The Cambridge Companion to Milton

by Dennis Danielson (Editor)

The Cambridge Companion to Milton provides an accessible, helpful guide for any student of Milton, whether undergraduate or graduate, introducing readers to the scope of Milton's work, the richness of its historical relations, and the range of current approaches to it. This second edition contains new and revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Milton's politics, the social conditions and climate in which his works were published and received, the importance of his early poems and Samson Agonistes, and the changes wrought by gender studies on the criticism of previous decades. The Companion's updated bibliography of studies and resources on Milton's works and life is available online at .

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Poetry, Literature, Philosophy, English Literature

313 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1989

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, if the Goodreads dates are to be believed, this book took me exactly a year to read. Some of that reflects the fact that it is a collection of essays of varying quality and interest. Some of that reflects that I still tend to read on my Kindle more when I'm traveling, so Kindle books get read in spurts rather than steadily. And some of that reflects that the life and work of John Milton, whatever their many redeeming qualities, rarely qualify as light reading.

I picked this book up after my most recent rereading of Paradise Lost, because I'd been struck by three things I hadn't much noticed on my previous readings, and I wanted to see what others had to say about them. The first was Milton's portrayal of Eve, and the way he seemed to lurch between an almost proto-feminism and rote affirmations of male superiority. The second was that the fallen angels in Hell give a set of speeches justifying their rebellion that frankly seem to echo the kinds of arguments that the anti-royal side in the English Civil War would have used, and given that Milton was on the anti-royal side, that seemed worthy of comment. The third thing was the curious amount of space and detail that Milton devotes to explaining that yes, angels have sex. If Milton were a modern science-fiction writer, I might have passed that off as a gratuitous bit of world building detail, but I was pretty sure that the archangelic shagging was there to prove a doctrinal point, but that I wasn't sufficiently deeply steeped in Milton's worldview to have any idea what it was.

Anyway, given that this book wasn't titled Everything Wendy Wanted to Know about Paradise Lost, there was a lot of stuff in this book that didn't directly relate to these topics, but was still interesting. Milton is a pretty complex figure. He was a passionate defender of free speech who worked as a government censor and a Christian of a rather puritanical bent who was surprisingly forward thinking on subjects like sex and divorce. There's lots here that I'd like to explore in more detail - thankfully, the book has an excellent bibliography that I'll probably be mining for reading matter for years.

Directly addressing some of the things I noticed about Paradise Lost, Diane K. McColley has an excellent essay in this book entitled "Milton and the sexes", in which she makes the case that Milton was remarkable in his portrayal of women as both rational beings and as people who were not entirely defined by their domestic roles. (I did find her a little too eager to excuse any residual sexism by claiming that Milton was just portraying men and women as having their own separate but equally worthy spheres. Such arguments never seem to fully take into account that the men's sphere gets all the attention paid to it.)

Dennis Danielson thoroughly addresses the angelic sex question. It gets a little theologically complex, but basically Milton was both rejecting the idea of strict dualism between body and spirit and the prevalent notion that sex was either the cause of or the result of Adam and Eve's fall. If sex is something that Adam and Eve can enjoy in Paradise, then unfallen angels have to be able to enjoy it too.

The book doesn't directly address the question of why so many of the demons in Paradise Lost sound like they might be cribbing arguments from Milton and his political allies. However, there's a lot of discussion of the rather ambivalent portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost, and one essayist makes a comment that I thought was particularly illuminating: that Milton's villains (both Satan in Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained and Delilah in Samson Agonistes) are villains almost precisely because they have virtue without faith. The type of evil that Milton is most interested in is that which deploys cleverness, courage, and skill to unworthy ends.

In conclusion, I should note that my reading of this book prompted a very interesting New Year's Eve party conversation that has in turn spawned a very active Google+ thread. So it's currently riding very high in the social and cultural capital rankings.

[Jeremy]

I've read/used Danielson's chapter (probably back in 2014). Skimmed McColley's chapter on Jan. 29, 2018.

