Milton's Ireland
Royalism, Republicanism, and the Question of Pluralism

The first book on Milton's engagement with Ireland, tracing paradoxical resonances of Milton's republicanism in Ireland to this day.

Lee Morrissey (Author)

9781009462419, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 December 2024

228 pages
23.6 x 16 x 1.6 cm, 0.476 kg

'Morrissey makes the case for Ireland as a far more significant theme in [Milton's] oeuvre than has previously been acknowledged. … In drawing our attention to the place of Ireland in his subject's imagination, [Morrissey] adds to the store of interpretive possibility.' Roberta Klimt, Times Literary Supplement

In this first book devoted to Milton's engagement with Ireland, Lee Morrissey takes an archipelagic approach to his subject. The study focuses on the period before the Cromwellian Conquest, explaining Milton's emergence as a public figure because of Ireland and tracing the paradoxical resonances of Milton's republicanism in Ireland to this day. Informed by developments in Irish history but foregrounding a lucid discussion of Milton's governmental prose works, Morrissey explores the tension between Milton's long-established image as a proto-Enlightenment, democratic figure, and the historical reality of his association with a Protestant invading force. Milton's Ireland incisively negotiates this complex subject, addressing clear absences in Milton scholarship, in the history of Ireland, and in the fraught relationship between Ireland and England.

Introduction: John Milton and the Irish Crises
1. 1641–1642: Milton's anti-prelatical tracts and the ulster rising
2. The 1645 poems: spenser's 'colin clouts come home againe' and (the revisions of) Milton's 'Lycidas'
3. Early 1649: the execution of Charles I and Milton's 'observations' in the articles of peace
4. Later 1649: Milton's Eikonoklastes and Cromwell's invasion
5. The early 1650s: defences after Cromwell's invasion
6. The later 1650s: acts of settlement – varieties of English Republicanism
Afterword 'conflagrations of conviction': Irish Republicanism and English Royalist Nationalism
Index of names
Notes.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]