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"Winner of the James Holly Hanford Prize given by the Milton Society of America An exporation into the mind of John Milton that probes deeper than previous biographical studies, John Shawcross's award-winning text examines the psychological underpinnings of Milton's decision to become a poet, the homoerotic dimensions of his personality, and his relationships with his father and mother. John T. Shawcross is professor emeritus of English at the University of Kentucky and the author and editor of many books. See other books in the series Studies in the English Renaissance.

Customer Reviews (1)

The Self & the World
This book is an excellent companion piece to Milton studies, whether one is an undergraduate reading Milton for the first time, or a Milton scholar of a quarter-century's standing. Prof. Shawcross is recognized by his peersas the premier authority for Milton biography among scholars living today,and his former teacher, William Parker, held that rank for the previousgeneration. Though its approach is sufficiently psychological to earn it aclassification among the works of that discipline by Library of Congress,it is densely populated by matters biographical. It addresses textualissues intermingled with a reliable account of the events of Milton's life,and includes a goldmine of insights gleaned over the decades of Prof.Shawcross's own meticulous readings, making Milton's works not only morecomprehensible to the novice, but enriching the experience of reading themeven for an "old hand."

Prof. Shawcross's writing style islucid and non-pedantic, and the effort is a masterful one (not surprising,to anyone who knows his previous output). Like Nicolson's _Reader's Guide_of several decades ago, _The Self and the World_ provides the richbackground modern students need to understand the relevance of Miltonstudies to today's world -- only it does so even more successfully, in myopinion (and I have the greatest respect for Prof. Nicolson's work).

Iwould recommend this book to anyone teaching or studying Milton, at anylevel of expertise -- without reservation. ... Read more

Product Description
The best-known works of more than 60 British and American poets, written over a period of nearly 400 years, comprise this superb collection of verse. Focusing on poems of faith--inspiring, comforting, and profound works with religious themes and ideals--the volume includes "Holy Sonnets" by John Donne, Ben Jonson's "To the Holy Trinity," "Paradise" by George Herbert, "On His Blindness" by John Milton, as well as poems by Andrew Marvell, Thomas Traherne, Edward Taylor, Samuel Johnson, William Cowper, William Blake, Emily Bront', Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many others. A rich treasury of stirring verse, this collection is ideal for classroom use or for independent study but will also appeal to lovers of exceptional English and American poetry. Dover original selection of poems from standard editions.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent study of this important poet
This is an excellent biography of Milton, easy-to-read and always interesting, giving a real insight into Milton's life, his thoughts and his prose and poetry. The author doesn't gloss over some of the more unpleasant aspects of Milton's character but he also gives him credit where it is due for some of his attitudes and behaviours. It's clear that the author is a real lover of much of Milton's work and his selective use of quotations shows Milton's crafting of language, as well as some chapters which focus more closely on some of Milton's more important works.

The book is particularly good at portraying the tempestuous times in which Milton lived, his work for Oliver Cromwell and his distrust of the established church and how this influenced his writing within his poems. It also focuses on Milton's own Christian beliefs and how they different from most of those around him and how his family life, particularly his desire to divorce his first wife, was reflected in his work. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the second edition of the "Norton Critical Edition" of Milton's "Paradise Lost". It represents an extensive revision of the first edition. The text of the poem remains that of Milton's 1674 edition, retaining the original punctuation but with modernized spelling and italics. Material for the study of contemporary religious and political issues is now included, as well as selections from his earlier poetry and prose. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Nice work
I ordered Paradise Lost in "acceptable" condition I got just what I ordered. The book by itself is a masterpiece, and the Norton Critical Edition provides you of quite a lot of footnotes and references so you can have a more thorough comprehension of the book.

Nice edition; Norton is wonderful
I bought this edition to supplement the Teskey edition. I found the essays in both to be wonderful additions, but the footnotes in this one were far superior. I do have one gripe with both editions: there are no intext footnotes. The footnotes are at the bottom of each page, but there is no indication within the text that there is a footnote to go with the particular passage/line/word you are reading. I believe I have been spoiled by the other Norton Critical Editions of British Literature, English Literature, and Shakespeare.

My Review
Historical significance and beautifully descriptive prose aside, I couldn't get into this book at all. Maybe it's too much familiarity with the plot or the inevitability of the impending doom of the ending, but I just found my mind wandering throughout reading Paradise Lost and would find that I had read 10 or 12 pages with absolutely no clue as to what was really going on in what I had just read and then I'd have to re-read it all over again. I can see why Milton's attempt to enlighten his audience as to the events leading up to the fall of man were important and relevant at the time that it was written and can see the significance of his writing on the literature of today, I just did not find Paradise Lost to be personally satisfying or enjoyable.

That being said, there are some passages throughout the text that are extremely rich, beautiful and powerful examples of what the English language can be in the hands of a master author. I appreciate Paradise Lost for what it is and represents, but it just isn't what I like to read.

