Christine ReesCambridge University Press, 5/6/2010EAN 9780521192798, ISBN10: 052119279XHardcover, 312 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cmLanguage: EnglishSamuel Johnson is often represented as primarily antagonistic or antipathetic to Milton. Yet his imaginative and intellectual engagement with Milton's life and writing extended across the entire span of his own varied writing career. As essayist, poet, lexicographer, critic and biographer - above all as reader - Johnson developed a controversial, fascinating and productive literary relationship with his powerful predecessor. To understand how Johnson creatively appropriates Milton's texts, how he critically challenges yet also confirms Milton's status, and how he constructs him as a biographical subject, is to deepen the modern reader's understanding of both writers in the context of historical continuity and change. Christine Rees's insightful study will be of interest not only to Milton and Johnson specialists, but to all scholars of early modern literary history and biography.IntroductionJohnson and MiltonPart I. Johnson the Reader/WriterAppropriating Milton's Texts1. Summoning Milton's ghostMiltonic allusion in the periodical essays2. 'No Miltonian fire'? Miltonic allusion in Johnson's poetry3. Rasselasa rewriting of Paradise Lost?4. 'Licence they mean when they cry liberty'the 1770s tractsPart II. Johnson the CriticAssessing Milton's Achievement5. 'Phantoms which cannot be wounded'the Lauder affair6. Cutting a colossusJohnson's criticism of Paradise Lost7. Cherry-stonesJohnson on Milton's shorter poemsPart III. Johnson the BiographerConstructing Milton's Character8. 'An acrimonious and surly republican'Milton as political subject9. 'Domestick privacies'Milton as private subject10. Conclusion'what other author ever soared so high?'BibliographyIndex.
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