Milton, the sublime and dramas of choice

Figures of Heroic and Literary Virtue

Irene Montori

• Publisher: Edizioni Studium S.r.l.
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9788838248689
• eBook ISBN:
  9788838250217
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Milton, the Sublime and Dramas of Choice challenges readers and scholars to rethink Milton's relationship to the sublime in terms of ethics. The book demonstrates that Milton's sublimity merges the early modern reception of Longinus with classical, medieval, and Renaissance categories of magnanimity, wonder, and inspiration to investigate the relations between human and divine agency. Under the influence of early modern models of sublimity, including Spenser and Shakespeare, Milton speaks through his fictional characters about the making of heroic and literary virtue. In turn, the work also sheds light on the importance of tragedy as an additional source to the formation of the Renaissance sublime. Milton's tragic plots illustrate how the character's virtue is tested, strengthened, and eventually transformed into an experience of elevation. The study explores the heroic path from dramatic choice to self-realisation, offering extensive treatments of Milton's dramas – A Maske and Samson Agonistes. The redefinition of the pairing "Milton and the sublime" in this work aims to relocate the poet within the English literary history as the climax of earlier traditions and receptions of the sublime, but also as the starting point of modern sublimity

Table of contents

• Cover
• Milton, The sublime and dramas of choice
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on the texts and abbreviations
• Introduction
• I. Rethinking Miltonic Sublimity
• 1. Beyond the Aesthetics of Sublime
• 2. Towards a Redefinition of Milton's Sublimity
• 3. Milton's Fictions of Authorship
• II. Vitues and Talents
• 1. Scepticism and Tragic Drama
• 2. Heroic Virtue and the Pursuit of Learning
• 3. Vocation: Talent of Labour?
• III. A Maske: Self-Representation and the Intertextual Sublime
• 1. Enganging Tragedy in A Maske
• 2. The Dramatic Dispute
• 3. Chastity between Self-Representation and Intertextuality
• 4. Non-Miltonic Voices: Shakespeare and Spenser
• IV. The Drama of the Fall from Adam to Samson
• 1. Milton and Ancient Tragedy
• 2. Tragedy as Trial
• 3. Tragic Fall and a New Model of Heroism
• V. Samson Agonistes: Making the Siblime through Tragedy
• 1. Samson: Martyr, Hero, of Villain?
• 2. Patience, Action and Time
• 3. Samson's Making the Heroic Sublime
• 4. «Eternal Fame» and Milton’s Literary Virtue
• Appendix. William Marshall’s title page to Gerard Langbaine’s edition of Longinus
• Bibliography
• Index of Name
• Cultura studium