Description
Book SynopsisTaking as its starting point the long-standing characterization of Milton as a "Hebraic" writer, this book probes the limits of the relationship between Milton and his Jewish antecedents. It shows how Milton's text can inform a more nuanced reading of midrash just as midrash can offer new insights into "Paradise Lost".
Trade Review[Shoulson]... is as sophisticated a reader of Milton's works as he is of the rabbinical writings that shaped the milieu in which Milton and his contemporaries worked out their relationship to Christiantiy and to the ancient and contemporary Hebraic traditions. The results are enlightening and truly rewarding. Seventeenth-Century News A rich canvas... Shoulson brings to his task great erudition, scholarly comprehensiveness, and critical acumen. -- Manfried Weidhorn Sixteenth Century Journal Insightful and inventive... Rather than trying to claim a specific source for Milton's "Hebraic" tendencies, Shoulson asserts that rabbinic literature might have reached [Milton] through a variety of means, direct and indirect. -- Heather Shillinglaw, Indiana University Religious Studies Review
Table of ContentsA Note on the Texts Introduction: Hebraism and Literary History 1. Diaspora and Restoration 2. "Taking Sanctuary Among the Jews": Milton and the Form of Jewish Precedent 3. The Poetics of Accommodation: Theodicy and the Language of Kingship 4. Imagining Desire: Divine and Human Creativity 5. "So Shall the World Go On": Martyrdom, Interpretation, and History Epilogue: Toward Interpreting the Hebraism of Samson Agonistes Notes Selected Bibliography Index
