Milton and the Politics of Public Speech

ISBN-13: 9780367879952 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 302 str.

Helen Lynch

Opis

Using Hannah Arendt’s account of the Greek polis to explain Milton’s fascination with the idea of public speech, this book reveals what is distinctive about his conception of a godly, republican oratory and poetics. Setting Milton’s poetry and prose in the context of Civil War polemic; classical political theory and its early modern reinterpretatio

Recenzje

'This book is both a pleasure to read and a vital contribution to understanding the nature of the public sphere in seventeenth-century England. With brilliant readings of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes and Milton’s prose works, Lynch develops an account of the rhetorical experience of the political, one that does not forget the presence of the irrational, the excluded, and the feminine. In challenging the concepts of the public sphere and making use of the ideas of Hannah Arendt, rather than Jurgen Habermas, the book opens up new perspectives on the nature of public life, of rhetorical traditions, of civic activism and of the nature and uses of poetry in the early modern world.' Sharon Achinstein, The Johns Hopkins University, USA 'Lynch deserves commendation for introducing Arendt into our reflections on Milton's artistry.' Review of English Studies

Spis treści

Milton and the idea of public speech.  'Two twins cleaving together': rhetoric and 'knowing good by evil'.  'Enchanting tongues persuasive': rhetoric and gender.  Samson the orator and the redemption of public speech.  Samson Agonistes and the temptations of romance.

O autorze

Helen Lynch is Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, UK.