The first biography of Milton based on original research for 40 years, and first to take account of new thinking about 17th-century England. Milton is seen here as flawed, passionate, ruthless, and ambitious, as well as one of the most accomplished writers of the time and author of the most influential narrative poem in English.

The facts of John Milton's life are well documented, but what of the person Milton—the man whose poetic and prose works have been deeply influential and are still the subject of opposing readings? John Shawcross's "different" biography depicts the man against a psychological backdrop that brings into relief who he was—in his works and from his works. While the theories of Freud, Lacan, Kohut, and others underlie this pursuit of Milton's "self," Jung and some of his followers provide the basic understanding by which Shawcross places Milton in the panorama of history. His explorations of the psychological underpinnings of Milton's decision to become a poet, of the homoerotic dimensions of his personality, and of his relationships with father and mother demonstrate the extent to which psychobiography proves itself invaluable as a means to appreciate this complex writer and his complex writings. This biography combines the traditional chronological narrative with a technique akin to that of fiction, "a mixture of times and a triggering of remembrances from various time frames without time differentiations." Such an approach offers a view of Milton "not only in being but in process of being." Shawcross's examination of two current concerns, gender attitudes and political ideologies, ranges Milton's work against the self he exhibits. Specialists and nonspecialists alike will find in this magisterial biography a wealth of new insight into one of the greatest of English poets.

Debate about the authorship of the manuscript known to us as De Doctrina Christiana has bedevilled Milton studies over recent years. In this book four leading scholars give an account of the research project that demonstrated its Miltonic provenance beyond reasonable doubt. But the authors do much more besides, locating Milton's systematic theology in its broader European context, picking open the stages and processes of its composition, and analysing its Latinity.

Firmly grounded in literary studies but drawing on religious studies, translation studies, drama, and visual art, Milton among Spaniards is the first book-length exploration of the afterlife of John Milton in Spanish culture, illuminating underexamined Anglo-Hispanic cultural relations. This study calls attention to a series of powerful engagements by Spaniards with Milton’s works and legend, following a general chronology from the eighteenth to the early twenty-first century, tracing the overall story of Milton’s presence from indices of prohibited works during the Inquisition, through the many Spanish translations of Paradise Lost, to the author’s depiction on stage in the nineteenth-century play Milton, and finally to the representation of Paradise Lost by Spanish visual artists.

For more than 2,500 years, the Western tradition has embraced monogamous marriage as an essential institution for the flourishing of men and women, parents and children, society and the state. At the same time, polygamy has been considered a serious crime that harms wives and children, correlates with sundry other crimes and abuses, and threatens good citizenship and political stability. The West has thus long punished all manner of plural marriages and denounced the polygamous teachings of selected Jews, Muslims, Anabaptists, Mormons, and others. John Witte, Jr carefully documents the Western case for monogamy over polygamy from antiquity until today. He analyzes the historical claims that polygamy is biblical, natural, and useful alongside modern claims that anti-polygamy laws violate personal and religious freedom. While giving the pro and con arguments a full hearing, Witte concludes that the Western historical case against polygamy remains compelling and urges Western nations to hold the line on monogamy.

A short fiction of shipwreck and discovery written by the politician Henry Neville (1620-1694), The Isle of Pines is only beginning to draw critical attention, and until now no scholarly edition of the work has appeared. In the first full-length study of The Isle of Pines, supported by the first fully critical edition, John Scheckter discloses how Neville's work offers a critique of scientific discourse, enacts complicated engagements of race and gender, and interrogates the methods and consequences of European exploration. The volume offers a new critical model for applying post-colonial and postmodern examination strategies to an early modern work. Scheckter argues that the structure and publication history of the fiction, with its separate, unreliable narrators, along with its several topics-shipwreck survival, the founding of a new society, the initial phases of European colonization-are imbued with the sense of uncertainty that permeated the era.