Description
In this first book devoted to Milton's engagement with Ireland, Lee Morrissey takes an archipelagic approach to his subject. The study focuses on the period before the Cromwellian Conquest, explaining Milton's emergence as a public figure because of Ireland and tracing the paradoxical resonances of Milton's republicanism in Ireland to this day. Informed by developments in Irish history but foregrounding a lucid discussion of Milton's governmental prose works, Morrissey explores the tension between Milton's long-established image as a proto-Enlightenment, democratic figure, and the historical reality of his association with a Protestant invading force. Milton's Ireland incisively negotiates this complex subject, addressing clear absences in Milton scholarship, in the history of Ireland, and in the fraught relationship between Ireland and England.
Table of Contents
Introduction: John Milton and the Irish Crises; 1. 1641–1642: Milton's anti-prelatical tracts and the ulster rising; 2. The 1645 poems: spenser's 'colin clouts come home againe' and (the revisions of) Milton's 'Lycidas'; 3. Early 1649: the execution of Charles I and Milton's 'observations' in the articles of peace; 4. Later 1649: Milton's Eikonoklastes and Cromwell's invasion; 5. The early 1650s: defences after Cromwell's invasion; 6. The later 1650s: acts of settlement – varieties of English Republicanism; Afterword 'conflagrations of conviction': Irish Republicanism and English Royalist Nationalism; Index of names; Notes.
