Milton and the Politics of Public Speech

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-0-367-87995-2
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 465 g

Using Hannah Arendt’s account of the Greek polis to explain Milton’s fascination with the idea of public speech, this study reveals what is distinctive about his conception of a godly, republican oratory and poetics. The book shows how Milton uses rhetorical theory - its ideas, techniques and image patterns - to dramatise the struggle between ’good’ and ’bad’ oratory, and to fashion his own model of divinely inspired public utterance. Connecting his polemical and imaginative writing in new ways, the book discusses the subliminal rhetoric at work in Milton’s political prose and the systematic scrutiny of the power of oratory in his major poetry. By setting Milton in the context of other Civil War polemicists, of classical political theory and its early modern reinterpretations, and of Renaissance writing on rhetoric and poetic language, the book sheds new light on his work across several genres, culminating in an extended Arendtian reading of his ’Greek’ drama Samson Agonistes.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lynch, Helen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Milton and the idea of public speech. 'Two twins cleaving together': rhetoric and 'knowing good by evil'. 'Enchanting tongues persuasive': rhetoric and gender. Samson the orator and the redemption of public speech. Samson Agonistes and the temptations of romance.

Über Autor(innen)

Helen Lynch is Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, UK.