Milton and the spiritual reader : reading and religion in seventeenth-century England
Considers how John Milton's later works demonstrate the intensive struggle of spiritual reading. This title rethinks the relationship between reading and religion in seventeenth-century England, and concludes that for Milton and his contemporaries, distinguishing divine truths in worldly texts required a spiritually guided form of close reading.
Criticism, interpretation, etc
pages cm.
9780415962513, 041596251X
180470852
| Acknowledgments | ix | ||
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| Chapter One "Thou art sufficient to judge aright:" Spiritual Reading in Areopagitica | 15 | ||
| Chapter Two Spiritual Reading in Milton's Eikonoklastes | 33 | ||
| Chapter Three Godly Reading in Milton's De Doctrina Christiana | 60 | ||
| Chapter Four "There plant eyes": Spiritual Interpretation and Reading in Paradise Lost | 95 | ||
| Chapter Five The Reader Within: Spiritual Interpretation in Paradise Regained | 143 | ||
| Chapter Six Baxter, Fox, Winstanley and Miltonic Spiritual Reading | 167 | ||
| Notes | 187 | ||
| Bibliography | 221 | ||
| Index | 227 |