Chapter Further Reading of Paradise Lost - Study Guide by John Milton

Further Reading

Useful introductory reading can be found in:

· Corns, T., Regaining Paradise Lost, (Longman, 1994) is a good survey of a number of the traditional themes in the text.

· Danielson, D (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Milton, (Cambridge University Press, 1989) provides good essays on Milton’s political and religious background, and specific essays on themes in Paradise Lost.

· Zunder, W. (ed.), Paradise Lost, (MacMillan, 1999) has a number of useful essays on a number of themes.

Good on Milton’s Biblical sources are the appendices in the Norton edition of Paradise Lost (ed. S. Elledge, New York, 1975).

For some links between seventeenth century politics and Paradise Lost see:

· Hill, C., Milton and the English Revolution, (London, 1977)

· Armitage, Himy and Skinner, Milton and Republicanism, (Cambridge University Press, 1995

· Wilding, M., The Dragon’s Teeth: Literature in the English Revolution, (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Though it is a lengthy subject, it is nevertheless essential that a serious reader of Paradise Lost have some comprehension of the political and religious environment in which Milton wrote. The following are useful introductory texts:

· Brice, K., The Early Stuarts

· Brice, K., The English Civil Wars

· Bennett, M., The English Civil War, (Longman)

· Quintrell, B., Charles I, (Longman)

· Barnard, T., The English Republic, (Longman)

· Houston, S.J., James I, (Longman, 1973)

· Morrill, J., The Nature of the English Revolution

· Seaward, P., The Restoration, 1660-1688, (MacMillan, 1991)