Milton, Toleration, and Nationhood

Hardback

Main Details

Title Milton, Toleration, and Nationhood
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Elizabeth Sauer
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:230
Dimensions(mm): Height 235,Width 157
Category/GenreLiterary studies - c 1500 to c 1800
Literary studies - poetry and poets
ISBN/Barcode 9781107041943
ClassificationsDewey:821.4
Audience
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 9 December 2013
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

John Milton lived at a time when English nationalism became entangled with principles and policies of cultural, religious, and ethnic tolerance. Combining political theory with close readings of key texts, this study examines how Milton's polemical and imaginative literature intersects with representations of English Protestant nationhood. Through detailed case studies of Milton's works, Elizabeth Sauer charts the fluctuating narrative of Milton's literary engagements in relation to social, political, and philosophical themes such as ecclesiology, exclusionism, Irish alterity, natural law, disestablishment, geography, and intermarriage. In so doing, Sauer shows the extent to which nationhood and toleration can be subjected to literary and historicist inquiry. Her study makes a salient contribution to Milton studies and to scholarship on early modern literature and the development of the early nation-state.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Sauer is Professor of English at Brock University, Canada, and winner of a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts. She has published widely on Milton and Early Modern culture, including co-edited collections such as The New Milton Criticism (2012) and Reading the Nation in English Literature (2010).

Reviews

'This penetrating new study enhances the field, re-examining through the prism of English nation forming such major Miltonic themes as ecclesiology, exclusionism, natural law, disestablishment and marriage ... Sauer's stated intention in Milton, Toleration, and Nationhood is 'to illustrate how a study of these conjoined subjects enriches appreciation of Milton's works, broadens understanding of the role of literature in the conceptualizing of early nationhood, and opens up possibilities for further scholarship in the field'. On all three counts, and with no little aplomb, she has succeeded.' Philip Major, The Review of English Studies 'Sauer's book outlines a number of excellent arguments.' The Times Literary Supplement