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Dobranski, Stephen B.

February 22, 2017 by admin

WORK TITLE: Milton’s Visual Imagery
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BIRTHDATE: 4/12/1966
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http://english.gsu.edu/profile/stephen-dobranski/ * https://blog.library.gsu.edu/2014/04/01/dr-stephen-dobranski-appointed-distinguished-university-professor/ *

RESEARCHER NOTES:

Posted in 402 | Comments Off on Dobranski, Stephen B.

PERSONAL

Married; wife’s name Shannon; children: Audrey.

EDUCATION:

University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESS

Office - Georgia State University, 25 Park Pl., Rm. 2443, Atlanta, GA 30302.

CAREER

Academic, literary scholar, and author. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, professor of English, Distinguished University Professor, beginning 2014, director of Undergraduate Studies in the English Department. Harry Ransom Center, Pforzheimer Fellow; Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies, Seminar Fellow.

AWARDS:

Irene Samuel Memorial Award, 1998, for Milton and Heresy; SAMLA Studies Award, 2005, for Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England; John T. Shawcross Award, 2009, for A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton; Irene Samuel Memorial Award, 2010, for Milton in Context.

WRITINGS

(Editor, with John P. Rumrich) Milton and Heresy, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998
Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1999
Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005
(Editor) Milton in Context, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2010
(With P.J. Klemp, editor, and Archie Burnett, contributor) A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Volume 3: Samson Agonistes, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2011
The Cambridge Introduction to Milton, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2012
Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in Paradise Lost, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2015

Contributor to academic journals, including ELR, Milton Quarterly, Milton Studies, Modern Philology, PMLA, RES, Seventeenth Century, and SEL.

SIDELIGHTS

Stephen Dobranski is an academic and literary scholar. He began working at Georgia State University in 1996, immediately after completing his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2014 he was named as Distinguished University Professor. His academic research interests include the works of John Milton, textual studies, and Renaissance literature.

Milton and Heresy

In 1998 Dobranski coedited Milton and Heresy with John P. Rumrich. This collection of twelve essays examines seventeenth-century English poet John Milton’s views and their relation to heresy in the context of his times. Although Milton is widely seen as being fairly orthodox, he believed in polygamy and divorce, was in favor of regicide, and opposed infant baptism. These heretical views have largely been underplayed by modern scholars of his works. Dobranski and Rumrich’s collection aims to put these heretical views and other aspects of his works that are inconsistent with beliefs of his time at the center of Milton scholarship. It also looks at how he saw uncertainty and indeterminacy as being central to human existence.

Writing in Renaissance Quarterly, Mary A. Papazian commented that “for the most part, these writers care much about defining Milton as heterodox, seeing in such a definition a validation of recent Milton scholarship,” adding that in “the analyses presented by the twelve well-regarded contributors to the Dobranski and Rumrich collection, the presentation of a heterodox Milton depends on consideration not merely of his powerful poetry; particularly Paradise Lost, but also, and perhaps more importantly, on consideration of the prose tract, De Doctrina Christiana, which was attributed to Milton by Maurice Kelley, to whom the Dobranski and Rumrich collection is dedicated.” Papazian found Milton and Heresy to be a “well-edited collection.” Papazian noticed that the contributors are “much aware of current challenges to Milton’s authorship of the De Doctrina, a problem to which the editors are particularly sensitive.” Papazian reasoned that “there is much good here, and the collection makes an important contribution to Milton scholarship.” Reviewing the book in the English Historical Review, Austin Woolrych reported that “the twelve essays which Stephen B. Dobranski and John P. Rumrich have edited in Milton and Heresy … vary in their interest for historians and indeed in their relevance to heresy, but cumulatively they deepen significantly our understanding of Milton’s beliefs and objectives.”

Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England

Dobranski published Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England in 2005. The account looks at how the act of printing apparently unfinished works in the seventeenth century increased focus on the responsibility of the author and also encouraged greater levels of reading during the Renaissance. Dobranski combines literary criticism, textual studies, and the history of the book trade to examine Renaissance constructions of authorship, paying particular attention to the works of John Milton, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, and John Donne. In the sections that are missing from the texts, Dobranski points to the anxiety between inference and implication, with readers’ expectations on one side and the writers’ intentions on the other.