A cosmic battle
We will discover in these pages a profound rendering of the cosmic battle between good and evil, man's fall through disobedience to God, and Satan's perversion on mankind.

Each line serves a purpose, so in order to inhale this sublime poem to its fullest it will be necessary to slow down. Immensely valuable to understanding this difficult poem is the editor's explanatory summery going into each of the twelve books (chapters) and the numerous footnotes.

The second half of the book contains a biography, an historical evolution, other writings, and a critical analysis of Milton by multiple revered authors with a wide degree of beliefs.

Wish you well
Scott

Rise and fall!
First off, let me say that we're not talking here about the famous Qi gong instructor named John Milton. We're talking about the famous 17th-century English poet who wrote _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_, two of the most wonderfully overlong Christian poems in the history of Western literature.

Your English teacher will tell you that _Paradise Lost_ "narrates the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience, explains how and why it happened, and places the story within the larger context of Satan's rebellion and Jesus' resurrection." And you know that can't be far wrong, because SparkNotes says the exact same thing.

But the main reason everyone should read Milton's grand epic is that it contains certain secrets about prayer.

In PL, Milton reminds us how important it is, when we pray, to be absolutely specific. The Lord has a strange, often disturbing, sense of humour (PL, books I-XII). If you leave Him wiggle room, He will answer your prayer in a way you never intended, and then say it was your own damned fault, because your prayer contained seven types of ambiguity.

John Milton writes from experience. Example: Almost every time a good-looking woman passed within view of John Milton, he suffered an involuntary erection. Daniel of the Old Testament might well have suffered such a condition without complaining, but John Milton found it onerous. John was both a Puritan and a student of Saint Augustine. He was not happy when he suffered an erection, he hated it, and he especially resented the women who made that thing happen to him.

In a Latin letter to his friend, George Wither, John Milton reports that, in his youth, he would sometimes see a pretty woman even in his dreams at night, and suffer, not just an erection, but the whole nine yards, up to and including a nocturnal emission; which he trained himself to handle according to Scripture, thereby to purify himself (Deut. 23:10); but sometimes he was unable to wait that long before he handled it, which filled his soul full of Puritan remorse and self-reproach.

At age 33, the poet took to wife a 16-year-old lolita named Mary Powell; and you may already have guessed the reason why, which is that she gave him an erection -- more accurately, she gave him "one damned erection after another," without remission. (Giving John Milton an erection was not the girl's conscious intent, but it just happened to him, every time they met.) And since Christian marriage is Saint Paul's only approved method whereby to deal with that kind of torment, John Milton (being an honourable man) thought it best to marry the girl (1 Cor. 7:9).

Frailty, thy name is woman! After two years of marriage - after just two years of witnessing those insufferable erections that could not be beaten down, or at least, not for long - the poet's young Puritan bride ran away and skipped back home to live with her mother, Mrs. Anne Powell, who likewise gave John an erection; which is why John Milton resented his mother-in-law as well as his estranged wife.

Those were the hardest years of the poet's life - nothing but a daily struggle against involuntary erections, yet here he was, trapped in a loveless marriage to a barely pubescent teenager who lived with her entirely-too-attractive mother. Which is partly why John Milton wrote those four revolutionary Christian pamphlets, correcting Moses' and Jesus' hardline policy on divorce (Mark 10:11-12).

In his Latin correspondence, some of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library, John Milton reports that he was fine when alone in his study, or when hobnobbing with Parliamentarians, or even when having a hasty pudding, or a figgy one, over at the Inns of Court; but let just one good-looker cross his path, showing good ankle between the hem of her dress and the top of her shoe, and it was boing! - instant erection, just like a spring-loaded mechanical device; causing John to exclaim bitterly, "Oh, God, please, not again! Save me from this penal fire!"

It even happened to him once when Oliver Cromwell's wife, Elizabeth Bourchier Cromwell, bent over to pick up a handkerchief that had fallen to the floor. On that occasion there was a lamentable accident ("an hard mishap" [verbatim quote]) with John's ordinarily modest codpiece - an incident so humiliating that John never even wrote a poem about it, although he did apologise, profusely, to Oliver Cromwell, and to Mrs. Cromwell, who saw the whole thing, and then fainted. (John at the time was employed as Cromwell's Latin secretary.)

By the way: It was modesty, not arrogance, that moved John Milton, after that embarrassing incident, to wear a baggy codpiece, with plenty of wiggle room.

Which brings me back to the beginning, when I was explaining why you should give the Lord no wiggle room when you pray: John Milton took his problem to the Lord in prayer, stating in his journal, "Father, I pray Thee, let me not suffer a stiffe joynt when I see a beautifull woman."

And here's how the Lord answered that prayer, in 1651: He struck John Milton blind.

