Milton Studies

The seven essays in this volume contribute significantly not only to our interpretation of Milton's major poems, notably Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, but to our understanding of the larger contexts that inform the composition, publication, and reception of these great works. One of the essays examines the poetical context in 1667 that resulted in a relaxation of censorship and the opportunity for Milton to publish his epic poem. Another cites variations of the biblical image of the Throne-Chariot in Renaissance humanistic and cabalistic thought, chiefly to establish a frame of reference for an intertextual analysis of the first and second editions of Paradise Lost. Still another essay, after examining major traditions in visual arts that depict Eve, Adam, and the serpent, focuses on pictorial representations by women artists of this same threefold interrelationship as rendered by Milton in Paradise Lost. A brilliant essay explains the cultural and political circumstances that promoted the republication of two of Milton's foremost polemical tracts in post-Restoration England, while two other essays study Milton's India in Paradise Lost and the Bakhtinian texture of Paradise Regained.