Reviewing the book in Modern Literary Studies, Katrin Ettenhuber called the conception of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England “ambitious” and the content “original.” Ettenhuber observed that it combines “textual studies, book history, and literary criticism, covers five of the biggest names in the early modern literary canon, and intervenes in a number of current scholarly debates,” while paying particular attention to “the history of authorship and reading.” Ettenhuber admitted that “there are moments when the book becomes a victim of its own ambitions,” largely because the account “does not devote enough attention to the local contexts and circumstances of the interpretive transactions it represents. This is not to suggest that a study of early modern reading must remain incomplete unless it engages with the material traces of interpretive engagement, but to demand a more detailed attention to the historical specificities of readerly conditioning than Dobranski’s panoramic perspective at times permits.”

Writing in Renaissance Quarterly, William H. Sherman insisted that Dobranski “moves with ease and sophistication between literary criticism and book history.” Sherman found that the author’s omission of readers’ comments on the material covered in the book “no doubt helped Dobranski to give his book its admirable focus and, what is even more admirable, to finish it.” Sherman concluded that “the fact that Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England did not become another self-consuming artifact of early modern scholarship is a tribute to Dobranski’s scholarly skill and discipline.”

A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3

In 2009 Dobranski published A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson Agonistes. The collection of comments on Milton’s poem “Samson Agonistes” includes selections from 1671 until 1970. The work offers insights into the critical history of the poem.

Writing in Seventeenth Century News, Reuben Sanchez noted that “Burnett’s introduction calls attention to itself for the wrong reasons, and it thereby detracts from Dobranski’s fine annotations: Despite Burnett’s disclaimer, his introduction does not prepare the reader for what a variorum commentary aims to accomplish, and it raises issues significantly addressed after the cutoff date.” Sanchez posits: “How can one use a variorum as a way by which to engage tradition if that variorum intentionally stops compiling information four decades before the date of publication? Lost in all this are Dobranski’s annotations. He expertly presents a good selection of SA commentary, and while he also includes a ‘Works Cited’ section, this variorum would have benefitted from the inclusion of a substantial index, or better yet, substantial indices.”

Sanchez continued, pointing out that “the editor of a variorum must make choices about what to include or exclude as regards annotations. Dobranski’s choices are fair and relevant, the manner in which he presents his annotations clear and effective. But in his essay, ‘Interpreting the Variorum,’ Fish argued years ago that it isn’t what the editor presents, necessarily, but rather that the editor presents a fair selection of different interpretations.” Sanchez recorded that “Fish cautioned us to keep in mind that the interpretive disagreements are ‘problems that apparently cannot be solved, at least not by the methods traditionally brought to bear on them. What I would like to argue is that they are not meant to be solved, but to be experienced (they signify), and that consequently any procedure that attempts to determine which of a number of readings is correct will necessarily fail'” (‘Interpreting,’ 465). By those standards, Dobranski succeeds in the manner in which he presents his annotations.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

Choice, April 1, 2000, J.H. Sims, review of Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade, p. 1465; September 1, 2010, B.E. Brandt, review of Milton in Context, p. 89; October 1, 2012, J.H. Sims, review of The Cambridge Introduction to Milton, p. 274; April 1, 2016, B.E. Brandt, review of Milton’s Visual Imagination: Imagery in Paradise Lost, p. 1165.
Church History, June 1, 2000, review of Milton and Heresy, p. 440.
Early Modern Literary Studies, May 1, 2001, review of Milton and Heresy; September 1, 2006, Matthew Steggle, review of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England.
English Historical Review, April 1, 2000, Austin Woolrych, review of Milton and Heresy, p. 465.
Journal of British Studies, July 1, 2006, Kevin Sharpe, review of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England, p. 651.
Modern Philology, August 1, 2006, Marcy L. North, review of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England, p. 129.
Notes and Queries, March 1, 2001, Margaret Kean, review of Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade, p. 65.
Reference & Research Book News, May 1, 2009, review of A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson Agonistes.
Renaissance Quarterly, June 22, 2000, Mary A. Papazian, review of Milton and Heresy, p. 611; June 22, 2006, William H. Sherman, review of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England, p. 628; December 22, 2016, Elizabeth SkerpanWheeler, review of Milton’s Visual Imagination, pp. 1611-1613.
Review of English Studies, February 1, 2001, Joad Raymond, review of Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade, p. 114; February 1, 2010, David B. Urban, review of A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3, pp. 145-147.
Seventeenth-Century News, September 22, 2010, Reuben Sanchez, review of A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3, p. 149.
Sixteenth Century Journal, September 22, 2001, Richard Harp, review of Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade, p. 811.

