REVIEWS

David Loewenstein, ed. John Milton: Prose. Major Writings on Liberty, Poli-tics, Religion, and Education. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. xxviii + 577pp.ISBN 13: 9781405129305. $32.95; £29.99 (paper).

William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon, eds. The Essen-tial Prose of John Milton. New York: Modern Library, 2013. xxviii + 547pp.ISBN 13: 9780812983722. $18.00; £11.99 (paper).

Joad Raymond

When I was sixteen I went into the local bookshop and explained that I hadread C. A. Patrides’s Penguin edition of Milton’s selected prose and needed more.The bookseller looked up the complete prose in a catalogue and told me that Ireally didn’t want to buy that book. These days the response would be quite dif-ferent. There is a very clear need for a teaching edition of Milton’s prose, particu-larly east of the Atlantic, where Merritt Y. Hughes’s Complete Poems and Major Prosehas never been available, the Liberty Press edition Areopagitica: And Other Politi-cal Writings is usually unavailable, and the distribution of the Riverside Milton hasbeen whimsical (and costly, though not unreasonably so). The Oxford World’sClassics Major Works, edited by Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg, has a usefulsmall selection, though the apparatus to the volume is disturbingly unreliable. Twoeditions have now appeared more or less simultaneously, both excellent, and it isinevitable that they be compared.

It is a difficult time to be producing editions of the prose. The Yale edition ofthe Complete Prose Works, while in many respects wonderful, has a tired feel; mean-while the Oxford edition of The Complete Works of John Milton is still appearing. Editedby Thomas N. Corns and Gordon Campbell, in eleven volumes, we can expect it tobe definitive for a half century or more (I confess an interest: I am editing thedefenses). Textually the Oxford edition is hugely superior, though a little lighter oninterpretive annotation than Yale. Importantly it is providing new translations fromLatin: the Yale De Doctrina seemed a little free for a treatise that seeks to articulateprecise theological positions in accessible prose (and for a treatise that has been thesubject of such thorough doctrinal scrutiny in recent years); the translations of thedefenses patchy, too imaginative in places, and unable to capture Milton’s change-able tone. Yet these two new editions of Milton’s selective prose cannot fully benefitfrom this enterprise: perhaps they do not need to in any case, because their market isquite a different one. They will be most useful to students taking modules on Milton,and to scholars who need quick reference copies or are unable to access copies of theYale, the eighteen-volume Columbia Works of 1931-38 (with its more literal Latin),or the costly Oxford Complete Works, which comes in at £91-225 or $135-375 per

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volume. From the perspective of utility the cost difference between the two newselected editions—£12 or $18 for the Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon, £30 or $33 forthe Loewenstein—is likely to be a crucial factor when choosing a text for an under-graduate module reading list (and the difference is significantly greater in Europe thanin the US).

David Loewenstein’s edition is subtitled “Major Writings on Liberty, Politics,Religion, and Education,” which covers most things, though in fact the volume alsoincludes selections from the private letters and two prolusions. The contents are verygenerous: in their entirety Of Reformation, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Of Educa-tion, Areopagitica, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Second Defence of the English People,Treatise of Civil Power, Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means To Remove Hirelings,Readie and Easie Way, and Of True Religion; plus selections from Reason of Church-Government, Apology against a Pamphlet, Tetrachordon, Eikonoklastes, and De Doctrina.These are supplemented by Prolusions 6 and 7, ten pages of selections fromMilton’s personal letters, and Edward Phillips’s Life. Loewenstein follows Yale in pre-ferring the second editions of Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Tenure of Kings and Mag-istrates, Eikonoklastes, and Readie and Easie Way. In keeping with the Wiley-Blackwellformula—this is a partner volume to Barbara K. Lewalski’s Paradise Lost and Stella P.Revard’s Complete Shorter Poems, both very wonderful—the texts are in original spell-ing, and the typography is excellent. Unlike the partner volumes this edition uses twocolumns for Milton’s text, with a single, wide column for the introduction, foot-notes, and headnotes (and, inexplicably, Milton’s dedications), with these texts alsoappearing in a larger font. The designers have done an excellent job of providing anuncluttered, attractive text with some room for annotations, while including a greatdeal of text in 600 pages (on good quality paper too).

