The present study examines the relationship of Milton's Adam and Eve, their different identities, and their different roles, and explicates the link between the nature of their relationship and the dramatic developments of the biblical story. The story is considered in the light of Milton's ethics as explicated and implicated in Paradise Lost, which are crucially different from the present-day ethics which we naturally tend to superimpose or take for granted. He makes use of two particular means of investigation. Firstly, the author provides a technical analysis of Milton's style, with an emphasis on verbal (often latinate) ambiguity and on a feature hitherto hardly described in Milton criticism, namely syntactical ambiguity, all yielding extra information. Secondly, on the basis of newly found verbal parallels between Milton's Christian epic and Vergil's Roman epic the Aeneid the author provides an analysis of the intended contrast between Milton's Adam and Eve and Vergil's Dido and Aeneas; on Milton's request, so to speak, the romance of Adam and Eve is put in the epic and Vergilian context. The author's observations on Milton's strategic use of the Aeneid as an antithetic frame of reference for his own Paradise Lost also leads to an investigation into a poem which in its turn uses Milton's Paradise Lost as an antithetic frame of reference, namely Wordsworth's Prelude.

Inside "Paradise Lost" opens up new readings and ways of reading Milton's epic poem by mapping out the intricacies of its narrative and symbolic designs and by revealing and exploring the deeply allusive texture of its verse. David Quint’s comprehensive study demonstrates how systematic patterns of allusion and keywords give structure and coherence both to individual books of Paradise Lost and to the overarching relationship among its books and episodes. Looking at poems within the poem, Quint provides new interpretations as he takes readers through the major subjects of Paradise Lost—its relationship to epic tradition and the Bible, its cosmology and politics, and its dramas of human choice. Quint shows how Milton radically revises the epic tradition and the Genesis story itself by arguing that it is better to create than destroy, by telling the reader to make love, not war, and by appearing to ratify Adam’s decision to fall and die with his wife. The Milton of this Paradise Lost is a Christian humanist who believes in the power and freedom of human moral agency. As this indispensable guide and reference takes us inside the poetry of Milton’s masterpiece, Paradise Lost reveals itself in new formal configurations and unsuspected levels of meaning and design.

The Other Virgil tells the story of how a classic like the Aeneid can say different things to different people. As a school text it was generally taught to support the values and ideals of a succession of postclassical societies, but between 1500 and 1800 a number of unusually sensitive readers responded to cues in the text that call into question what the poem appears to be supporting. This book focuses on the literary works written by these readers, to show how they used the Aeneid as a model for poems that probed and challenged the dominant values of their society, just as Virgil had done centuries before. Some of these poems are not as well known today as they should be, but others, like Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's The Tempest, are; in the latter case, the poems can be understood in new ways once their relationship to the 'other Virgil' is made clear.

The Virgilian Tradition II brings together thirteen essays by historian Craig Kallendorf. The essays present a distinctive approach to the reception of the canonical classical author Virgil, that is focused around the early printed books through which that author was read and interpreted within early modern culture. Using the prefaces, dedicatory letters, and commentaries that accompanied the early modern editions of Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid, and Appendix Virgiliana, they demonstrate how this paratextual material was used by early readers to develop a more nuanced interpretation of Virgil’s writings than twentieth-century scholars believed they were capable of. The approach developed throughout this volume shows how the emerging field of book history can enrich our understanding of the reception of Greek and Latin authors. This book will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history, as well as those interested in book history and cultural history. (CS 1103).

The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes. OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non-literary discourse. It conceives of 'reception' as a complex process of dialogic exchange and, rather than offering large cultural generalizations, it engages in close critical analysis of literary texts. It explores in detail the ways in which English writers' engagement with classical literature casts as much light on the classical originals as it does on the English writers' own cultural context. This second volume, and third to appear in the series, covers the years 1558-1660, and explores the reception of the ancient genres and authors in English Renaissance literature, engaging with the major, and many of the minor, writers of the period, including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, and Jonson. Separate chapters examine the Renaissance institutions and contexts which shape the reception of antiquity, and an annotated bibliography provides substantial material for further reading.

"The present volume [3] is the first to appear of the five that will comprise The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature (henceforth OHCREL). Each volume of OHCREL will have its own editor or team of editors"--Preface.

Four hundred years after his birth, John Milton remains one of the greatest and most controversial figures in English literature. The Oxford Handbook of Milton is a comprehensive guide to the state of Milton studies in the early twenty-first century, bringing together an international team of thirty-five leading scholars in one volume. The rise of critical interest in Milton's political and religious ideas is the most striking aspect of Milton studies in recent times, a consequence in great part of the increasingly fluid relations between literary and historical study. The Oxford Handbook both embodies the interest in Milton's political and religious contexts in the last generation and seeks to inaugurate a new phase in Milton studies through closer integration of the poetry and prose. There are eight essays on various aspects of Paradise Lost, ranging from its classical background and poetic form to its heretical theology and representation of God. There are sections devoted both to the shorter poems, including 'Lycidas' and Comus, and the final poems, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. There are also three sections on Milton's prose: the early controversial works on church government, divorce, and toleration, including Areopagitica; the regicide and republican prose of 1649-1660, the period during which he served as the chief propagandist for the English Commonwealth and Cromwell's Protectorate, and the various writings on education, history, and theology. The opening essays explore what we know about Milton's biography and what it might tell us; the final essays offer interpretations of aspects of Milton's massive influence on later writers, including the Romantic poets.