of primary material, and anchored by impeccable scholarly acumen, this biography supersedes all recent accounts, including Barbara Lewalski's outstanding The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography (CH, Oct'01, 39-0789). Further, the authors' insights into Milton's thought are on par with those of A. D. Nuttall's on Shakespeare (in Shakespeare the Thinker, CH, Nov'07, 45-1342). Summing Up: Essential. All readers. D. Pesta University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

There is renewed interest in Milton, particularly his political life, this year, the 400th anniversary of his birth. This substantial biography, seamlessly written by the editors of the Oxford Milton, draws chiefly on documentary evidence and an easy familiarity with the 17th-century English scene. As a prodigy scholar, pamphleteer, government translator on the international stage and the blind (probably from glaucoma) bard of the Bible, Milton found himself astride a world of hardening views, as it spiraled in political and spiritual transition. He wrote on divorce, freedom of expression and the tenure of kings; his De Doctrina Christiana, not unearthed until the 1820s, is an essential work of systematic theology. The authors set Milton's imaginative life against this backdrop, stretching from Shakespeare, to whom Milton's father may have been loosely connected, to Dryden's ingenious staging of Paradise Lost in couplets. With nearly 100 pages of notes and bibliography, this is a no-nonsense contribution to our understanding of a genius who, in many ways, is hardly remote from our times. 25 b&w illus., maps. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The 400th anniversary of the birth of the great English poet John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, has brought a resurgence of popular interest, especially in his radical social and religious views. Leading Miltonists Campbell (Renaissance studies, Univ. of Leicester, U.K.) and Corns (English, Bangor Univ.; The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry) bring two lifetimes of scholarship to this new biography of the poet. Their work is informed by a careful reexamination of the vast archival sources coupled with a thorough knowledge of the changing historiographic understanding of 17th-century historical, social, political, and religious currents. Neither hagiography nor sensationalism, the book places Milton's life and work into the shifting contexts of his times, tracing the stages of his radicalization. Campbell and Corns's biography is more historical than literary in focus. An essential contribution for Miltonists and those interested in the period; it is also accessible to general readers.-T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.