This reading of Milton's irony has the great virtue of not explaining "what Milton meant," which is a silly thing for a book of literary criticism to do anyway. Instead, Silver makes an argument about Milton's subtlety that is, itself, enacting its own ironies and complexities. Sets the standard for Miltonists.

My first thought upon discovering this book was, 'Where is Kaplan in the pantheon of great contemporary poets?' For in this little-known work lies a powerful and substantive evocation. Though he compiled these poems in 1973, this former Columbia University professor speaks to subjects which still haunt mankind today, including the many unresolved aspects of our nuclear age. In addition, his descriptions of human pain and need are eloquent, reminding us that such things are a force older than language itself. Closing the aesthetic distance between the writer and the reader, Kaplan speaks to those secret things we all experience in our shared human inheritance yet rarely speak about, except to the closest of friends: waking in the middle of the night with the an unusually intense feeling of the absence of a loved one, or the joys of watching our children in their innocent slumber. Let the 'New York School' of poets and their facile blubbering disappear...we need more poets of substance like Kaplan. As Wallace Stevens' one wrote, poetry is both a cure and a redemption. I thank this obscure English professor for offering us both!

This book is an excellent book for school age children AND for adults. I am a 30 year old woman that sat down and read the whole book in about 3 hours. I could not put it down. I was very anxious to see what "mischief" Milton would get into next. It is an excellent book that teaches lessons. Milton's antics are hilarious with a lesson learned after each adventure. This book is an excellent FAMILY book.

This is a must read for professors of optics, and all students interested in the science of optometry. The diagrams are extremely helpful, as is the comprehensive glossary at the end of the text. It is a valuable book, for beginners and optics professionals alike.

I stumbled across this book while researching the Makah Whaling controversy. It has one page on the Makah and whaling, offering comparative perspectives on a story set further north. While the Makah are trying to revive a tradition of whaling that ceased more than sixty years ago, Inuit peoples across the Arctic are struggling to maintain their way of life. The hurdles they must overcome to continue on their way include a declining resource base that results from an extraction-based economy, and the environmentalist opponents of these extractive industries who want to "save the whales". This book is the story of the Inuit and whaling told in their words. The authors include an international interdisciplinary team brought together by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

This book is ground-breaking ethnography that is put together by the people it is about. It is presented for the purpose of opening dialogue with those in far away places whose political priorities have consequences for Inuit peoples. It is a story of a region that spans three continents, and which is of growing importance to those of us who live in the south. No one interested in economic development of natural resources, whatever the point of view, can afford to ignore this book.

If you're not sure that "polygamophile" is a word, don't worry - neither am I. Miller seems to invent this word to describe John Milton, and puts his favourable views on polygamy and divorce down to unhappy experiences of marriage. Milton, of course, would probably put them down to an unbiased search for truth. Miller does an excellent job of tracking down Milton's views on polygamy in his mainstream work. This takes some doing, as they were not generally known about until his treatise on Christian Doctrine was unearthed 150 years after his death, but about half this book is made up of endnotes - it does not lack evidence for its comments. Milton is not the only person seen to have an interested in polygamy, but you'll have to search out a copy of the book to find the rest. Even for the material on Milton alone, it will be worth it.

Any Milton fan will greatly appreciate phillip's in depth and detailed analysis of Milton's work. This book could not have been written more solid, or have explored Milton more precisely!

Not slick and trendy, but a good, solid introduction, as long as you don't need the latest Milton scholarship.
Nicolson helped me get clear on what Milton might have meant in each major scene, book by book.

This book is an excellent companion piece to Milton studies, whether one is an undergraduate reading Milton for the first time, or a Milton scholar of a quarter-century's standing. Prof. Shawcross is recognized by his peers as the premier authority for Milton biography among scholars living today, and his former teacher, William Parker, held that rank for the previous generation. Though its approach is sufficiently psychological to earn it a classification among the works of that discipline by Library of Congress, it is densely populated by matters biographical. It addresses textual issues intermingled with a reliable account of the events of Milton's life, and includes a goldmine of insights gleaned over the decades of Prof. Shawcross's own meticulous readings, making Milton's works not only more comprehensible to the novice, but enriching the experience of reading them even for an "old hand."

Prof. Shawcross's writing style is lucid and non-pedantic, and the effort is a masterful one (not surprising, to anyone who knows his previous output). Like Nicolson's _Reader's Guide_ of several decades ago, _The Self and the World_ provides the rich background modern students need to understand the relevance of Milton studies to today's world -- only it does so even more successfully, in my opinion (and I have the greatest respect for Prof. Nicolson's work).

I would recommend this book to anyone teaching or studying Milton, at any level of expertise -- without reservation.