ONLINE

Georgia State University Library Blog, https://blog.library.gsu.edu/ (April 21, 2010), “Interview with Dr. Stephen Dobranski;” (April 1, 2014), “Dr. Stephen Dobranski Appointed Distinguished University Professor.”
Georgia State University, Department of English Web site, http://english.gsu.edu/ (April 28, 2017), author profile.*

Milton and Heresy Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1998
Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1999
Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005
Milton in Context Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2010
A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Volume 3: Samson Agonistes Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2011
The Cambridge Introduction to Milton Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2012
Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in Paradise Lost Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2015

1. Milton's visual imagination : imagery in Paradise lost LCCN 2015040750 Type of material Book Personal name Dobranski, Stephen B., author. Main title Milton's visual imagination : imagery in Paradise lost / Stephen B. Dobranski, Georgia State University. Published/Produced New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2015. Description xiii, 219 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm ISBN 9781107094390 (hbk. : alk. paper) CALL NUMBER PR3562 .D64 2015 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. The Cambridge introduction to Milton LCCN 2012000308 Type of material Book Personal name Dobranski, Stephen B. Main title The Cambridge introduction to Milton / Stephen B. Dobranski. Published/Created Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012. Description xviii, 243 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. ISBN 9780521898188 (hardback) 0521898188 (hardback) 9780521726450 (paperback) 052172645X (paperback) Links Cover image http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/98188/cover/9780521898188.jpg Inhaltsverzeichnis. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=024497790&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA CALL NUMBER PR3588 .D53 2012 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms Shelf Location FLM2014 165535 CALL NUMBER PR3588 .D53 2012 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) 3. The Oxford handbook of Milton LCCN 2009935889 Type of material Book Main title The Oxford handbook of Milton / edited by Nicholas McDowell and Nigel Smith. Published/Created Oxford : Oxford University Press, c2009. Description xxii, 715 p. ; 26 cm. ISBN 9780199210886 (hbk.) 0199210888 (hbk.) CALL NUMBER PR3587.3 .O94 2009 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER PR3587.3 .O94 2009 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 4. Milton in context LCCN 2009030742 Type of material Book Main title Milton in context / [edited by] Stephen B. Dobranski. Published/Created Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010. Description xxv, 523 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN 9780521518987 (hardback) 0521518989 (hardback) Links Cover image http://assets.cambridge.org/97805215/18987/cover/9780521518987.jpg CALL NUMBER PR3583 .M57 2010 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms Shelf Location FLM2014 176574 CALL NUMBER PR3583 .M57 2010 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) 5. Approaches to teaching Milton's shorter poetry and prose LCCN 2007018480 Type of material Book Main title Approaches to teaching Milton's shorter poetry and prose / edited by Peter C. Herman. Published/Created New York : Modern Language Association of America, 2007. Description xii, 284 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. ISBN 9780873525930 (alk. paper) 0873525930 9780873525947 (pbk. : alk. paper) 0873525949 Links Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0717/2007018480.html Shelf Location FLM2014 166473 CALL NUMBER PR3588 .A68 2007 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) CALL NUMBER PR3588 .A68 2007 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 6. Milton's legacy LCCN 2004013641 Type of material Book Main title Milton's legacy / edited by Kristin A. Pruitt and Charles W. Durham. Published/Created Selinsgrove [Pa.] : Susquehanna University Press, c2005. Description 257 p. ; 24 cm. ISBN 1575910861 (alk. paper) Links Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0418/2004013641.html Shelf Location FLM2014 165734 CALL NUMBER PR3588 .M525 2005 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) CALL NUMBER PR3588 .M525 2005 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 7. Readers and authorship in early modern England LCCN 2004048198 Type of material Book Personal name Dobranski, Stephen B. Main title Readers and authorship in early modern England / Stephen B. Dobranski. Published/Created Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005. Description xiii, 226 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN 9780521842969 0521842964 Links Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/cam051/2004048198.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam041/2004048198.html Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0733/2004048198-b.html Shelf Location FLM2015 015356 CALL NUMBER PR428.A8 D63 2005 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) 8. A Variorum commentary on the poems of John Milton LCCN 70129962 Type of material Book Main title A Variorum commentary on the poems of John Milton / [Merritt Y. Hughes, general editor] Published/Created New York : Columbia University Press, 1970- Description v. ; 23 cm. ISBN 0231088795 9780820704159 (v. 3 : acid-free paper : Duquesne Univ. Press) 9780820704425 (v. 5, pt. 4 : acid-free paper : Duquesne Univ. Press) CALL NUMBER PR3593 .V3 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 9. Milton, authorship, and the book trade LCCN 98044373 Type of material Book Personal name Dobranski, Stephen B. Main title Milton, authorship, and the book trade / Stephen B. Dobranski. Published/Created Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999. Description xiii, 245 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN 0521641926 (hc.) Links Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98044373.html Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/cam023/98044373.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam029/98044373.html Shelf Location FLM2014 166454 CALL NUMBER PR3586 .D63 1999 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) CALL NUMBER PR3586 .D63 1999 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 10. Milton and heresy LCCN 97035243 Type of material Book Main title Milton and heresy / edited by Stephen B. Dobranski and John P. Rumrich. Published/Created Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998. Description x, 272 p. ; 24 cm. ISBN 0521630657 Links Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/cam023/97035243.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam028/97035243.html Shelf Location FLM2014 175330 CALL NUMBER PR3592.R4 M55 1998 OVERFLOWA5S Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM1) CALL NUMBER PR3592.R4 M55 1998 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