At first, John thought that his blindness was a punishment for his own bad behaviour - which is how that whole thing got going, in Anglo-American Christianity, about how, if you are a boy who does what John Milton used to do, it could make you go blind. But God revealed to John, by means of a dream, that his blindness was actually an answer to his own prayers ¬- because the poet had said, "Father, let me not suffer a stiff joint when I see a beautiful woman."

John Milton then said, "Lord, that is not what I meant, at all" - but it was too late to change the outcome, because the prayer was already answered.

The erections that John Milton suffered in the years 1651-1674, and there were many, even after the Lord answered his prayer, were not from seeing a beautiful woman, it was actually because John had a condition that modern physicians call PSAS ("Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome"). So the chronic "stiffe joynt" problem was not really the women's fault, and it never was; but John Milton never knew that. Even when he wrote Paradise Lost (by dictation, from 1652-1667), John was still under the impression that women, seen or unseen, were to blame for his condition; which is why he makes all of those snide remarks in blank verse about your mother, Eve, in Books IV-V and IX-X of Paradise Lost. Because whenever he pictured Eve in his mind's eye, it was boing! - the same old problem. And there would come no more blank verse to his head for the next twenty minutes or so, until things settled down. John Milton hated that.

But it all turned out for the best: if God had not answered John Milton's prayer in that unusual way, by blinding him, Paradise Lost might never have been completed, and sold to the publisher, Sam Simmons, in 1667, for £5 - which was a tidy sum for a religious poem during the decadent Restoration era.

It was while writing the early books of Paradise Lost that John was introduced to Katherine, a ship captain's daughter, a fat woman whom he had never seen (because he was blind); whom he nonetheless married in 1656, but not for the same old reason as before: John asked fat Kate to marry him (a.) because he needed secretarial assistance with Paradise Lost, and (b.) because Katherine did not have the same pernicious effect on him as Mary Powell and her mother Anne had done. John could dictate blank verse to Kate all night long without feeling so much as a tingle down there.

Kate's surname was Woodcock. Beelzebub made a little joke about that: he said, "The Lord finally gave John Milton just what he always wanted."

- L. ... Read more

Product Description
"The MLM Classic."--Richard Poe, author of Wave 3
Network marketing is a burgeoning field, and it can be a frustrating and difficult experience. There are many who have achieved minimal success, and many more who have made no money at all. With these discouraging figures, how can one become a member of the successful elite? Millions agree that the best way to do this is to spend some time with The Greatest Networker in the World.
John Milton Fogg’s extended parable is the story of a young man on the verge of quitting the multilevel marketing business. As he prepares to give his final opportunity meeting, he meets the individual everyone refers to as The Greatest Networker in the World. This warm and wise man takes in his young counterpart and shows him the trade secrets so he too can become a successful network marketer.
The young man soon learns that the trade secrets have very little to do with conventional marketing techniques. In fact, he has to unlearn everything he thought he knew about business. "The paradigm of network marketing is so fundamentally different and distinct from all other paradigms of business, that it requires a pretty complete shift from the way we normally view business to appreciate and understand it."
The new paradigm is built around one’s habits of thought and discovering that the secrets to network marketing success are within oneself. The values of responsibility, team building, and caring for one’s downline play a much more important role than competitive promotion and advertising.
A critical skill for all marketers is the ability to teach people to teach others. Once one has mastered the new paradigm of multilevel marketing, he needs to not only show his downline how to master it, but also how to teach those techniques to others. This leads to greater leadership within the organization, more stability, improved productivity, and as a result, long-lasting success. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

Cheesy and horribly written, but great examles of what WORKS
I've been in network marketing for one year and made it to the coveted VP level of my company in my first 8 months. I snap-up books on network marketing constantly. A lot of the details in this book were cheesy and painful to read, and the author is a bit full of himself. However, the story-telling does illustrate some important truths in terms of tactics for success. I went back and cut through all of the brush strokes for the tactical points I will pass along and implement. People learn through story-telling and emotion, I wish this offered additional credibility for people to relate more to the author.

Interesting in its way but a bit hokey
I on occasion read books in areas I know nothing about. I know nothing about network- marketing but I do have an interest in understanding how we get people interested in what it is we do. This seems perhaps the essential economic question in the Internet Economy world where so many people are selling their own product, even if it is only words, and needing to get the interest and attention of others.
In this book the first - person narrator is a frustrated young network- marketer who hears a lecture of, and is intrigued by the person called ' the greatest networker in the world'. He then spends time with the greatest marketer, not simply meeting his world and family but through the experience learning the major principles of network marketing.
What he learns is that he should know what he wants, and make a careful plan and work hard to get it. He should understand that 'success' does not come by downgrading competitors but rather by promoting 'duplicates' who will also succeed. He needs to train and teach four or five other devoted 'network marketers' who in working for themselves will work for him also.
As I said I know nothing about network - marketing but the principles spoken about in the book sound fairly sensible. What was difficult for me in reading the book was the quite hokey tone, the oh- gosh totally awed manner of the young avatar before the 'greatest networker in the world'. This sense of worship of the one who has the 'answers' and will dramatically change the person's life so that they achieve all they dreamed seemed to me a bit of a 'stretcher' to use Mark Twain's term.
Still I very much like the principle of trying to create success for others by encouraging them to believe in themselves- the principle that in certain realms anyway the others working in the field may be one's friends and not one's enemies. And this when I am not sure that the business world is the area in which such a principle can wholly apply.

