John Milton Books

According to Fish, "Paradise Lost" operates according to a mechanism of rhetorical indirection that works on all rhetorical levels, from depiction of character to deployment of tropes. Milton wants to show us how our fallen state corrupts and distorts our responses to poetry and instruction; the poem is constructed as a series of interlocking traps for the reader, who is lured into reacting in tempting but "wrong" ways to tropes ("with serpent error wandering") and characters (the apparently admirable Satan and his cohorts, the apparently tyrannical and odious God). The chapter on the poetics of prelapsarian Eden ("In Wandering Mazes Lost," I think it's called) is a masterpiece. Fish backs this all up with plenty of solid research into the theological doctrines Milton was known to endorse or was likely to have been familiar with.

This approach to Milton was regarded as radical when the book first came out, rather oddly, since Milton's tactics of indirection had already been noted by several critics, though not foregrounded as here. What's new is the thoroughness and clarity of the treatment, and Fish's sheer intelligence as a reader. This is criticism at its best: lucid, engaging, responsible, illuminating.

Critics, including Shelley, have argued over "Paradise Lost" for over 300
years. Stanley Fish has answered the crucial question once and for all: "What
was Milton doing?" In a critical masterpiece, Fish has opened for all of us
the pedagogic purpose of this monumental work. With a pattern of "mistake,
correction, instruction," Fish has broken the code; showing at once that we
are still "fallen" and susceptible to the rhetoric of Satan and his minions,
and in what ways we, as "fallen man" continue to respond to the persuasion
of the serpent in the Garden. It's hard to see what more can be written about
"Paradise Lost" after this landmark exigesis. Read it and see how easily we
can be seduced - and today's political discourse continues the tradition.

I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Bornholdt's review of Surprised by Sin. While Fish's analysis of Paradise Lost has become so over-hyped as to become akin to literary scripture in itself, his writing remains simplistic, his sentence structure convoluted, and his arguments riddled with holes. While it is true that there is plenty of theological research in evidence (in quite a few instances, the footnotes are larger than the main text on the page), there is noticeably little textual evidence sited in Paradise Lost itself; Mr. Fish is so busy engaging with other written texts that he fails to closely read the poem that he's supposed to be discussing.

Mr. Fish's idea that the reader is enticed to be "sinful" by the narrative is interesting: the problem, however, is that his argument is not based on Paradise Lost but on a personal belief system. While one must assume a certain religious system when reading a text like Paradise Lost, one must begin critical analysis with the poem itself and not with scripture. Often Paradise Lost does not adhere to Fish's theories; but rather than discuss such issues through textual evidence, Fish relies on the playground mentality/argument of "you're a sinner because you are."

Take Fish's analysis regarding the allusion to Ovid's Narcissus in Eve's birth, for example. Despite the fact that this moment is vital to the construction of Eve's character, Fish glosses over it in only three pages (out of 350). Why? Because his argument is lacking.

Regarding Eve's birth, Fish says that "one can either conclude . . . that 'we have glimpsed a dainty vanity in "our general mother" which the serpent will put to use' or contrive . . . to disengage her from the pejorative connotations of the myth." Ignoring the fact that there are more than these two ways in which this passage can be read, he himself says that, in order to "disengage" Eve from the negative connotations of the Narcissus allusion, one must "contrive" to do so ("contrive" meaning to devise, invent, or fabricate). One would think that if his theory was solid, he would not need to "contrive" an argument: he would simply have one.

But Fish fails to conduct a close reading of Milton's words in the same way that he fails to consider his own word choice. Blatantly ignoring the numerous parallels between the two characters that work against his theory, Fish suggests that the reader must not compare but contrast the two tales. But not only does he ignore the blatant parallels; he also ignores the blatant differences: he suggests that Eve is childlike and emphasizes that she eventually yields to Adam, but that's it. End of argument. He fails to deeply consider the language, content, or implications of the section. Amongst many other questions, what about the fact that Narcissus is cursed to fall in love with his own reflection while Eve is not? that Eve is interrupted and Narcissus is not? What about the implication of such words as "yield" and "seize"? After reading Ovid's story, any average reader could come up with at least half a dozen comparisons and/or contrasts between the two stories. But not only does he not support a reading against the comparison, but he does not successfully support his own reading for the contrasts either. He merely concludes that this section is a "puzzle" and that, since Eve could not possibly have been made flawed, she's not. Why? Because God wouldn't make Eve flawed. Where's the textual evidence? There is none. But any reader who thinks that Milton created a flawed Eve is a sinner. Why? Cuz you are.

