John Milton Prose – Major Writings on Liberty, Politics, Religion, and Education
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David Loewenstein is Helen C. White Professor of English and the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA. His books include Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Puritanism (2001), which received the Milton Society of America s James Holly Hanford Award for Distinguished Book. He is the author of Treacherous Faith: The Specter of Heresy in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2013). He has co-edited The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (2002), Early Modern Nationalism and Milton s England (2008), and The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley (2009). He is an Honored Scholar of the Milton Society of America.Still the volume supports these various agendas admirably, and will ensure that Milton s prose continues to challenge and reward the kind of active, discerning readerships that Milton himself courted. (Renaissance Quarterly, 1 July 2014) Each of these texts has its advantages, and no one should be disappointed by either. Both will make teaching Milton more pleasurable and inventive. (Milton Quarterly, 19 May 2014) "Milton's extraordinary prose, extensively represented in David Loewenstein's ambitious edition, has gained many new readers in recent years, and it may be true that some students, at least in British schools and universities, read Tenure of Kings and Magistrates before, or even instead of, the great poetry." Times Literary Supplement (June 14 2013)
Regarded by many as the equal of Shakespeare in poetic imagination and expression, Milton was also a prolific writer of prose who explored, with great acuity and originality, his frequently dissenting and controversial views on religion, politics, and liberty. This new and extensively annotated edition of his major prose works presents them in their original language, spelling, and punctuation, and demonstrates Milton’s continued relevance. It shows why Milton’s rich, varied prose works are justly reckoned among his greatest achievements, analyzing such major topics as freedom of the press, religious toleration and liberty of conscience, gender, marriage, the dangers of tyranny, and the significance of political debate and dissent.
The exhaustive notes compiled for this edition illuminate the complexities of the shifting contemporary political and religious contexts in which Milton wrote and published his major prose works, even as they elucidate the wealth of Milton’s biblical, classical, and topical allusions. Most crucially for contemporary readers, his prose writings address the meanings and consequences of different kinds of liberty: religious, political, domestic, and individual.
“David Loewenstein’s scrupulous edition offers a remarkably generous range of Milton’s prose works on religion, politics, and domestic issues. The Prefatory Notes to each work are a model of clarity and concision, and annotations are precise and informative. The volume will be a wonderful resource for Milton scholars, teachers, and students alike.”—Laura Knoppers, Editor, Milton Studies
"Richly annotated and with a fine, purposeful introduction, this wholly new edition makes available ten major prose works by Milton in their entirety, together with generous selections from Milton's other tracts. No other edition allows the reader to appreciate so fully Milton's original engagement with concepts of political, religious, and domestic liberty. It is the best edition for teaching purposes and the general reader. Scholars too will appreciate the wealth of fresh annotations." —Thomas N. Corns, University of Wales, Bangor
"This is the most ambitious one-volume edition of Milton’s prose to date, one that both invites the general reader who is curious about the author of Paradise Lost, and that also satisfies the needs of classrooms. Readers will have at their fingertips works from across Milton’s writing career, with its wide range of occasions and styles. We see the scrappy polemicist, the rhetorically powerful tyrannicide, the critic and participant in religious reform, a Milton who was always daring, witty and engaged. With crisp prefatory introductions to each work, helpful annotations, and a generous introduction to the whole, there is no better guide to Milton’s prose treasures than this one. I will be eager to assign this to students." —Sharon Achinstein, University of Oxford