Interesting Insights
This is a book which reveals truth and wisdom through a well told story. All of the elements revealed are critical to the building of a large, long-lasting MLM business. Great book!

Wow, I really loved this book...
This is one of my new favorite books, I cannot believe how much different my perspective is after reading it.This is not just a book about network marketing, it is a wonderful book for life.I have had really mixed feelings about MLM's and am finding myself understanding more and more that life is all about relationship marketing and there is nothing at all wrong with MLM's.The only problems are with the people who run them and that is no different than any other sector of business.If you find good values at the top, have good values yourself, then recuit like minded people your business will flourish.

Read this book.Then read the next one about his conversations.Not only will you learn, but you will feel great about life and its possibilities.

[...]

Compelling Teaching Story for Anyone in Business
The Greatest Networker in the World by John Milton Fogg is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. It is a teaching story - a work of fiction - that touches my heart deeply. He told me that the entire book came out of him in 3 weeks. You would think he had written thousands of fiction stories and parables, but no. The book simply came through him quickly and with gloriously captivating details.

Some teaching stories read like those after school movie specials of the 70s. You could feel the lesson hitting you over the head repeatedly, even as a child. Not so with The Greatest Networker in the World. You become involved in the story and yes, you learn along with the lead character, but you are never being "talked at"or "preached at."

The story flows, and you feel yourself living the adventure with the point of view character. You feel his dissatisfaction and pain at the beginning as well as his yearning for something more. You encoutner, with him, the Greatest Networker in the world and live the magic of the encounter. Then you live with h im how his life changes - and how yours can - applying the teachings you have just discovered. The book is written for MLM network marketers, however, it is relevant and timely for anyone in ANY form of business.

This book has joined my all-time favorites.

Ronda Del Boccio, author of I'll Push, You Steer: The Definitive Guide to Stumbling Through Life with Blinders On ... Read more

Product Description
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by David Masson is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of David Masson then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
This Norton Critical Edition is designed to make Paradise Lost accessible for student readers, providing invaluable contextual and biographical information and the tools students need to think critically about this landmark epic. Gordon Teskey's freshly edited text of Milton's masterpiece is accompanied by a new introduction and substantial explanatory annotations. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized, the latter, importantly, within the limits imposed by Milton's syntax.

"Sources and Backgrounds" collects relevant passages from the Bible and Milton's prose writings, including selections from The Reason of Church Government and the full text of Areopagitica.

"Criticism" brings together classic interpretations by Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, Victor Hugo, and T. S. Eliot, among others, and the most important recent criticism and scholarship surrounding the epic, including essays by Northrop Frye, Barbara Lewalski, Christopher Ricks, and Helen Vendler.

A Glossary and Selected Bibliography are also included.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

A great classic
This edition makes the study of this great classic much easier and more comprehensive.I strongly recommend it.

Poor editing
Paradise is certainly one of the greatest achievements of English literature. And as an editor, Tesky seems to disregard this fact. First of all, he omits critical punctuation from the poem, which can seriously alter your understanding of what is going on:

"[God} made the stars/ And set them in the firmament of heav'n/ T'illuminate the earth and rule the day/ In their vicissitude and rule the night/ And light from darkness to divide." (VII. 348-52)

This is clumsy editing, and cross referencing other editions will show that the comma between "the night" and "and light" is retained; without it, the sentence makes little sense.

This is only one example of the gross injustices done to Milton's poem: parentheses where parentheses do not belong, misspellings, unnecessary footnotes (literally half of the footnotes you will find merely tell you that two words are elided), and omissions of information that could be helpful. It seems as if Tesky delights in telling you things you either already know or can infer from the context. Tesky's modernization of Paradise Lost is awkward and ill-managed, insulting to the unfamiliar student, and to the memory of Milton.

Tesky does, however, include a glossary of biblical and mythological terms which may be unfamiliar to many (but which were much more recognizable to Milton's contemporaries), and this is hardly found in many editions of Paradise Lost. Tesky also gives critical articles on subjects as diverse as the character of Satan, gender distinctions, and even the agency of the angel Abdiel. While there is alot to learn from this edition, scarcely any of it comes from Tesky himself; he ends up doing more damage than good. In my opinion, stay away from this edition.

