Regaining Paradise
Milton and the Eighteenth Century

This book explores the way in which Milton's poems served as a rich and fruitful resource for the English poets of the eighteenth century.

Dustin Griffin (Author)

9780521108362, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 April 2009

312 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.4 kg

This book explores the way in which Milton's poems served as a rich and fruitful resource for the English poets of the eighteenth century. It refutes the old argument about Milton's allegedly 'bad influence' and challenges suggestions that great writers generally inhibit or oppress their successors. Regaining Paradise argues that what interested eighteenth-century poets was primarily Milton's garden myth and that the best writers typically found Milton, not a burden, but an inspiring resources available for their appropriation. Regaining Paradise cuts across some of the boundaries that traditionally divide English studies. It looks at Milton not in a Renaissance but an eighteenth-century context and it combines the perspectives of literary history and literary theory.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. England's Milton: 1. Milton's politics
2. Milton's moral idealism
3. Milton as literary hero
Part II. After Milton: literary possibilities: 4. The traditional genres
5. Adaptations: re-making Milton
6. New genres
7. Regaining paradise
Part III. The Major Writers: 8. Dryden
9. Pope
10. Thomson
11. Johnson
12. Cowper
Afterword: notes toward an eighteenth century theory of literary influence
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]