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)

9781009223591, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 March 2025

230 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.339 kg

'… convincingly demonstrates once again how gender shapes the social and political realities of early modernity.' Ben Labreche, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal

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]