The Masculinities of John Milton
Cultures and Constructs of Manhood in the Major Works

This first published book on Milton's masculinities exposes how Milton constructs the power-cultures of manhood in his most famous works.

Elizabeth Hodgson (Author)

9781009223584, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 September 2022

290 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'The Masculinities of John Milton by Elizabeth M. A. Hodgson is a necessary and convincingly feminist account of the making of masculinity in Milton's works. Earlier feminist approaches to Milton have often focused on femininity and the representation of women; masculinity is so ubiquitous that it has remained an unmarked and underexamined term. This book, therefore, offers an essential intervention in Milton studies by exploring how Milton's portrayal of citizenship, freedom, friendship, love, and marriage depend upon cultural constructions of masculinity.' Lara Dodds, Mississippi State University

The Masculinites of John Milton is the first published monograph on Milton's men. Examining how Milton's fantasies of manly authority are framed in his major works, this study exposes the gaps between Milton's pleas for liberty and his assumptions that White men like himself should rule his culture. From schoolboys teaching each other how to traffic in young women in the Ludlow Masque, to his treatises on divorce that make the wife-less husband the best possible citizen, and to the later epics, in which Milton wrestles with male small talk and the ladders of masculine social power, his verse and prose draw from and amplify his culture's claims about manliness in education, warfare, friendship, citizenship, and conversation. This revolutionary poet's most famous writings reveal how ambivalently manhood is constructed to serve itself in early modern England.

Introduction
1. Peer review: the Ludlow Masque
2: Nearly headless husbands: the divorce tracts
3: Chatting up: Paradise Lost
4: True warfaring Christian: Aereopagitica & Paradise Regained
5: Lean on me: Samson Agonistes
Postlude: pity the tale of Milton.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: men [JFSJ2], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]