Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in Paradise LostKaren Edwards offers a fresh view of Paradise Lost, in which Milton is shown to represent Eden's plants and animals in the light of the century's new, scientific natural history. Debunking the fabulous lore of the old science, the poem embraces new imaginative and symbolic possibilities for depicting the natural world, suggested by the speculations of Milton's scientific contemporaries including Robert Boyle, Thomas Browne and John Evelyn. The natural world in Paradise Lost, with its flowers and trees, insects and beasts, emerges as a text alive with meaning. |
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Contents
Introduction I | 1 |
Satan and Eve | 15 |
Experimentalists and the book of the world | 40 |
The place of experimental reading | 64 |
Miltons complicated serpents | 85 |
New uses for monstrous lore | 99 |
From rarities to representatives | 115 |
Rehabilitating the political animal | 128 |
Naming and not naming | 143 |
Botanical discretion | 154 |
Flourishing colors | 166 |
The balm of life | 182 |
Conclusion | 199 |
| 245 | |
| 260 | |
Other editions - View all
Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in Paradise Lost Karen L. Edwards No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
Adam animals appear argues authority balm beasts become Bible body botanical Boyle Boyle's Browne Browne's called causes cedar chapter claim collections color common created Creation creatures critical described Divine early earth edition effects English Eve's Evelyn experience experimental explains fact Fall fish flowers Fowler fruit garden God's griffin head hence Herball human imaginative implies important interpretive John kind knowledge learned leviathan light London look meaning Milton natural history natural world notes notion observes Paradise Lost Parkinson passage perhaps philosophy plants poem political possibility produce provides Pseudodoxia Epidemica question Raphael's readers reading reference Renaissance representation represented Robert roses Satan scientific seems sense serpent seventeenth century strange style suggests symbolic term things Thomas Browne tion traditional tree true turn understanding University Press unto vols whale writing
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | Milton and the Natural World: Science and Poetry in Paradise Lost |
| Author | Karen L. Edwards |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2005 |
| ISBN | 0521017483, 9780521017480 |
| Length | 280 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / Poetry |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |