Milton's Languages: The Impact of Multilingualism on Style

by John K. Hale

• ISBN13: 9780521022378
• ISBN10: 0521022371
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Milton's poetry is one of the glories of the English language, and yet it owes everything to Milton's widespread knowledge of other languages: he knew ten, wrote in four, and translated from five. In Milton's Languages, John K. Hale first examines Milton's language-related arts in verse-composition, translations, annotations of Greek poets, Latin prose and political polemic, giving all relevant texts in the original and in translation. Hale then traces the impact of Milton's multilingualism on his major English poems. Many vexed questions of Milton studies are illuminated by this approach, including his sense of vocation, his attitude to print and publicity, the supposed blemish of Latinism in his poetry, and his response to his literary predecessors. Throughout this first full-length study of Milton's use of languages, Hale argues convincingly that it is only by understanding Milton's choice among languages that we can grasp where Milton's own unique English originated.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
List of abbreviations	xiv
Introduction: Milton's languages in the context of renaissance multilingualism	1	(18)
PART ONE: MILTON'S EXERCISING OF HIS LANGUAGES
1 The multilingual self presented in Milton's Poems, 1645	19	(8)
2 The development and quality of Milton's multilingual verse	27	(24)
3 The Italian journey (1638-9) and language-choice	51	(16)
4 Milton's arts of language: translating and philology	67	(15)
5 Milton's Latin prose	82	(17)
Conclusion to part one: multilingualism in Milton's Latin prose	99	(6)
PART TWO: MULTILINGUALISM AND THE MAJOR ENGLISH POEMS
6 Latin and Milton's other languages in the style of Paradise Lost	105	(26)
7 Milton's languages and the voices of Paradise Lost	131	(15)
8 Multilingualism and epic	146	(19)
9 Multilingualism and the style of temperance in Paradise Regained	165	(15)
10 Hebrew meets Greek in Samson Agonistes	180	(14)
11 The impact of Milton's languages upon his mature English verse styles	194	(9)
Appendix: translating Milton's Latin poems into English	203	(5)
Notes	208	(28)
Bibliography	236	(6)
General index	242	(2)
Index of passages from Milton	244