With a name like Milton it has got to be good.
This is perhaps the highest achievement of the English language, so despite an editor's best efforts, it is extremely hard to improve upon.Because Milton was essentially a self contained encyclopedia, the footnotes (which are detailed but not verbose) are very helpful in explaining some of the more obscure references included in the text. My only gripes are that in certain areas (as the editor wholly admits) the syntax has been changed, slightly altering the mood and at times the message I believe Milton had in mind. Also, the in-depth information regarding the names of characters and places that was included as footnotes in the second edition has been moved to a glossary in the third edition, making reference a little more difficult. All together an excellent text however, and one that makes enjoying Milton's genius that much easier.

New edition (by Teskey) omits material found in older edition (by Elledge)
I am not a Milton scholar and my comments need to be understood in that light.

Having read the previous Norton Critical Edition (edited by Scott Elledge, (C) 1993; Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions)) several years ago, I was looking forward to reading this new one (edited by Gordon Teskey). The new edition is printed on heavier paper, which is nicer to read and less prone to bleed through when I write on it. But to maintain the same size and heft, the newer edition is about 100 pages shorter (587 vs 685). Almost all the critical essays are carried over from one edition to the next. But omitted material includes:

A number of Milton's other writings, including 7 sonnets and excerpts from a number of his essays.

An essay about the religious and political issues at the time of Milton

A brief biography of Milton

Explanations of Milton's conceptions about the universe, Physiology and Psychology, Reason, the Scale of Nature, Angels, God, Freedom, etc.

A more complete set of relevant readings from the Bible (the new one omits the readings from Matthew, Luke, John, Timothy, and James).

I found these materials enormously helpful in understanding Milton and Norton's decision to delete them makes the new edition much less useful. I would have preferred, personally, that they delete some of the critical essays about PL, rather than the explanatory materials to help readers get through the book in the first place.

Finally, Teskey's notes are not nearly as helpful. About half of them discuss how the syllables of Milton's words should be counted. Here's a comparison of the notes to book one, lines 43-46, in each edition. From Teskey, page 5:

44: Pow'r: power, pronounced with one syllable: 'paar.'
45: ethereal: has three syllables: 'eth-ear-yal.'
46: hideous has two syllables: 'hid-jus.'

and so forth. Some of his notes explain odd words, ideas, or allusions to biblical or classical texts. I am certain that his emphasis on explaining Milton's syllabification is important to some readers, but it matters little to me.

By comparison, Elledge's notes almost never discuss syllabification. They are full of information explaining the text. From the same set of lines (p. 9):

43: Impious. The L word means disrespectful of one's parents or one's country as well as of one's god.
44: ethereal: (Gk aithein to ignite, blaze) of the ether, the element supposed to fill the outer regions of the universe; not earth, fire or water, it was not earthly but heavenly, and eternal.
46: This image of a meteorite is more distinct in the description of Satan's fall at 745 ("like a falling star"). hideous: causing dread or horror. ruin (L ruere to fall violently) ruins, rubble; fall destruction. combustion. Cf Combustible. line 233.

Elledge's notes are fuller, richer, and far more helpful to me. Knowing what "etheral" means and how it fits into Milton's cosmology is far more interesting and helpful than knowing that he pronounced it with three syllables.

In short, I would encourage folks to look for a copy of Elledge's version of this Norton's Critical edition. I found it far more helpful than Teskey.

Perhaps when Norton issues a second edition of Tewsky's work, they will restore some of the missing material; until they do, I will continue to use Elledge.

A cosmic battle
I used the Norton critical edition edited by Scott Elledge

We will discover in these pages a profound rendering of the cosmic battle between good and evil, man's fall through disobedience to God, and Satan's perversion on mankind.

Each line serves a purpose, so in order to inhale this sublime poem to its fullest it will be necessary to slow down. Immensely valuable to understanding this difficult poem is the editor's explanatory summery going into each of the twelve books (chapters) and the numerous footnotes.

The second half of the book contains a biography, an historical evolution, other writings, and a critical analysis of Milton by multiple revered authors with a wide degree of beliefs.

Wish you well
Scott ... Read more

Product Description

Indulge Yourself with the best classics literature on Your PDA. Navigate easily to any poem from Table of Contents or search for the words or phrases.

Customer Reviews (1)

A bedrock of English Literature
Works of John Milton. Including Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica & more. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

This is a comprehensive edition, the likes of which I wish were made more often. The Works of John Milton should not be read, but re-read for a lifetime. ... Read more

Product Description
Here it is! Every professor's nightmare! Every student's dream come true! John Milton's overwhelming Masterpiece, Paradise Lost - all 10,565 brain-busting lines of it, transformed into simple everyday language! - the kind you and I speak and understand. Milton's poem is on each left hand page, and the Plain English version is across from it on the right. Corresponding numbered lines make for easy comparison. . . Milton made easy! A study aid like no other! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Splendid
The paraphrase was a great help at the beginning, but as I got into it I didn't need to read the paraphrase.