(Any Eddie Izzard fans out there, cf. "You smell cuz you do. You're a twit cuz you are.")

This lack of textual engagement is the fatal flaw in Fish's analyses. While there may be something interesting in the idea that the poem is written in order to entice the reader to the Dark Side, Fish fails to prove it. Repeatedly his argument relies not on Paradise Lost itself but on (what seems to be) his personal belief system. For Fish the evidence is not in the poem but in scripture/doctrine/outside sources and the poem a mere inconvenience. Had I handed in such shoddy textual analysis in college, I never would have graduated.

Therefore I must disagree with Mr. Bornholdt's suggestion that Surprised by Sin is "lucid, engaging, responsible, illuminating." Fish's ideas are left unexplored, his conclusions unsupported and reductive. His writing style is rambling, his tone arrogant, and his parenthetical asides both distracting and often off-topic. There are a number of critics who have made similar (but better) arguments based in close textual readings and responsible scholarship; unfortunately (and inexplicably), Fish's book got all the press.

If you're a Milton scholar, you won't be able to avoid this book. But do yourself a favor and borrow it from the library. That $22 is much better spent photocopying the scholarship of others than slogging through this mess.

This book sets out to give an overview of a variety of different theories involved in literary criticism. Admittedly, it does present an incredible number of philosophies on more topics than most critics venture to consider.

I read this book as the text for a literary criticism class. The only truly good thing I can say about it is that it did promote a great deal of conversation each day. Basically, Bennett and Royle present so many theories for every topic that it is difficult to keep track of them. Often, the theories will contradict themselves several times in a single chapter and the authors provide only a cursory explanation of each theory. It often seemed that they gave us just enough information about a particular philosophical view that we knew it was beyond our comprehension and left us scratching our heads.

Additionally, I felt that the approach Bennett and Royle use is somewhat lacking. They attempt a style of writing in which they pose philosophical questions that will cause readers to stop and ponder ideas that they would not normally consider. However, the way that the authors go about this process often seems clumsy and undermines the other information that they are presenting.

Despite my dislike, I would say that it could be a useful text /if/ the reader understands the aim and layout (specifically that the authors want to present as many theories on a topic as possible regardless of interconnectedness and without thorough details) and if the reader uses it more as an introductory reference and ignores most of the author's commentary and philosophical musings.

The Bennett and Royle is really the best intro to theory text I've seen -- a small book, but readable and fairly broad, and yet scrupulous in the ways it describes various theoretical approaches. Each chapter discusses a different theoretical "issue." So, the 2nd edition includes the following chapter titles: The beginning, Readers and reading, The author, The text and the world, The uncanny, Monuments, Narrative, Character, Voice, Figures and tropes, Laughter, The tragic, History, Me, Ghosts, Sexual difference, God, Ideology, Desire, Queer, Suspense, Racial difference, The colony, The performative, Secrets, The postmodern, Pleasure, The end.

Two aspects I particularly like:
(1) The authors describe theory as related to literary texts, using lots of examples from literature to illustrate the concepts--a practice that I think helps the reader access the theory.
(2) Each chapter concludes with a short section called Further Reading, in which the authors explain, in prose, other texts that might be of interest to the reader, and how and why they relate to the theory of the chapter.

This reads like a series of high quality lectures. Unfortunately, the reader does not have the opportunity to question the lecturer when clarification is needed.

I have a shameful confession. I've lived more than half a century and I'm pretty well-read. But ever since a nightmarish high school experience in English Lit, I've never been able to stomach the thought of reading John Milton--despite the fact that an acquaintance of mine has sworn by him for years.

Nigel Smith's Is Milton Better than Shakespeare? may've changed that. His discussion of Milton's context, poetic style, and contemporary relevance--not to mention the generous amount of Milton's poetry and prose that he actually quotes--goes a long way toward neutralizing my longstanding aversion to Milton. And neutralization just might be the first tentative step toward appreciation.

