Description: The centrality of Milton to the study of English literature obscures the intense debates that rage about his true allegiances. Was he a Christian Republican or a committed individualist, a radical, heretical free thinker, or a traditional absolutist? In Milton's Warring Angels, William Kolbrener provides a critical account of the reception and interpretation of Milton's texts. He claims that Milton resists paradigms of modernity drawn from the Enlightenment. His writing instead mediates between apparently contradictory positions. This ability to resist tendentious appropriations and reductive readings helps explain the continuing critical fascination with this most enigmatic of writers.
Review Quotes: "Wide ranging and yet admirably focused, this volume is an important corrective to continuing arguments that emphasize only one of the poles on which the worlds of Milton's literary and polemical universe turn. Is Milton a dualist or monist? An individualist or a republican? A champion of freedom or authority? A proponent of contingent or absolute truth? This book responds, 'yes'." J.H. Sims, Choice