Description: This book examines the unresolved tensions in Milton's writings, as he grapples with the paradox of freedom in a universe ruled by an all-powerful God.
Brief description: Warren Chernaik is Emeritus Professor of English, University of London. He was the founding Director of the Institute of English Studies (IES), University of London, and is now a Senior Research Fellow of IES. He is the author of The Myth of Rome in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Cambridge, 2011), The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's History Plays (Cambridge, 2007), a study of The Merchant of Venice (2005), Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature (Cambridge, 1995) and The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1983). He has also published essays on such authors as Marvell, Milton, Shakespeare, Jonson, Herbert, Traherne, Rochester, Pepys, and Behn, and has co-edited books on topics as diverse as detective fiction, changes in copyright law, and Andrew Marvell.
Review Quotes: 'Topics include the relations between divine Providence and human freedom, classical and biblical republicanism, God's justice and God's mercy, law and Gospel, and Milton's anti-monarchical politics and the divine monarchy of Paradise Lost. While these are familiar subjects to Miltonists, Chernaik discusses them with lucidity and sound judgment, drawing on a mature knowledge of Milton's work, of the writings of his contemporaries, and of Milton criticism past and present.' Tobias Gregory, Renaissance Quarterly