Destabilizing Milton

PETER HERMAN is Professor of English at San Diego State University, USA. He is the author of Squitter-wits and Muse-haters: Sidney, Spenser, Milton and Renaissance Antipoetic Sentiment as well as the editor of Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts; Reading Monarchs Writing: The Poetry of Henry VIII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VII; Day Late, Dollar Short: The Next Generation and the New Academy; and Historicizing Theory. In addition, he has published essays in such journals as Renaissance Quarterly, Studies in English Literature, Exemplaria, Criticism, and the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

• Introduction: 'Normal' Interpretation and the Protocols of Milton Criticism 'Warring Chains of Signifiers': Metaphoric Ambivalence and the Politics of Paradise Lost Paradise Lost, the Miltonic 'Or', and the Poetics of Incertitude 'England a Free Nation': Milton's Prose and the Ancient Constitution 'New Laws, New Counsels': Satan, Charles I, and the Ancient Constitution Incertitude, Authority, and Milton's God God, Gender, the Fall, and the Problem of Responsibility Postscript: Samson Agonistes, Paradise Regained and the Romance Conclusion of Milton's Career

'Destabilizing Milton is a brilliant study...His discourse is fluent and convincing, and all his points are painstakingly researched against the religious and political situation of the period.' - Jan Marten Ivo Klaver, The Heythrop Journal