The book's title has only a rhetorical connection with the book--it's more of a barker's call to get you in the tent than an indication of what you'll find once inside. There's little effort on Smith's part actually to compare Shakespeare and Milton. Instead, what he does is provide what I think is best described as an overview or introduction to Milton intended to persuade us that the poet is well worth reading today. Call it Milton 101. Well, maybe Milton 301.

Smith focuses on what he sees as the major themes in Milton, which include liberty ("at the center of [Milton's] vision," claims Smith), human and social transformation, the paradox of good and evil, and free will and moral responsibility--not to mention divorce in both its social/legal and metaphysical/biblical senses--and uses them to guide the reader to a better appreciation of how to read Milton. A large part of Smith's argument is geared to stressing Milton's relevance, and he draws connections between Miltonic themes and (for example) Islamic terrorism, Founding Father ideals, children's literature, and heavy metal music. But Smith's brief for Milton isn't based (and properly, too) merely on the poet's relevance, but also on the sheer beauty of his artistry.

The contemporary ear may no longer be easily attuned to Miltonic verse (not to mention his teutonically-long prose sentences!). Neither, for that matter, are we entirely comfortable with Shakespeare's cadences and vocabulary. Yet many of us happily know that Shakespeare can be grown into. Perhaps with the help of Smith, something similar can happen with Milton.

I saw and enjoyed the movie "The Golden Compass." Later, I learned from a relative that it was anti Christian. Not sensing this from the movie, and wishing to understand the issue, I purchased this book and "Discovering the Golden Compass" by George Beahm. My overall impression after reading Leonardo Wheat's book is either he has a very active imagination or is compulsively dedicated to making every combination an allegory. Not withstanding, many of his "allegories" were worth consideration. I recommend both books to the interested reader.

This book is to be read AFTER you have finished all 3 books of the trilogy. The author has obviously done a ton of research into this book and relates it to Paradise Lost and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Narnia). The symbols and allegories are outlined, sometimes they seem a stretch, but you after reading this book are have much more depth about the driving force of His Dark Materials (Pullman's books). This book has lots of footnotes and reads more like a textbook, which is ok for me becaue I am a PhD type, but general audiences may find it someone cumbersome. It went from a 4 to a 3 partially because in the first chapters, the author will ask a question, and never provide the answer, e.g. "and what character in Will's world is similar to the Snake in the garden of Eden". But doesn't answer it, and the questions weren't no-brainers for the reader - that is why we are reading this. However, in later chapters these questions are answered, but I found the first portion of the book annoying by not providing information, but instead using teaser questions with no footnote of the correct answer. If you are eruditic you will enjoy this book as I did, and come away more knowledgeable about Milton's Paradise Lost, Lewis' Narnia and organized religion/bible.

Stop the complaining that the Hughes edition is out of print. It's back! (Yes, with its dated notes; but the table of contents and the editing more than make up for that.) Go to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0872206785 to find it here at Amazon. $60.00 new. My version's 30+ years old and I still lovingly consult it.

I find this edition impossible for classroom use and, after this semester, I will not use it again. I wish the venerable Hughes edition was available and affordable: somebody should reissue it if it is going out of print, as it remains the better textbook.

Here are my complaints:

*The prose is riddled with what seem to me to be small typos--I'm not talking about orginal spelling, but about things like "buy" for "but" (p. 937) and so on. There is one of these every 2-3 pages on average, and this is just too many.

*Some of the notes seem designed not to assist undergraduate readers but to demonstrate the editor's grasp of secondary scholarship. Why else would a note to _Comus_ direct readers to Leah Marcus and NOT also offer succinct remarks about the controversy surrounding Sports and mirth? What good is a note like that to the average undergraduate reader?

*The notes are so frequently about minor textual issues--the kind of thing that can go in an appendix and that undergrads are unlikely to care about--that students after a while stop looking at them altogether. That does not help anybody.

*The notes--especially to the prose--do not supply anything like the kind of necessary information that any classroom text should provide. This text does not identify the scriptural passages Milton cites, etc. For example, when Milton refers to a "covnant" in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and/or The Readie and Easie Way, students need a note about The Solemn League and Covenant, but there is no such thing.

I've read about 1000 pages of this text and feel qualified to judge it dispassionately.