Dobranski, "Milton's social life" (read on Oct. 24, 2019)
People tend to interpret JM biographically, in part because of JM's own comments about himself. But we shouldn't imagine him as a reclusive, socially isolated poet.
JM wrote poetry from an early age (c. age 10), and it was mostly to or about others. He was close with Charles Diodati (St. Paul's School and Christ's College) and Edward King (Christ's College).
JM had a good reputation/rapport at Cambridge, and even though he lived with his family for a few years after that (and studied intensely), it was probably out of convenience.
He had initially thought about going into the ministry, but he became disgusted with Episcopalian church government.
His invitations to write about Shakespeare (1632) Edward King (1638) show that book trade folks were aware of him.
JM's trip to Italy shows his sociability (letters of introduction; met famous continental figures, including Grotius and Galileo).
JM circulated his works among friends.
His anti-prelatical pamphlets (including Reason and Apology/Smectymnuss) show his sociability.
He was a teacher (taught his nephews).
JM transitioned from pastoral work to more serious poetry.
Dobranski looks at JM's marriage to Mary Powell (11–12).
JM's last two divorce tracts (Tetrachordon and Colasterion) were published the same year (1645) as his Poems, which show his reliance on others for publication.
Areopagitica (1644) is very social in content, but also in argument: truth needs to be discovered in public, not determined by a small committee. His next prose work is Tenure (1649), which defends regicide (people have a moral right to depose a tyrant).
JM casts himself as more private in his Defensio Secunda (1654), in which he recounts his surprise at being asked to participate in Cromwell's Commonwealth.
JM's 1649 Iconoclastes combats Royalist nostalgia/propoganda.
JM's 1651 Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio publicly dismantles Salmasius, who defended Charles I (at the request of exiled Charles II); this made Milton internationally famous.
While Milton did work as a licensor, Dobranski argues that we shouldn't charge JM with hypocrisy (see other inconsistencies on p. 17); rather, we should praise Milton for being willing to change in pursuit of the truth (as he argues in Areopagitica).
JM's Defensio Secunda is very autobiographical—Dobranski reminds us that this is not Milton's independence coming out, because it's an international document that he was asked to write.
These social experiences contribute to his later works (PL, PR, SA).
Personal tragedies: complete blindness (1652), deaths of wives and children, the Restoration (1660)
JM didn't retreat, as some have said; he hosted visitors and worked with friends to complete some of his greatest works.
His conversation with Thomas Ellwood prompted the composition of PR.
Dobranski uses the situation surrounding JM's De Doctrina Christiana to argue that all of JM's works have a complex authorship (21–21; Ong and loci communes).
Others had some power/authority over Milton's works (editors, publishers, licensers).
JM's large output of works in his later years

Lewalski, "The genres of Paradise Lost" (read on Oct. 24, 2019)
JM's Paradise Lost includes elements from different genres such as epics, romances, dramas, pastorals, lyrics, and rhetorical speeches.
Renaissance critical theory saw epics as heterocosms—that's why Homer and the Bible (which has epic qualities) were used in education. Homer's and Virgil's works had this mixture, as did Sidney's and Spenser's.
JM as a teacher/rhetor who communicated an educative vision of reality
Lewalski defines "genre," "subgenre," and "mode."
She also mentions the epic-dramatic-lyric triad from Plato/Aristotle, which appears in JM's Preface to Book 2 of Reason of Church-Government. This framework organizes the rest of the essay (pp. 116–25) until the conclusion.
Sometimes specific announcements/signals let readers know which mode we might be in (e.g., heroic mode in Book 1; pastoral mode in Book 4; tragic mode in Book 9). These modes are connected to values.
118: "generic paradigms"
118–20: epic (epic of wrath/strife; quest epic; romance)
120–21: tragic/dramatic
121–25: lyric
122–25: Lewalski has a great section on Adam's and Eve's love lyrics and laments. She argues against the feminist theory that claims that foundational texts exclude women—Eve transforms/Christianizes the tragic lyric.