Best reading for the year
Read Paradise Lost in college years ago. It was hard to understand but did manage to get the general sense of what was taking place. Always wondered why no one undertook the task of writing the greatist epic story ever told in simple English. Now there is one. I hope they make the movie too. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Poetry Schmoetry
Let's cut to the chase. (as this book does) Short on time? Want to zip through the entire Paradise Lost in 30 minutes and fully understand the whole thing? It can be done. This book gives you the bare bones translation of all the convoluted phrases and mysterious references. Dumb down and get smart fast!

THANK YOU!!
This book saved my life! Why didn't somebody think of this years ago? Too obvious? Don't listen to the snobs. And don't be misled by the humorous bits on the covers. This is a serious workIf you are struggling with Milton, this will save you hours and make your life a lot easier.

Paradise Really Lost
This book follows the same side-by-side format as the Paradise Lost: Parallel Prose Edition. However, here the poem is transformed into the absolute lowest common denominator of modern colloquial language. The critics have weighed in with their obligatory derision, but here are a few unexpected positives students have pointed out:
1. As you scan the sometimes outrageous interpretations, you're made to stop and look across to Milton's poem to see if he really could have said anything like that, only to find, surprisingly, he did -- a tricky way to lure reluctant readers to the very epic poetry they came here to avoid.

2. Young people are more likely to respond emotionally to the down-to-earth, sometimes even vulgar, interplay between Adam and Eve, than to the stately speeches of the original.

3. You get "in plain English" exactly who, where and what Milton is referring to in those many allusions to ancient history, the Bible, mythology, etc., whereas the Parallel Prose Edition generally uses the same obscure wording as the original.
... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Product Description
Providing a close examination of Milton's wide-ranging prose and poetry at each stage of his life, Barbara Lewalski reveals a rather different Milton from that in earlier accounts.

• Provides a close analysis of each of Milton's prose and poetry works.
  
• Reveals how Milton was the first writer to self consciously construct himself as an 'author'.
  
• Focuses on the development of Milton's ideas and his art.

Customer Reviews (2)

Absolutely absorbing and elegantly written biography of a great man!
Incredibly interesting and really a good, hard look at the life of John Milton and what inspired him and what aroused his wrath. His poems are eternal and deal with things secular and spiritual. His words have come down to us through many centuries and they are still as powerful as the day he wrote them. What a true genius! What a stunningly beautiful biography...I couldn't put it down.

An Enchanting Work
This is, indeed, the most exhaustive modern biography of John Milton. The renowned critic Barbara Lewalski, as usual, offers the students and scholars of Milton an enchanting biographical masterpiece that both narrates and captures Milton's story and history from his early childhood "The childhood Strews the Man" to his last breath "Teach the every Soul".Mocking Samuel Johnson's theory on writing a biography, Lewalski, without eating, drinking, or living in social intercourse with Milton, has succeed in writing an impressive biography of Milton through, as she mockingly asserts, living in intellectual and artistic intercourse with Milton. Reading this book, to the surprise of Johnson, one will find him/herself eating, drinking, and living social intercourse with john Milton thanks to the scholarly talent of Barbara Lewlaski. ... Read more

Product Description
As poet, statesman, and pamphleteer, John Milton remains one of the singular champions of liberty in the annals of history. Even in his mediations on theology Milton strove to demonstrate that liberty -- of conscience -- is one of the inviolable rights of free peoples. He published several revolutionary manifestos, two works defending regicide, and of course the famous Areopagitica, or defense of freedom of expression and the press against censorship. John Alvis has collected into a superb one-volume edition all of Milton's political writings of enduring importance. These include the entirety of Areopagitica, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, A Defence of the People of England, The Second Defence of the People of England, The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and Mr. John Milton's Character of the Long Parliament. John Milton (1608-1674) was the author also of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and served as Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth. ... Read more

Product Description
The Cambridge Companion to Milton provides an accessible, helpful guide for any student of Milton, whether undergraduate or graduate, introducing readers to the scope of Milton's work, the richness of its historical relations, and the range of current approaches to it.This second edition contains new and revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Milton's politics, the social conditions and climate in which his works were published and received, the importance of his early poems and Samson Agonistes, and the changes wrought by gender studies on the criticism of previous decades. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

New to Milton
As a relative newcomer to the world of John Milton, I found this book incredibly useful in providing a comprehensive overview of the many facets of the man, his life, his work, his politics and his poetry. I would read it in conjunction with a good biography. The essays vary in their degree of complexity and the opinions of the essayists are thoughtful and informative and several of them exhibit a real passion for their subject. I'm not a Milton specialist but I would imagine there is enough substance here to keep even the most rigorous scholar stimulated and for students and people like myself who are interested in the man and world behind Paradise Lost, I can highly recommend it.

