Description: Smith makes a compelling case for Milton's relevance to our present situation. In direct, accessible terms, he shows how the 17th-century poet, working to write the greatest heroic poem in the English language, also managed to theorize about religious, political, and civil liberty in ways that matter as much today as they did in Puritanical times.
Brief description: Nigel Smith is Professor of English at Princeton University and editor of The Poems of Andrew Marvell in the Longman Annotated English Poets Series.
Review Quotes: The title is silly but it is fair to say that the book is not... Smith is moved by the allegorical quest in Areopagitica for the lost body of Truth, by Milton's exalted notions of the purpose of true poetry, and by the identification of the heroic poet as 'national redeemer.'--Frank Kermode "New York Review of Books" (2/26/2009 12:00:00 AM)