Leonard, "Language and knowledge in Paradise Lost" (read on Oct. 26, 2019)
Adam's language comes naturally (unlike the explorer in Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding).
Plato's Cratylus is a likely source for Adam's ability to name accurately (which requires knowledge of the thing's essence).
The process of naming animals (knowledge of others) brings Adam self-knowledge: he does not have a fitting mate.
Adam has difficulty naming God.
Fallen angels lose their names (and gain new ones later as pagan gods). Only Satan has a name (but not in Hell—"Satan" means "enemy," and the fallen angels' "great enemy" is God).
Milton uses prelapsarian and postlapsarian names/language. For example, Milton has Adam and Raphael use Latinism that have current bad connotations, but they use the terms innocently before the fall (e.g., "absolved," "serpent error wandering"—both in Book 7).
Leonard confronts editors (Hume and Fowler) who interpret Adam's request to hear the story of creation in a negative light. Leonard defines late as meaning "recent" (not "late in time"), and he defends Adam's request, which might not even really be a question (136–38).
Leonard discusses Satan's question about creation (138) and the poet's invocation, which asks about first causes (138–39).
Leonard concludes by discussing Satan and Eve in Book 9 (139–43). Satan uses "gods" to shift away from God. He uses his speech as evidence of the goodness of the fruit. Eve accepts Satan's twisting of the name of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; see 9.745–60 where she describes the tree as only good.
"The corrupting of innocence begins with a corrupting of language" (143).

Danielson, "The Fall and Milton's theodicy" (read again on Oct. ??, 2019)


Carey, "Milton's Satan" (read on Oct. 25–26, 2019)
Introduction by dismissing biblical evidence for Satan as scanty. Summum bonum and infimum malum rationalization (Manichaean influence; [Augustine] and privatio boni). The point is the say that Milton's Satan is fabricated.
Satanist criticism doesn't start with Romantics (Dryden might have been the first); others include Waldock and Empson. Anti-Satanist critics include Williams, Lewis, and Fish. Neither side is right; Satan's character is ambivalent.
Carey uses "depth" to describe this ambivalence—Satan's character is not immediately understandable, compared with the other characters, who are apparently shallow.
Carey dismisses the passage in Book 4 where Satan admits his guilt—for Carey, Milton is trying to show how Satan is irredeemable and unforgivable (by pointing out that Satan admits that he would fall again, and worse, if given the chance), yet this is Milton's "fiction," and it simply makes Satan seem trapped.
Anti-Satanist critics say Satan is foolish; pro-Satanist critics say he's courageous. Carey think it's illogical that Satan (a rational and perfect being) could think that he could outwit or overpower God. [Carey somehow rules out the possibility that Satan could be self-deceived.] Carey even calls Satan a "victim" (165).
Carey says that Milton couldn't figure out a way to show how a perfect being would act imperfectly (165) [um, Adam?]—Carey says this is a "logical flaw" in Milton's narrative (166).
Weird passage about Is. 14:14—Carey can't conceive of the passage as being both about the King of Babylon and Satan (165).
Re: the Abdiel argument in Book 5: Carey still can't imagine that Satan could be self-deceived.
3 episodes (where Carey argues that Satan achieves depth through ambivalence) are very divisive:
episode 1 (166–68): In Book 1, Satan sheds tears over the demons' appearance (opposing responses from pro-Satanist and anti-Satanist critics allegedly support Carey's claim re: Satan's ambivalence/depth).
episode 2 (168–69): In Book 4, Satan sees Eve and is "Stupidly good." Does this damn him, or does it show his true (good) nature?
episode 3 (169): Earlier in Book 4, Satan sees both Adam and Eve and almost loves them for their divine resemblance. Are his thoughts sincere or brutally ironic? Carey says we can't possibly know.
Carey focuses on Satan's "imaginativeness," claiming that he's more imaginative than God (despite God's act of creation!) and provides Satan's lie to Eve as evidence [!].
Carey focuses on the Satan-Sin-Death episode in Book 2, trying to show that Satan's "subconscious" is difficult to assess (Satan apparently doesn't remember what Sin has to tell him about her bursting from his head). [The issue of the origin of sin is a difficult one, but Carey doesn't seem to recognize the biblical imagery of Satan as the father of lies (John 8:44) or Sin as the mother of Death (James 1:15).]
Carey concludes with more about Manichaeanism, Milton's/readers' psychology, and Freud.