Remarkably clear and helpful
I never understood what all the fuss about Milton was about until I read this book. His times, his politics, his personality and his work are all illuminated in these essays.

A rich buffet!
Among the books in the great Cambridge Companion series, this work offers eighteen enlightening essays on John Milton: his prose, poetry, social life, etc. A rich buffet for the Milton scholar or student! ... Read more

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A snack-sized essay meant for fast, enjoyable reading on the Kindle, this is part of the "999 Words" series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

beautiful
The pictures in this book are beautiful. The spine is a leather cover while the rest of the book is a more leatherette material. The material used to make this book are all of very fine quality. ... Read more

Product Description
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification; the majority of the poem was written while Milton was blind, and was transcribed for him.[1]
The poem concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men"[2] and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will.

Milton incorporates Paganism, classical Greek references, and Christianity within the poem. It deals with diverse topics from marriage, politics (Milton was politically active during the time of the English Civil War), and monarchy, and grapples with many difficult theological issues, including fate, predestination, the Trinity, and the introduction of sin and death into the world, as well as angels, fallen angels, Satan, and the war in heaven. Milton draws on his knowledge of languages, and diverse sources — primarily Genesis, much of the New Testament, the deuterocanonical Book of Enoch, and other parts of the Old Testament. Milton's epic is generally considered one of the greatest literary works in the English language. ... Read more

Product Description

The first one-volume anthology of John Milton's complete poetry and selected prose to be published in over 30 years, The Riverside Milton reflects the highest quality and most current scholarship. As editor of The Milton Quarterly for 30 years, Roy Flannagan is uniquely qualified to survey Milton's work. Outstanding pedagogy includes a comprehensive index designed to help students from undergraduate to graduate levels conceive paper topics; factual introductions; extensive annotations with references; margin definitions; and a chronology, dedicated and general bibliographies.

Customer Reviews (12)

Great supplier
The book got here before the estimated delivery date, in exactly the condition described. I am very pleased!

A necessary evil at best - the new Modern Library is better
Somewhere in the illegibly tiny notes to the Riverside Milton are some valuable bibliographic citations and other good information.So if you are a Milton scholar I'm afraid you can't make any excuse to avoid consulting this poorly designed doorstop.Also, if you need original spelling, Riverside is a convenient place to check.

If you are anything other than a Milton scholar who needs to check all the commentaries & annotations of all the editors -- if you are one of the rare persisting "general readers" curious to read everything -- then the Modern Library (henceforth ML) has published (in 2007) in "The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton" a much more usable and friendly answer to your needs than the Riverside.

ML's bigger and better font & less stark paper color make a real difference if you plan on reading literature as opposed to making use of a reference book.Both volumes offer extensive selections from Milton's prose; Riverside's best advantage is including Milton's "Treatise of Civil Power" (1659).(Riverside also has all the prolusions; ML just nos. 1 & 7.On the whole, the representation of Milton's prose oeuvre is a wash.)ML's best advantage in the prose, and it is a weighty one, is its treatment of the crucial "Christian Doctrine."Riverside's CD looks more complete than it is, because it widely (and inconsistently) fails to note where omissions have been made.Riverside omits passages of crucial interest to the reader of Paradise Lost.ML gives a very complete and thoughtful selection from CD (lightened by removing most series of proof texts), but its greatest advantage here is providing plentiful & good footnotes, including many references to Paradise Lost.Shockingly, and unconscionably, Riverside provides NO annotation to Christian Doctrine.In my mind, this clearly betrays an assumption that you, the reader, are not actually interested in reading this important work.Flannagan hollowly claims that the (overrated) authorship dispute has "forced" him to print the text without footnotes.(I suspect the fact that Merritt Hughes did not annotate CD--one of the few blemishes in that great edition--also has something to do with the omission.)All you have to do is browse through ML's excellent footnotes & selections to realize how much you're missing here.

Riverside's failure to cross-reference is a more general problem.For example, if you read Paradise Lost in the Riverside, when the footnotes refer you to "Areopagitica" or "The Reason of Church Government," you are only given page numbers in the Yale edition--even though the relevant passages are right there in the Riverside!In comparison, ML always provides its own page numbers, so that you can go read that passage from Areopagitica now, without a trip to the library.

As I said at the beginning of this review, I will not lie and deny that Flannagan's notes often go beyond what is available in ML.But it's hardly as if ML's scholarly notes are a subset of the good information in Riverside--ML has excellent notes on sources and allusions, so there are great references to Aristotle & Anselm, the Iliad, and so forth, that are not also found in Riverside.Sometimes Riverside's notes just try too hard, as when we get three verbose lines defining Aristotle's notion of form, with no attempt whatsoever to apply its meaning to the poem before us.ML is certainly better on glossing the difficulties of Milton's English, and in general ML tends to provide little nuggets of literary appreciation in its critical notes, rather than to try to sum up a status quaestionis.

