MILTON'S RIVAL HERMENEUTICS: “Reason is But Choosing” (Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies) - Tapa dura

Milton s Rival Hermeneutics . . . represents two major achievements: First, it exemplifies the significance and potential of the terms hermeneutics and choosing in Milton studies; second, it exemplifies the variegated nature of the responses Miltonists have to their subject. . . . Each of these eleven essays represents a competing, or rival, hermeneutics, one which contributes to the Milton dialogue. This is Milton scholarship at its best. Seventeeth-Century News"

By isolating and discussing competing hermeneutics as integral to Milton s poetry, the essays in this collection show a writer unwilling to present formulae or neat packages of doctrine, instead envisioning writing as a means to search after truth and reading as a process in which the reader must do her own choosing. Arrangement [of the 11 essays] is in sections on violence, Paradise Lost, and cruxes in Milton's major poems. Reference & Research Book News"

This valuable collection of essays seeks to explore two main questions. What did Milton think about interpretation? And how do his works make his readers think about interpretation as they read? The volume is . . . by no means retrospective or backward-looking. Each essay freshly addresses a different question relating to the interpretation of Milton s works or the acts of interpretation that go on within them. The overall coverage extends broadly from the early works through to Samson Agonistes and Paradise Regained. Milton Quarterly"

"Milton's Rival Hermeneutics . . . represents two major achievements: First, it exemplifies the significance and potential of the terms hermeneutics and choosing in Milton studies; second, it exemplifies the variegated nature of the responses Miltonists have to their subject. . . . Each of these eleven essays represents a competing, or rival, hermeneutics, one which contributes to the Milton dialogue. This is Milton scholarship at its best."-- "Seventeeth-Century News" (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"By isolating and discussing competing hermeneutics as integral to Milton's poetry, the essays in this collection show a writer unwilling to present formulae or neat packages of doctrine, instead envisioning writing as a means to search after truth and reading as a process in which the reader must do her own choosing. Arrangement [of the 11 essays] is in sections on violence, Paradise Lost, and cruxes in Milton's major poems."-- "Reference & Research Book News" (1/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"This valuable collection of essays seeks to explore two main questions. What did Milton think about interpretation? And how do his works make his readers think about interpretation as they read? The volume is . . . by no means retrospective or backward-looking. Each essay freshly addresses a different question relating to the interpretation of Milton's works or the acts of interpretation that go on within them. The overall coverage extends broadly from the early works through to Samson Agonistes and Paradise Regained."-- "Milton Quarterly" (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"As these 11 essays demonstrate, Milton's own acts of interpretation in his major works compel readers to reflect not only on the rival hermeneutics they find there, but also to reflect on their own hermeneutic principles and choices -- an interpretive complexity that is integral to the enduring appeal of Milton's poetry"--