John Milton: A Hero of Our Time - Hardcover

Hawkes, David

3.92

26 ratings by Goodreads

9781582434377: John Milton: A Hero of Our Time

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582434379 ISBN 13: 9781582434377

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2010

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John Milton poet, polemicist, public servant, and author of one of the greatest masterpieces in English literature, Paradise Lost is revered today as a great writer and a proponent of free speech. In his time, however, his ideas far exceeded the orthodoxy of English life; spurred by his conscience and an iron grip on logic, Milton was uncompromising in his beliefs at a time of great religious and political flux in England. In John Milton, David Hawkes expertly interweaves details from Milton’s public and private life, providing new insight into the man and his prophetic stance on politics and the social order. By including a broad range of Milton's iconoclastic views on issues as diverse as politics, economics, and sex, Hawkes suggests that Milton's approach to market capitalism, political violence, and religious terrorism continues to be applicable even in the 21st century.

This insightful biography closely examines Milton's participation in the English civil war and his startlingly modern ideas about capitalism, love, and marriage, reminding us that human liberty and autonomy should never be taken for granted.

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From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Popular biographies commemorating Milton’s four-hundredth birthday have been scarce, but Hawkes makes up for that paucity and then some in a splendid argument that Milton was so prophetic of modern political and religious predicaments that he should be regarded as our contemporary. Think of Milton as a lifelong iconoclast, Hawkes says, who fought psychological idolatry unceasingly, questioning institutional routines, habitual obedience, hierarchy, and all authority short of God. He suffered for his active intransigence. He lost his sight, alienated his daughters, and endured repeated denunciation. Hawkes pursues the theme of iconoclasm throughout Milton’s writing, showing how it accounts for his advocacy of divorce and complete freedom of speech and the press, and cogently refuting the interpretive canard that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost. Milton understood the difference between reality and representation, not least because his father and he were professional usurers, dealing in that foremost abstract representer, money, but knowing that only God deserves worship. In an age, the present, that has made an idol of money, Milton is more relevant than ever. Hawkes’ thorough reading of his subject is everything that the new books about Milton’s fellow multi-centenarian, Samuel Johnson, are not; to wit, an explanation of why his writing was and continues to be vital. --Ray Olson

Review:

"The 400th anniversary of Milton's birth provided Hawkes the opportunity to reexamine the great poet not only within a 17th-century context but in a 21st-century one, too. During an era of great unrest in England, Milton provoked controversy and debate over his ideas of sex, economics, religion, and political power systems. Thought to be ahead of his time, Milton frequently declared that he was not solely speaking to his contemporaries but to the people of the future. Here, Hawkes examines Milton's iconoclasm and his belief that the worshiping of images of all kinds, both figurative and metaphorical, was destructive. Interweaving historical events of his time, such as the Rump Parliament of 1649, Hawkes illuminates Milton's philosophy via his prose and poetry. Although contemporary readers may disapprove of Milton's beliefshe was in favor of polygamy and believed God picked "chosen ones" to lead the masseshe never made for dull reading. VERDICT Hawkes writes with little academic jargon, and his style is lively and entertaining. Political and religious history enthusiasts will find this excellent and challenging." —Library Journal

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