Here's the deal with it. It has great advantages which other Milton anthologies do not (excellent textual scholarship--and most importantly, the original spelling). But it has deep flaws that irk and pain every student who has to use this book.

* One: as one student said, it feels and read like a science book (bad design, in other words: it has no aesthetic appeal).
* Two: the typescript and layout are just counterintuitive: the footnotes are so hard to read sometimes as they are usually crammed in on each page--the whole book looks crammed and makes the reader feel crammed.
* Three: but the kicker--the downright absurd footnotes.

Let me explain: _Comus_, for example, has over 1000 footnotes. Flannagan has never heard of making textual notes _end_notes and keeping interpretative, allusional, or historical notes as footnotes. The result? The reader getting stopped twice on every line not knowing whether to keep reading or whether to spend five minutes each time reading all the damn notes! But what really stinks is that you have no idea whether the note will tell you something really important, say about the English Civil War, differing traits Bacchus' "madness," the genealogy of some lot of gods, or a crucial Bible passage--or whether it will just be one of the absolutely endless and useless textual notes.

Want a good example? By far my favorite--in _Comus_, there is a footnote on the word "where." The footnote informs the reader that Milton originally spelt the word "were" in the manuscript, tried to insert the "h" in, but then decided that he might as well rewrite the word, so he crossed it out, and spelt it correctly.

Are you kidding me?! And these inundate the whole book.

Supposedly a new "original spelling" edition of Milton is coming out next Spring, so I'd wait for that one. If you must have this for some reason, use a library copy. You won't want to keep it.

This is the edition that made me fall in love with Milton as a graduate student, and that's high praise indeed.

Most of the criticism of this volume is sound, but we must remember above all that this edition is the best single-volume edition we have, given that Merritt Hughes' edition is now out of print. Moreover, Hughes' notes are now out-of-date; the graduate student will still wish to consult them, but Flannagan's is a worthwhile successor.

Of particular note are the introductions to the texts, which not only frame each work historically but also in terms of its reception and themes -- the introduction to Paradise Lost is particularly masterful. For major works, the introductions include timely bibliographies and are an invaluable resource.

Flannagan's detractors ably point out that his notes mix objective commentary, such as historical references or textual variants, with more interpretive notes. We all may wish that certain notes were added, particularly referencing textual parallels, but what we have here is nonetheless spectacular. One must adopt a critical attitude, however: we are invited, implicitly, to argue with Flannagan -- and we must have enough accumen to distinguish between objective and interpretive notations.

Certainly, undergraduates may find this difficult -- but I've never shied away from challenging texts that I assign, and learning to do so is indeed part of what they ought to be learning. Moreover, while we might quibble about which notes Flannagan ought to add, I don't find his notes on minor textual variants at all distracting -- rather, they are crutial to such a one-volume work. And while some notes are particularly idiosyncratic, I rather like that: if anything, it makes Milton accessible and encourages the idea that readers need to think for themselves and engage in the give-and-take of ideas.

The size of the book is also an advantage: Hughes' was of smaller proportions, and I find Flannagan's an good distribution of text, notes, and white space convenient for notations. Less complete editions of Milton's work lack the overarching connections Flannagan achieves here. Hughes remains a titan, but is out-of-date as well as out-of-print. And the hardbound complete collections of Milton's work, while worth consulting in libraries for scholarship, are neither portable nor intellectually accessible in comparison to Flannagan's introductions and notes.

I agree, however, that a second edition is much needed. The table of contents does not list the titles of the shorter poems, and there are some bizarre elements, including a few times where the page breaks too early, leaving a strange amount of white space on the page. Typos do exist, but probably at a lower rate than most books.

That said, you needn't wait for the long-promised second edition: if you can by any means afford to do so financially, engage Milton today. Though annoying, the missing table of contents can easily be constructed by the reader -- or downloaded online. This first edition might be rough in spots, but that very roughness has a certain charm. All criticism taken into account, this remains a spectacular way of meeting Milton.

Interest in Milton has waned in American universities, and I can't help but think that THE RIVERSIDE MILTON tossed him into an eternity more boring than anything his prose could have ever created.