Georgia State University - https://blog.library.gsu.edu/2014/04/01/dr-stephen-dobranski-appointed-distinguished-university-professor/
Dr. Stephen Dobranski appointed Distinguished University Professor
Posted on April 1, 2014 by GSU Library

Dr. Dobranski with rare books at the Harry Ransom Center.
Dr. Stephen Dobranski, Professor in the English Department, will begin a five-year appointment July 1st , 2014 as Distinguished University Professor. He has been appointed in recognition of his outstanding records in research, teaching, and mentoring students in research. Professors are nominated by their deans and reviewed by an ad hoc committee of Regents Professors, then approved by President Mark Becker and Provost Risa Palm.

Dr. Dobranski received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 and was hired at Georgia State University the same year. During his time at Georgia State University he achieved the rank of Professor and is now the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the English Department. Even with these responsibilities, he continues to teach graduate and undergraduate courses in John Milton, early modern literature, and textual studies as well as introductory courses in British and world literature. Dr. Dobranski also serves as the English Department’s library liaison and has contributed to the University Library collections’ development and management.

Dr. Dobranksi has received several awards for his scholarship and has published many books and articles. Books he has won awards for include:

Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (2005), SAMLA Studies Award
A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton: “Samson Agonistes” (2009), John T. Shawcross Award
Co-edited Milton and Heresy (1998), Irene Samuel Memorial Award
Edited Milton in Context (2010), Irene Samuel Memorial Award
He received the Pforzheimer Fellowship from the Harry Ransom Center and a Seminar Fellowship to the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies. He is the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Milton (2012) and his articles on early modern literature have appeared in various multi-authored collections as well as ELR, Milton Quarterly, Milton Studies, Modern Philology, PMLA, RES, The Seventeenth Century, and SEL. Congratulations Dr. Dobranski!
Georgia State University - http://english.gsu.edu/profile/stephen-dobranski/
Stephen B. Dobranski
Distinguished Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Education
Ph.D., University of Texas

Specializations
Milton, Renaissance Literature, Textual Studies

Biography
Dr. Dobranski teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in John Milton, early modern literature, and textual studies as well as introductory courses in British and world literature. His primary goal as an instructor is to help students think more critically by analyzing the subtlety and complexity of literary works within their cultural and historical contexts. Students can discover a poem or play’s multiple implications through slow, deliberate analysis of its metaphors, material form, and meter. Relying on discussion—usually as a class but also in small groups—Dr. Dobranski challenges students to arrive at their own interpretations and to support their readings with carefully selected textual details.