[Zachary Waltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Milton's Social Life by Stephen B. Doranski

"Because most of these accounts [of Milton's life] were published with editions of Milton's works, readers became accustomed to interpreting his writings biographically." p. 1

"To understand why so many critics have overlooked this social dimension of Milton's works, we need to examine the authorial persona he helped to create [.] ... Ironically, Milton's church-government pamphlets, through produced through a social process, first established the perception of the author as a solitary figure[.] ... This persona serves in part as an ethical proof[.] ... [T]he 'Poem' of his life ... remains one of the things he left 'written to aftertimes' that critics have refused to let die." pp. 8-9

Historical Development: "Financially, though, even Milton's greatest poetic achievements would never be especially rewarding. During the seventeenth century writers were sometimes paid a small sum for their work, but only when publishers were confident of books selling well. More often authors turned over their manuscripts to printers and received a few complimentary copies; or they subsidized the publications themselves, sometimes with the help of a patron. Milton's contract with Samuel Simmons for the publication of Paradise Lost in 1667 remains the earliest surviving formal agreement of its kind in England: Milton received 5 [pounds] up front and 5 [pounds] (along with perhaps 200 copies) at the end of teh first three impressions. Although these terms were fair by seventeenth-century standards, Milton could hardly support his family on this income. For much of his life he instead lived off the interest from his father's, and subsequently his own, loans and investments." p. 10

Milton's Sonnets and His Contemporaries by R.F. Hall

Historical Development: "The public, topical, even heoric sonnet; the sonnet praising or counselling a friend, threatening or mocking an enemy; the sonnet marking a point or problem in the poet's own career - all these were recognized and accepted variations of the genre in sixteenth-century Italy, but were most unusual in mid-seventeenth century England when Milton turned to them in conscious imitation[.] ... [H]is extension of the range of the English sonnet was both forunate and, in the long run, highly influential: for despite the sonnet's virtual eclipse in the eighteenth century, with the coming of Wordsworth and the nineteenth century the Miltonic model of the ocassional and political sonnet came very much into its own." pp 98-99

"[A]lmost all these sonnets are concerned either directly or indirecly with the poet's career and the convications and loyalties informing it. If a single unifying theme may be detected, it is affirmation of values, be it through praise or challenge or blame." pp. 99

The Genres of Paradise Lost by Barbara Kiefer Lewalski

Historical Developments: "The Renaissance is a period of heightened genre consciousness in literary theory and poetic practice, and Milton is arguably the most genre-conscious of English poes." p. 113

11: Milton's Satan

"Scores of literary Satans evolved, and some of them - notably those created by Du Bartas, Andreini, Grotius, and Vondel - possibly influenced Milton. However, No convincing single source for Milton's Satan has been found." p. 160

13: Milton and the Reforming Spirit

"While England defined itself as a Protestant nation over against the largely Roman Catholic Continent, Milton defined himself over against Protestant opponents at home." p. 193

"Protestant thought helps explain the shape of Milton's hell and his presentatioon of evil. The Catholic tradition dealt with a precisely calibrated hierarchy of venial and mortal sins; and though the plan in Dante's Inferno is not exactly a map of the seven deadly sins, it is arranged hierarchically." pp. 194-195

[Lauren Cullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very helpful book when it comes to Milton.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful secondary resource on Paradise Lost and the literary and rhetorical criticism surrounding the work.

[Ellie Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read the chapter on 'Lycidas' as research for a presentation. It was an abridged and edited version of J. Martin Evans' 'The road from Horton'. The original text itself is very succinct and accessible, which is perfect for trying to comprehend the many layers to Milton's poem. However, if one does not have the time to read the whole of Evans' original book, the Cambridge Companion version is a very useful abbreviation, covering all of the key elements to Evans' argument. It is a very useful extract.

[Evey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable critical essays for the Miltonian enthusiast.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful set of essays that I used to help as I read Paradise Lost. Good insight to Milton's life, times, and why he wrote what he wrote.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

An average of three stars. Some essays were great. Some seemed to miss the boat.

Read as background for Milton, Fall 2016, Villanova.