The annotations are well judged for the undergraduate market, and perhaps forthe now almost mythical general reader who wants to taste Milton’s prose. They glossvocabulary and explicate allusions. They do not interpret. The introductions to eachtext are breezy, providing a brief context. In some cases, such as in the headnote to AnApology an explanation is given of where the selections fit into the work as a whole. Inothers none is given, and in the case of Reason of Church-Government, which con-cludes abruptly after the autobiographical digression early in Book 2, this omissionmight confuse or mislead the reader not already aware of the role of this confes-sional passage. No account is given of the extent of the omissions; and there are silentcuts in the letters. The twelve-page general introduction provides an overview of thesocial and political contexts of Milton’s writings, and the periods into which it is use-fully divided. If there is an overall vision of Milton offered in the selections and appa-ratus, it is Milton the relentless and fiery radical, who had to renegotiate his positionsaccording to sharply changing contexts.

The other aspect of Milton’s personality foregrounded in the selection is his self-love: all of the autobiographical passages are included, as they must be for teachingpurposes. The selections from De Doctrina Christiana are mainly focused on Milton’sreligious heterodoxies and on those statements of doctrine that are most fruitfully readagainst Paradise Lost. The translation is that of the Columbia edition, which was inturn a modification of Charles R. Sumner’s translation of 1825. Sumner was a bril-liant Latinist but occasionally added conjecture and inference to the original, and per-formed a logical smoothing, and did so silently. Sumner’s translation is more literalthan John Carey’s questionable translation for the Yale edition in 1973, but is lessprecise than the recent one by John K. Hale and J. Donald Cullington for the Oxford

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edition (volume 8, published in 2012). For copyright reasons this would not havebeen available to Loewenstein, but it is a loss. The translation of Defensio Secunda isfrom the Yale edition, which does not capture Milton’s tone, but it is excellent—and a bold move—that Loewenstein has decided to include all of it. It is not only abravura rhetorical performance and a fascinating act of political wriggling, but is readprofitably alongside much of the poetry.

The Essential Prose of John Milton edited by William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, andStephen M. Fallon, contains the prose elements from The Complete Poetry and Essen-tial Prose of John Milton first published in 2007, also in the Modern Library series ofRandom House. It offers a generous selection of texts, though not quite as generousas Loewenstein, and with fewer complete texts. The editors include in their entiretyAreopagitica, Of Education, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, and The Readie and EasieWay; and selections from Of Reformation, The Reason of Church-Government (the auto-biographical passage only), Apology for Smectymnuus, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,Tetrachordon, Eikonoklastes, Second Defence of the English People, and Christian Doctrine(they use the English title). In contrast to Loewenstein’s edition, the Essential Proseincludes selections from the Commonplace Book, which is pedagogically interest-ing and definitely useful. The volume also includes ten of Milton’s letters andProlusions 1 and 7; and, finally, instead of Phillips’s life we have Aubrey’s notes.There is further an index to names in the text and notes; there is no index inLoewenstein. The Essential Prose is a less attractive book on cheaper paper with narrowmargins and smaller type, though with a distinct price advantage.

Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon provide a generous 140 pages of selections fromChristian Doctrine; Loewenstein offers 87 pages, though he fits more on a page. Thereis a good deal of overlap in the selections, and the differences will be judged vari-ously. Kerrigan and his co-editors include much more of the chapter “On the SpecialGovernment of Man Before the Fall” and “Of the Death of the Body”; they include,while Loewenstein does not, long excerpts from “Of the Holy Scripture” and “OfParticular Churches.” Loewenstein includes passages from the chapter “Of the Officeof the Mediator . . . ,” “Of Regeneration,” and “Special Virtues Connected with theDuty of Man Towards Himself,” and shorter passages to give more of an overview.

Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon’s introduction is more or less a justification ofwhy we should read the prose, and focuses not so much on the immediate historicalcontexts of Milton’s books as on their reputation. It is shorter than Loewenstein’s, butthe longer and more historical detailed headnotes to each text compensate for this.The longer text-specific introductions are in many respects more keenly tailored tothe teaching market, and they are models of lucidity, precision, and compression. Thespelling is modernized, and translations are from the Yale edition. The annotationsgloss the meaning of difficult or dated words and phrases; elucidate allusions; and offerbrief comments on the nature of Milton’s arguments. To take an arbitrary example, ifwe look at the first five footnotes to Tenure, we see: 1) two cross references on Mil-ton’s use of the word “custom”; 2) an explanation of Milton’s phrase “in whom” andwhat he means in this sentence; 3) the distinction between liberty and license and itssignificance here; 4) a reference to Jeremiah, following and correcting the marginalnote in the original edition; 5) an identification of Presbyterians as the target of thepassage. These can be directly compared with the first five notes in Loewenstein’sTenure: 1) a single cross reference on Milton’s use of the word “custom”; 2) a refer-ence to Aristotle; 3) a reference to Jeremiah, following and correcting the marginalnote in the original edition; 4) an identification of Presbyterians as the target of the

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passage; 5) an identification of an echo of Macbeth, which Kerrigan et al. omit.Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon are marginally more inclined to interpret and lead thereader with respect to meaning; Loewenstein prefers to indicate allusions and providereferences to sources and useful comparisons. Both gloss difficult terms, though notalways the same terms. Kerrigan, Rumrich, and Fallon provide 202 footnotes toAreopagitica, 86 to Of Education, and 145 to Tenure. Loewenstein provides 230 foot-notes to Areopagitica, 111 to Of Education, and 180 to Tenure. They are good notes: allof the editors are Miltonists who care about their Milton.

One text is entirely omitted from both of these selections. This is the text inwhich Milton expressed repeatedly the greatest pride, and the one that made himfamous. On these criteria alone, the omission is striking. It is, of course, the firstdefense, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio. Its rhetoric (and Latin) is overwhelming, farsuperior to the Second Defence. Milton reflected back on its success in the SecondDefence, Treatise of Civil Power, Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means To RemoveHirelings, The Readie and Easie Way, and the c. 1655 sonnet to Cyriack Skinner. It istrue that animadversions make dull reading these days, but Eikonoklastes consists ofanimadversions; and the exordium to Defensio deserves to stand along Tenure as Mil-ton’s finest, most soaring prose. It gave his name currency in Europe, turned himfrom an unknown secretarial assistant to a fearsome giant-killer, a polemicist not tocross.

It is a sign of the shift in Milton studies over the past three decades, for whichthese editors are in part responsible, that affordable and generously-selected editions ofthe prose seem so necessary. Each of these texts has its advantages, and no one shouldbe disappointed by either. Both will make teaching Milton more pleasurable andinventive.

Queen Mary, University of London

David Hopkins. Reading Paradise Lost. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. xii+ 94pp. ISBN 13: 9781118471005. $61.95 (cloth); digital version availablethrough Wiley online library.

Beverley Sherry

This short book, “designed to be readable in a single sitting” (vii), is part ofWiley-Blackwell’s Reading Poetry series. Begun in 2009 with Patricia Spacks’s ReadingEighteenth-Century Poetry, the series is “motivated by an increasing reluctance to studypoetry among undergraduate students” and aims “to make poetry accessible to adiversity of readers” (ii). Accordingly, David Hopkins hopes his book will appeal tobeginners and “might also have some interest for more experienced readers” (vii). Amore particular readership is clearly in his sights as well. Acknowledging that the studyof Milton has retreated into the universities, he takes aim at “current academicfashion” (ix) and espouses a concern notably expressed by Stanley Fish in 2005. WhyMilton matters, Fish insisted, is not for the work of his “left hand” but for his poetry.Since the 1970s, a mountain of historicist work focusing particularly on the prose, aswell as extensive archival research, has been part of Milton studies. Hopkins thinks

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