Author C. S. Lewis examines John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and the epic genre, discussing epic technique, subject matter, and style and the elements of Milton's story.

"Winner of the 2015 James Holly Hanford Award, The Milton Society of America" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014" "Shortlisted for the 2015 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa Society" David Quint is Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University. His books include Epic and Empire, Cervantes's Novel of Modern Times, and Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy (all Princeton). Inside "Paradise Lost" opens up new readings...

In any time or place literature is often influenced by concepts such as politics, society, philosophy, and in the true Puritan and Anglican fashion, spirituality and the Bible. It is this influence which Edward Dowden has cleverly critiqued. In his foreword, he writes, "Literature, however, and especially what is most valuable in the seventeenth-century cannot be studied without reference to the history of religion." Which is why, although the seventeenth-century...

"Few early modern poets engaged more fully with their historical circumstances than John Milton. A pamphleteer, government employee, and writer of occasional verse, Milton did not retreat from public life even after his political hopes were dashed by the Restoration. This volume investigates the various ways in which Milton's works and experiences emerged from the culture and events of his time. In a series of concise, engaging essays, an international...

"In The Value of Milton, leading critic John Leonard explores the writings of John Milton from his early poetry to his major prose. Milton's work includes one of the most difficult and challenging texts in the English literary canon, yet he remains impressively popular with general readers. Leonard demonstrates why Milton has enduring value for our own time, both as a defender of political liberty and as a poet of sublimity and terror who also exhibits...