TY - BOOK ID - 78139506 TI - Divided empire PY - 1995 SN - 0271071559 9780271071558 0271014601 9780271014609 PB - University Park DB - UniCat KW - Politics and literature KW - History KW - Milton, John, KW - Milṭan, Jān, KW - Milʹton, Dzhon, KW - Милтон, Джон, KW - Miltūn, Zhūn, KW - Miltonus, Joannes, KW - J. M. KW - M., J. KW - Milʹton, Īoann, KW - Milton, Gioanni, KW - Milton, Giovanni, KW - מילטאן, יאהאן KW - מילטאן, יוחנן KW - מילטון, ג׳והן KW - מלטן, יוחנן KW - Political and social views. KW - Literary style. KW - MILTON (JOHN), 1608-1674 KW - POLITICS AND LITERATURE KW - POLITICAL POETRY, ENGLISH KW - FIGURES OF SPEECH KW - POLITICAL AND SOCIAL VIEWS KW - STYLE KW - GREAT BRITAIN KW - HISTORY KW - 17th CENTURY UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78139506 AB - In Divided Empire, Robert T. Fallon examines the influence of John Milton's political experience on his great poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This study is a natural sequel to Fallon's previous book, Milton in Government, which examined Milton's decade of service as Secretary for Foreign Languages to the English Republic.Milton's works are crowded with political figures—kings, counselors, senators, soldiers, and envoys—all engaged in a comparable variety of public acts—debate, decree, diplomacy, and warfare—in a manner similar to those who exercised power on the world stage during his time in public office. Traditionally, scholars have cited this imagery for two purposes: first, to support studies of the poet's political allegiances as reflected in his prose and his life; and, second, to demonstrate that his works are sympathetic to certain ideological positions popular in present times.Fallon argues that Paradise Lost is not a political testament, however, and to read its lines as a critique of allegiances and ideologies outside the work is limit the range and scope of critical inquiry and to miss the larger purpose of the political imagery within the poem. That imagery, the author proposes, like that of all Milton's later works, serves to illuminate the spiritual message, a vision of the human soul caught up in the struggle between vast metaphysical forces of good and evil. Fallon seeks to enlarge the range of critical inquiry by assessing the influence of personal and historical events upon art, asking, as he puts it, ";not what the poetry says about the events, but what the events say about the poetry."; Divided Empire probes, not Milton's judgment on his sources, but the use he made of them. ER -