Dr. Dobranski is the author of Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (2005), winner of the SAMLA Studies Award; Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade (1999); and A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton: “Samson Agonistes” (2009), winner of the John T. Shawcross Award. He also co-edited Milton and Heresy (1998) and edited Milton in Context (2010), both winners of the Irene Samuel Memorial Award. He has received both a Pforzheimer Fellowship from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and a Seminar Fellowship to the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies. Most recently, he completed The Cambridge Introduction to Milton (2012). His articles on early modern literature have appeared in various multi-authored collections as well as ELR, Milton Quarterly, Milton Studies, Modern Philology, PMLA, RES, The Seventeenth Century, and SEL.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Dr. Dobranski is a die-hard Phillies, Springsteen, and Redskins fan. He lives with his brilliant wife Shannon and their amazing daughter Audrey.

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Print Marked Items
Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in
"Paradise Lost"
Elizabeth SkerpanWheeler
Renaissance Quarterly.
69.4 (Winter 2016): p16111613.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
SkerpanWheeler, Elizabeth. "Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in 'Paradise Lost'." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 69,
no. 4, 2016, pp. 16111613. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475285139&it=r&asid=349f454c7354ce77c6d90384bf1d66d2.
Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.
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More material Milton
Roberta Klimt
TLS. Times Literary Supplement.
.5919 (Sept. 9, 2016): p27.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Klimt, Roberta. "More material Milton." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5919, 2016, p. 27. Book Review Index
Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464952588&it=r&asid=90dcba7960eeb154a9469844c3bc88d0.
Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.
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Dobranski, Stephen B.: Milton's visual
imagination: imagery in Paradise lost
B.E. Brandt
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1165.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Brandt, B.E. "Dobranski, Stephen B.: Milton's visual imagination: imagery in Paradise lost." CHOICE: Current
Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1165. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661524&it=r&asid=e246045305a78ca12c14134603c79c7a.
Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.
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Dobranski, Stephen B.: The Cambridge
introduction to Milton
J.H. Sims
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
50.2 (Oct. 2012): p274.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sims, J.H. "Dobranski, Stephen B.: The Cambridge introduction to Milton." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic
Libraries, Oct. 2012, p. 274. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA305453709&it=r&asid=94a53c821be3a41bf195eb56c349449d.
Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.
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Stephen B. Dobranski. A Variorum Commentary
on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson
Agonistes
Reuben Sanchez
SeventeenthCentury News.
68.34 (FallWinter 2010): p149.
COPYRIGHT 2010 Texas A&M University, Department of English
http://wwwenglish.tamu.edu/pubs/scn/
Full Text:
Stephen B. Dobranski. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson Agonistes. Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 2009. xviii + 502 pp. $85.00. Review by REUBEN SANCHEZ, SAM HOUSTON STATE
UNIVERSITY.
In the "Preface" to the recently published variorum commentary on Samson Agonistes, P.J. Klemp points out that the
Columbia University Press Milton Variorum began as early as 1949, with three of the projected six volumes eventually
published between 1970 and 1975: one on the Latin, Greek, and Italian poems, one on the minor English poems, and
one on Paradise Regained. The project was discontinued at about that time due to the deaths of some of the editors
associated with it: Merritt Y. Hughes, William Riley Parker, James E. Shaw, and A.S.P. Woodhouse. Except for John
Steadman, there was not enough interest from other Miltonists to continue the project. The late Albert Labriola took up
the cause and, in 1997, secured "permission" for Duquesne University Press to continue the Milton Variorum, though
Klemp does not make clear exactly why permission was required.
Of course, permission could not have been related to copyright concerns regarding the commentary itself, since no
press owns the commentary that would appear in a variorum. Klemp seems to suggest that permission had to do with
the partial work done on the typescripts, introductions, and annotations to PL and SA by the Columbia editors, but the
current editors would surely want to compose their own introductions and annotations. Besides, "permission" in this
regard would only make sense if Duquesne had in mind updates of the three volumes Columbia published (and
Duquesne has such updates in mind), so why would permission be required for anything related to PL and SA? There is
nothing in Stephen B. Dobranski's "A Note on the Annotations" that indicates he is relying on or completing the work