I understand that this text is "academic" so its asinine price and density are justified. Yet Flannagan has taken scholasticism to the extreme, sacrificing all for footnotes in a mad zeal to, like the old Welsh poets, show off his research. Thus this book's perfect audience comprises graduate pedants lost in footnote fogs, loving every minute of brilliant insights like, "This comma was omitted in the 1676 Edition." A high disappointment, especially since THE RIVERSIDE CHAUCER is very, very strong. But still, THE RIVERSIDE MILTON'S not a total waste (the introductions are well written and often insightful).

Other reviewers have already identified the problems with so many footnotes, so I won't rehash. I'll just add my frown amongst many others and continue reading Milton elsewhere.

Contrary to what other reviews and summaries might claim, this edition contains neither the complete work nor passages from "Paradise Regained" (aka "Paradise Found").

This is an authoritative edition for anyone interested in John Milton. It includes poetry, prose, and commentary.

Milton deserves better than this. Orgel and Goldberg boast that they have produced a radical Milton, but all they really offer is rehashed Alastair Fowler, without Fowler's erudition or eloquence. Many of the notes are just plain ignorant. There are better editions out there.

This is an excellent edition of John Milton's works; it includes all the major works (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes) and several of his sonnets, other poems, and prose tracts. The notes are thourough, although they are arranged at the back rather than footnoted. This cleans up the body of the text, but also requires constant flipping of pages. And the pages do not hold together well. After a few weeks of use, mine were beginning to fall out! It is a good, affordable volume; but if you are planning a serious study, expect it to fall apart sooner or later.

Man, does this guy love himself or what... Practically runs a national airline to the ground and alienates thousands of employees by trying to convert his company into a flying Wal-Mart, and still manages to write a self-masturbatory book that pathetically tries to make himself look like a misunderstood genius, an angel struggling against the forces of darkness in the airline industry. What's next, Mr Milton, a statue of yourself in downtown Toronto? Sheesh! The only point in buying this "book" (and I use the term loosely) is maybe to prop up that wobbly kitchen table of yours.

This book is an interesting story of the individual most responsible for the problems at Air Canada. It is a self-congratulating look of an airline obsessed boy who ended up running Air Canada into the claws of bankruptcy.

If you are looking to impress your teacher with someone else's insight, this book of notes is for you. If you ACTUALLY want to read Paradise Lost, you best buy another book.

Admittedly, it is difficult to define what exactly constitutes Milton's political writings, as he wrote on such diverse topics as divorce, freedom of speech, and how to establish a free commonwealth. Oddly, however, none of these works are in the book that I am here reviewing. Only the "Defense of the English People" and "the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," found their way into this edition of Milton's political writings. Despite the injudicious selection of political prose coming from the people at Cambridge University Press, the introduction by Martin Dzelzainis is particularly helpful in terms of situating the texts in their historical and ideological context. Also, the texts themselves are well footnoted to give the reader a more nuanced understanding of these two sophisticated landmarks of English republican political thought.

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The reason I bought this Max Notes is the same for my (probable) frequent mispelling in the text that follows: I'm not a native English speaker. I wanted to know Milton's work, without having to fight my way through a poetry that's difficult even to well educated, native English speakers. I suspected that the difficulties of the style would hinder my appreciation of the work (which I still think would be the case).

This is a good summary of Milton's work: engaging, informed and synthetic, at the same time. Each "book" (actualy chapters) of Paradise Lost is presented separately, in five sections: the new characters (who make their debut in that chapter; a good idea), the summary of the chapter/book, an analysis of the chapter, study questions along with their answers, and suggested essay topics.

Two things, though, compromise the quality of the book.
First, the quality of the "analysis" of each chapter is very, very poor. Most of the time it basicaly re-summarizes the text, in the very same way a laisy student -- who's unwilling to stop and think -- does in an test. This, plus the fact that the study questions and answers are also very superficial and poor, give the impression that the book is specifically geared toward less-than-bright students. Is this the case? We might think so, once this is the general pre-conceivement about "notes" and "summaries" of great classics. But I really guess it didn't have to be this way.

The second weakness in this Max Noter is the horrendous, despisable, quality of its illustrations. Once again, we can't help but think that they were "commissioned" to resemble the drawings teenagers usually make in their notebooks. Then again, what's the use of that? Do teenager readers find the book "cooler" because of these cheesy, ridiculous illustrations. I seriously doubt.

All in all this is not a complete waste of time and money, but I do get the sensation that there might be a better summary among the many other similar series available.