Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, and Christianity

by Jeffrey Shoulson

Overview

Taking as its starting point the long-standing characterization of Milton as a "Hebraic" writer, Milton and the Rabbis probes the limits of the relationship between the seventeenth-century English poet and polemicist and his Jewish antecedents. Shoulson's analysis moves back and forth between Milton's writings and Jewish writings of the first five centuries of the Common Era, collectively known as midrash. In exploring the historical and literary implications of these connections, Shoulson shows how Milton's text can inform a more nuanced reading of midrash just as midrash can offer new insights into Paradise Lost.

Shoulson is unconvinced of a direct link between a specific collection of rabbinic writings and Milton's works. He argues that many of Milton's poetic ideas that parallel midrash are likely to have entered Christian discourse not only through early modern Christian Hebraicists but also through Protestant writers and preachers without special knowledge of Hebrew. At the heart of Shoulson's inquiry lies a fundamental question: When is an idea, a theme, or an emphasis distinctively Judaic or Hebraic and when is it Christian? The difficulty in answering such questions reveals and highlights the fluid interaction between ostensibly Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian modes of thought not only during the early modern period but also early in time when rabbinic Judaism and Christianity began.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231123297
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/24/2001
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1630L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeffrey Shoulson is assistant professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Miami.

Table of Contents

A Note on the Texts
Introduction: Hebraism and Literary History
1. Diaspora and Restoration
2. "Taking Sanctuary Among the Jews'': Milton and the Form of Jewish Precedent
3. The Poetics of Accommodation: Theodicy and the Language of Kingship
4. Imagining Desire: Divine and Human Creativity
5. "So Shall the World Go On'': Martyrdom, Interpretation, and History
Epilogue: Toward Interpreting the Hebraism of Samson Agonistes
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Michael Lieb

A splendid book -- at once engaging, learned, and forcefully written. Addressing the confluence of traditions that constitute Hebraism, Hellenism, and Christianity, Shoulson challenges us to reconsider Paradise Lost as an epic fully aware of the tensions that distinguished these traditions as they developed from their formative stages onward. Shoulson is remarkably at home not only in Milton studies and the early modern milieu but in the early rabbinical schools that left their mark on later culture.

— Michael Lieb, University of Illinois at Chicago

Albert C. Labriola

Shoulson brings the light of brilliant analysis to numerous vexing issues in Milton's writings.

— Albert C. Labriola, Duquesne University; editor of Milton Studies

Joseph Wittreich

A groundbreaking study, huge in its conceptions, that is both adventurous and convincing in its conclusions.

— Joseph Wittreich, Distinguished Professor of English, City University of New York

Editorial Reviews

A rich canvas... Shoulson brings to his task great erudition, scholarly comprehensiveness, and critical acumen.

Sixteenth Century Journal - Manfried Weidhorn

Insightful and inventive... Rather than trying to claim a specific source for Milton's "Hebraic" tendencies, Shoulson asserts that rabbinic literature might have reached [Milton] through a variety of means, direct and indirect.

Heather Shillinglaw

[Shoulson]... is as sophisticated a reader of Milton's works as he is of the rabbinical writings that shaped the milieu in which Milton and his contemporaries worked out their relationship to Christiantiy and to the ancient and contemporary Hebraic traditions. The results are enlightening and truly rewarding.

Seventeenth-Century News

Insightful and inventive... Rather than trying to claim a specific source for Milton's "Hebraic" tendencies, Shoulson asserts that rabbinic literature might have reached [Milton] through a variety of means, direct and indirect.

— Heather Shillinglaw, Indiana University

Religious Studies Review

A rich canvas... Shoulson brings to his task great erudition, scholarly comprehensiveness, and critical acumen.

— Manfried Weidhorn

Sixteenth-Century Journal

A rich canvas... Shoulson brings to his task great erudition, scholarly comprehensiveness, and critical acumen.

— Manfried Weidhorn

Sixteenth Century Journal

Shoulson brings the light of brilliant analysis to numerous vexing issues in Milton's writings.

Albert C. Labriola