Immortality and the Body in the Age of Milton

A collection examining representations of the embodied self in the writings of Milton and his contemporaries.

John Rumrich (Edited by), Stephen M. Fallon (Edited by)

9781108422338, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 March 2018

254 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.51 kg

Seventeenth-century England teemed with speculation on body and its relation to soul. Descartes' dualist certainty was countered by materialisms, whether mechanist or vitalist. The most important and distinctive literary reflection of this ferment is John Milton's vitalist or animist materialism, which underwrites the cosmic worlds of Paradise Lost. In a time of philosophical upheaval and innovation, Milton and an unusual collection of fascinating and diverse contemporary writers, including John Donne, Margaret Cavendish, John Bunyan, and Hester Pulter, addressed the potency of the body, now viewed not as a drag on the immaterial soul or a site of embarrassment but as an occasion for heroic striving and a vehicle of transcendence. This collection addresses embodiment in relation to the immortal longings of early modern writers, variously abetted by the new science, print culture, and the Copernican upheaval of the heavens.

Part I. 1. The enfolded sublime of incarnate immortality Gardner Campbell
2. Milton's 'Lycidas', or Edward King's two bodies James Nohrnberg
Part II. 3. Narcissus in the boudoir: Aretino's Petrarchan postures Gordon Braden
4. Carnality into creativity: sublimation in John Bunyan's 'Apology' to The Pilgrim's Progress Vera Camden
5. Milton's beautiful body Gregory Chaplin
6. The fortunate, unfortunate fall and two varieties of immortality in Paradise Lost Stephen M. Fallon
Part III. 7. The miracle in Francis Bacon's natural philosophy Gregory Foran
8. Flesh made word: pneumatology and Miltonic textuality John Rumrich
9. Milton beyond iconoclasm David A. Harper
Part IV. 10. Hester Pulter's brave new worlds Louisa Hall
11. Death-weddings or living books: Cavendish rewriting Donne Dustin Stewart
12. Paradise Lost and the creation of Mormon theology John Rogers.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]