Finally, a pet peeve: the Riverside misprints ghastly wrong Greek in places where ML has been more careful.

Advantages, Disadvantages
I've read about 1000 pages of this text and feel qualified to judge it dispassionately.

Here's the deal with it. It has great advantages which other Milton anthologies do not (excellent textual scholarship--and most importantly, the original spelling). But it has deep flaws that irk and pain every student who has to use this book.

* One: as one student said, it feels and read like a science book (bad design, in other words: it has no aesthetic appeal).
* Two: the typescript and layout are just counterintuitive: the footnotes are so hard to read sometimes as they are usually crammed in on each page--the whole book looks crammed and makes the reader feel crammed.
* Three: but the kicker--the downright absurd footnotes.

Let me explain: _Comus_, for example, has over 1000 footnotes. Flannagan has never heard of making textual notes _end_notes and keeping interpretative, allusional, or historical notes as footnotes. The result? The reader getting stopped twice on every line not knowing whether to keep reading or whether to spend five minutes each time reading all the damn notes! But what really stinks is that you have no idea whether the note will tell you something really important, say about the English Civil War, differing traits Bacchus' "madness," the genealogy of some lot of gods, or a crucial Bible passage--or whether it will just be one of the absolutely endless and useless textual notes.

Want a good example? By far my favorite--in _Comus_, there is a footnote on the word "where." The footnote informs the reader that Milton originally spelt the word "were" in the manuscript, tried to insert the "h" in, but then decided that he might as well rewrite the word, so he crossed it out, and spelt it correctly.

Are you kidding me?! And these inundate the whole book.

Supposedly a new "original spelling" edition of Milton is coming out next Spring, so I'd wait for that one. If you must have this for some reason, use a library copy. You won't want to keep it.

Hey, folks!The Hughes edition of Milton has been reprinted
Stop the complaining that the Hughes edition is out of print.It's back!(Yes, with its dated notes; but the table of contents and the editing more than make up for that.)Find it here. John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose $48.00 new.My version's 30+ years old and I still lovingly consult it.

Despite problems, Flannagan's still "The One"
This is the edition that made me fall in love with Milton as a graduate student, and that's high praise indeed.

Most of the criticism of this volume is sound, but we must remember above all that this edition is the best single-volume edition we have, given that Merritt Hughes' edition is now out of print.Moreover, Hughes' notes are now out-of-date; the graduate student will still wish to consult them, but Flannagan's is a worthwhile successor.

Of particular note are the introductions to the texts, which not only frame each work historically but also in terms of its reception and themes -- the introduction to Paradise Lost is particularly masterful.For major works, the introductions include timely bibliographies and are an invaluable resource.

Flannagan's detractors ably point out that his notes mix objective commentary, such as historical references or textual variants, with more interpretive notes.We all may wish that certain notes were added, particularly referencing textual parallels, but what we have here is nonetheless spectacular.One must adopt a critical attitude, however:we are invited, implicitly, to argue with Flannagan -- and we must have enough accumen to distinguish between objective and interpretive notations.

Certainly, undergraduates may find this difficult -- but I've never shied away from challenging texts that I assign, and learning to do so is indeed part of what they ought to be learning.Moreover, while we might quibble about which notes Flannagan ought to add, I don't find his notes on minor textual variants at all distracting -- rather, they are crutial to such a one-volume work.And while some notes are particularly idiosyncratic, I rather like that:if anything, it makes Milton accessible and encourages the idea that readers need to think for themselves and engage in the give-and-take of ideas.

The size of the book is also an advantage:Hughes' was of smaller proportions, and I find Flannagan's an good distribution of text, notes, and white space convenient for notations.Less complete editions of Milton's work lack the overarching connections Flannagan achieves here.Hughes remains a titan, but is out-of-date as well as out-of-print.And the hardbound complete collections of Milton's work, while worth consulting in libraries for scholarship, are neither portable nor intellectually accessible in comparison to Flannagan's introductions and notes.

I agree, however, that a second edition is much needed.The table of contents does not list the titles of the shorter poems, and there are some bizarre elements, including a few times where the page breaks too early, leaving a strange amount of white space on the page.Typos do exist, but probably at a lower rate than most books.

That said, you needn't wait for the long-promised second edition:if you can by any means afford to do so financially, engage Milton today.Though annoying, the missing table of contents can easily be constructed by the reader -- or downloaded online.This first edition might be rough in spots, but that very roughness has a certain charm.All criticism taken into account, this remains a spectacular way of meeting Milton. ... Read more

Product Description
An authoritative new edition of Milton's essential verse

John Milton, who abandoned early plans of becoming a clergyman to become a poet, was a master of almost every type of verse-from the classical to the religious, from the lyric to the epic. His writing reflected his radical views and his profound understanding of politics and power. This collection includes such early works as the devotional "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "Comus," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas." ... Read more