The author demonstrates that the apparent contradictions in the poetic, dramatic, and conceptual framework of Paradise Lost are purposive, indeed central, to Milton's kinesthetic poetics.

"A serious reading of Milton's Epic--basic enough to help novice readers and original enough in places to interest seasoned readers." --Seventeenth-Century News

In this survey one may discover Milton as he saw himself and come to recapture some of his originality. The selections from A Milton Encyclopedia in this volume were written by experts in each subject.

In January 2012, shooting was set to begin in Sydney, Australia, on the Hollywood-backed production of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper cast as Satan. Yet just two weeks before the start of production, Legendary Pictures delayed the project, reportedly due to budgetary concerns, and soon the company had suspended the film indefinitely. Milton scholar Eric C. Brown, who was then serving as a script consultant for the studio, sees his experience with that project as part of a long and perplexing story of Milton on film. Indeed, as Brown details in this comprehensive study, Milton’s place in the popular imagination—and his extensive influence upon the cinema, in particular—has been both pervasive and persistent.

The nineteen essays in this collection explore such varied fields of argument as John Milton's authorship of the Christian Doctrine, his adaptations of source material, his engagement in political controversies, his attitudes toward gender in Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, and his reflection of seventeenth-century obstetrics and anticipation of modern chaos theory in Paradise Lost. In their sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory, and consistently interrogative views of Milton and his work, these essays offer an "arena of conflict" for future studies.

No detailed description available for "Contexts of Pre-Novel Narrative".