John Milton: Revolutionary, Republican, Radical

Proposed Special Session, 1998 Midwest MLA Conference (St. Louis)

Recent scholarship has focused upon Milton's republicanism and his relationship to the Commonwealth as a means to inform his later poetic works. It has also focused extensively upon Milton's radicalism in relation to his republicanism within the context of the English Civil War. In order to further explore Milton's political commitments, especially in terms of his later poetry and prose, this panel invites papers which discuss how Milton's political interests relate to his poetic career. Papers which contextualize how Milton's contemporaries
viewed the political and religious valences of the English Civil War and the Interregnum are especially welcome. Potential topics might include:

-How we as critics might rectify a radical and republican Milton, if such distinctions are even accurate.

- How Milton's revolutionary prose tracts informed his later poetry.

- How Milton influenced the political atmosphere of the mid-seventeenth century; or how the political topography influenced a radical or revolutionary Milton.

- How Milton's writings enter into dialogue with or radically depart from the writings of his conservative, revolutionary or radical contemporaries.

- Other related topics are also welcome.


Send abstracts of no more than 500 words by March 25 to:


Braden Jeffrey Hosch
Department of English
University of Wisconsin - Madison
600 N. Park Street
Madison, WI 53706

Or email in TEXT format to:

bjhosch@facstaff.wisc.edu

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© 1997-, R.G. Siemens (Editor, EMLS).
(PD 17 February 1998)