The most compelling features of Milton’s Socratic Rationalism are its thoughtful reconstruction of several intimate but nonetheless key moments in Paradise Lost, as well as its charting of Milton’s reappropriation of ancient narrative, structure, and rhetorical devices.. . . . Milton’s Socratic Rationalism is a thoughtful book which deserves the careful attention of scholars of Milton, ancient Greek political thought, literary criticism, and the history of political thought.

The Review of Politics

Responding to a critic who said Milton had only blindness in common with Homer, G.E. Lessing said Paradise Lost was the finest epic since Homer. For, he argued, the range of Milton’s inner vision was more valuable than his physical sight since it gained him mental freedom. In Milton’s Socratic Rationalism, David Davies reveals how subtly Milton used his freedom.

- Paul Dowling, Canisius College,

What, exactly, did Adam and Eve do when they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and what were the consequences? John Milton put this question front and center in Paradise Lost; and, in this provocative monograph, David Davies makes a compelling case that the English poet’s take on these questions owes as much to Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle as it does to the Book of Genesis.

- Paul A. Rahe, Hillsdale College,