Theatrical Milton

Theatrical Milton brings coherence to the presence of theatre in John Milton through the concept of theatricality. In this book, 'theatricality' identifies a discursive field entailing the rhetorical strategies and effects of framing a given human action, including speech and writing, as an act of theatre. Political and theological cultures in seventeenth-century England developed a treasury of representational resources in order to stage-to satirize and, above all, to de-legitimate-rhetors of politics, religion, and print. At the core of Milton's works is a contradictory relation to theatre that has neither been explained nor properly explored. This book changes the terms of scholarly discussion and discovers how the social structures of theatre afforded Milton resources for poetic and polemical representation and uncovers the precise contours of Milton's interest in theatre and drama.

A Brief Literary History of Disability is a convenient, lucid, and accessible entry point into the rapidly evolving conversation around disability in literary studies. The book follows a chronological structure and each chapter pairs a well-known literary text with a foundational disability theorist in order to develop a simultaneous understanding of literary history and disability theory. The book as a whole, and each chapter, addresses three key questions: Why do we even need a literary history of disability? What counts as the literature of disability? Should we even talk about a literary aesthetic of disability? This book is the ideal starting point for anyone wanting to add some disability studies to their literature teaching in any period, and for any students approaching the study of literature and disability. It is also an efficient reference point for scholars looking to include disability studies approaches in their research.

This book-length study of Milton as a dramatist fills a longstanding gap in Milton scholarship. Combining author-contextual criticism, historicized reader-response theory, and new historicism, Timothy Burbery begins by answering common objections to the claim that the poet is a dramatist, including the putatively static natures of Comus and Samson Agonistes, Milton's egoism, and his Puritanism. Further, Burbery asserts, recent biographical evidence of Milton's consumption of drama, such as his father's trusteeship of the Blackfriars Theater, suggests that the future poet viewed commercial plays and thus probably alludes to these experiences in his early poetry. Exposure to the public theater may also have influenced major episodes of his own dramas, including the debate between the Lady and Comus, and Dalila's stunning entrance in Samson. The study then examines Milton as a practitioner of drama by analyzing Arcades and the Ludlow masque. Having mastered the conventions of masque in the former work, Milton stretched himself in Comus by composing a work that was far more playlike than any court masque. It is possible that his success with these dramas encouraged Milton to regard himself as a budding dramatist in the 1630s, for late in that decade he began sketching out ideas for tragedies on biblical subjects including the Fall, Sodom, and Abraham and Isaac. This material, found in the Trinity Manuscript, shows him working through practical problems of staging and presentation, and sets the foundation for Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes. While Samson was never intended for the stage, it nonetheless embeds numerous stage directions in its dialogue, including information about the characters' appearances, gestures, and blocking. Awareness of these cues sheds light on some of the current critical debates, including the terrorist reading of the tragedy and Dalila's role. Burbery surveys the surprisingly extensive stage history of Samson, a history that tends to confirm its theatrical viability. Milton the Dramatist emphasizes Milton's dramatic achievements and thus restores a more equitable balance to our appreciation of his total literary achievement.

This collection reconsiders Milton’s engagement with Greek texts, with particular attention to the theological and theatrical meanings attached to Greek in the early modern period. Responding to new scholarship on early modern reactions to Greek authors – especially Euripides and Homer, Milton’s particular favourites – the collection emphasizes the associations of Greek with both Protestantism and the origins of tragedy, two arenas frequently in tension, but crucially linked in Milton’s literary imagination. The contributions explore a range of works spanning the whole of Milton’s career, from the early masque Comus, through the political and religious prose, to the 1671 closet drama, Samson Agonistes. They consider the ways in which the authority and controversy attached to Greek authors framed Milton’s approaches to their texts. Looking at both the texts and their interpretative traditions together, this book suggests that Greek authors shaped Milton’s attitudes to drama in ways even more extensive and surprising than we have yet recognized. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Seventeenth Century.

Originally published in 1890 as part of the "Great Writers" series. Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum and also wrote biographies of Carlyle, Emerson, Gibbon and Coleridge.

NOW A CBC TELEVISION SERIES WINNER OF THE MARGARET AND JOHN SAVAGE FIRST BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE STEPHEN LEACOCK MEMORIAL MEDAL FOR HUMOUR A hilarious story of family, getting into trouble, and finding one's place in the world. What could be better than growing up in the 1980s? How about growing up in 1980s Newfoundland, which—as Mark Critch will tell you—was more like the 1960s. Take a trip to where it all began in this funny and warm look back on his formative years. Here we find a young Mark trick-or-treating at a used car lot, getting locked out of school on a fourth-floor window ledge, faking an asthma attack to avoid being arrested by military police, trying to buy beer from an untrustworthy cab driver, shocking his parents by appearing naked onstage—and much more. Best known as the "roving reporter" for CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Mark Critch has photo-bombed Justin Trudeau, interviewed Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle (while impersonating Alan Doyle), offered Pamela Anderson a million dollars to stop acting, and crashed White House briefings. But, as we see in this playful debut, he's been causing trouble his whole life. Son of a Critch captures the wonder and cluelessness of a kid trying to figure things out, but with the clever observations of an adult, and the combination is perfect.