Description
Book SynopsisScholarship on Milton's view of God the Father and the Son has focused on the author's theological beliefs. For Milton, these are equally artistic questions, and to address them this study considers the precedents in Christian art that provide models for portraying the divine within a reformed context. Milton's revision of the passion tradition in his short poems of 1645 and his later epic poems substitutes a living, obedient and subservient Son in place of late medieval representations of the crucifixion. His alternative passion unfolds through a poetic vocabulary of fragmentation, omission, and restoration, drawing on iconoclasm as an artistic strategy. This study addresses the long-standing question about Milton's avoidance of the crucifixion and contributes to the broader study of his reformed poetics.
Trade Review"A persuasive discussion of Milton’s representation of the Passion. Henriksen offers a thoughtful and perceptive study of Milton’s reconfiguration of traditional notions of the Passion." Adam Swann, University of Glasgow. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Summer 2011), pp. 684-686. ‘’Milton and the Reformation Aesthetics of the Passion will be instructive not only for Miltonists but for other scholars with an interest in the impact of Reformation theology on the religious literature and art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’’. J. Christopher Warner, Le Moyne College. In: Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol.44, No. 1, 2013, p. 172. "Erin Henriksen’s engaging new study is a welcome contribution to the field. [...] I am impressed by the ambition and scope of Henriksen’s study and the dexterity with which she proves how her thesis holds fast across the breadth of Milton’s poetry." Russell M. Hillier, Providence College. In: Milton Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2012), pp. 192-196.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Milton’s Poetics of Absence and Restoration 1. Strategies for depicting the Son in Christian Art 2. Iconoclasm as an Artistic Strategy 3. The Post-Reformation Passion 4. Milton’s Alternative Passion 5. “No Death!”: Rewriting the Protestant Elegy in Milton’s Early Poems 6. The Art of Omission and Supplement in Paradise Lost 7. Paradise regained and the Art of the Incarnation 8. Rewriting the Christus Patiens Tradition in Samson Agonistes Epilogue: Broken and Whole Bibliography Index