of earlier editors. Nor is there anything in this volume that indicates the Milton Variorum is a joint venture between
Columbia and Duquesne. In a parenthetical statement, Klemp cites the cutoff date for the variorum commentary on SA
as 1970 because that was "when the Columbia University Press volumes started to appear" (xiii). Did Labriola
therefore receive permission to publish three volumes of the Milton Variorum (and later to update the three existing
volumes) only if Duquesne adhered to a cutoff date of 1970, the time in which the Columbia volumes began to appear?
If in fact that were the condition, the deal should have been immediately rejected. Perhaps on a related note, one can't
help but wonder if the 1970 cutoff date was held more manageable by the current editors, instead of, say, a cutoff date
closer to the actual date of publication (which clearly would have taken much more time, most likely far exceeding
2009). Did the editors who agreed to participate believe, therefore, that they could complete the project within a
reasonable amount of time, and was that their reason for signing on to the project?
Whatever the reason for it, the 1970 cutoff date is a disappointment because it means that this variorum commentary
intentionally excludes the last forty years of SA scholarship. Milton's poem is at least threehundred and forty years
old; without a doubt, the most useful and interesting SA scholarship has been generated over the last forty years. Nor
does Klemp's promise that Duquesne will eventually update this volume seem comforting: "After we have completed a
Variorum Commentary on Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost, we will turn to an even more ambitious project,
updating the entire Variorum Commentaryon the shorter English poems, Latin and Greek poems, Italian poems,
Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistesto cover scholarship published from 1970 to 2000" (xv).
This means that only after the remaining volumes (both on PL), also subject to the 1970 cutoff date, have been
published will Duquesne begin to update all six volumes. Even then, the update for each volume will stop at 2000
followed, presumably, by yet another update. Clearly, it will be a very long time before the Milton Variorum will be
complete and up to date.
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There are Miltonists, however, who not only approve of but also prefer the 1970 cutoff date. In a recent review of the
variorum commentary on SA, for example, David V. Urban regards the cutoff date as positive, and implies that to have
gone beyond 1970 would have been unwise. Indeed, because of the recent post911 reassessments of Samson's actions
and motivations, Urban believes that "perhaps the most valuable aspect of Dobranski's volume is its 1970 cutoff point.
This gives his audience the opportunity to step back from present controversies and to both examine the issues that
were prominent in earlier periods and ponder their significance for more recent critical concerns" (RES, Feb. 2010,
145). This seems an odd assertion for, as earlier noted, the best scholarship on SA has come about in the last forty
years, and even if some of the scholarship since 911 is considered controversial, should that justify stepping back from
it? I would contend, rather, that such "controversies" make Milton's poem all the more relevant hundreds of years after
its composition. But there is another reason why Urban considers the 1970 cutoff date fortuitous, because that marks
the period when scholars began to question the argument for regeneration in SA. According to Urban, after 1970 there
was no longer a consensus on this issue. Perhaps so, but regeneration nonetheless remained relevant after 1970, as
evidenced even by those who would argue against it in lieu of some other interpretive line: All the more reason to
consider such points of contention in a variorum commentary on SA. Yet, we can now "step back" and not have to deal
with "controversies" endemic to post1970 approaches to Milton; anyway, pre1970 scholarship deals "with matters
ostensibly quite different from, but ultimately not removed from, our current controversies" (146). As I take it, this
means that pre1970 scholarship on SA does not deal directly with the points of contention surrounding such issues as
regeneration and 911, but does foreshadow them. Urban adds that pre1970 scholarship represents the socalled
"traditionalist" approach, challenged in post1970 scholarship by John Carey's Milton (1969), Irene Samuel's "Samson
Agonistes as Tragedy" (1970), and Joseph Wittreich's Interpreting Samson Agonistes (1986). This is more than a tacit
acknowledgment of the significance of such scholarship to our developing, our changing, understanding of Milton's
poem. Never mind the critiques of Wittreich's arguments that followed publication of his book; he, along with Carey
and Samuel, got Miltonists thinking about and writing about important issues in SA.
To that list of influential post1970 scholarship, we can certainly add Barbara K. Lewalski's "Samson Agonistes and the
'Tragedy' of the Apocalypse" (1970, reference to which is included in this variorum), Balachandra Rajan's The Prison
and the Pinnacle (1973), Mary Ann Radzinowicz's Toward "Samson Agonistes" (1978), Joan S. Bennett's Reviving
Liberty (1989), Ashraf H.A. Rushdy's The Empty Garden (1992), Laura Lunger Knoppers' Historicizing Milton (1994),
Derek N.C. Wood's Exiled from Light (2001), Stephen M. Fallon's Peculiar Grace (2007), Noam Reisner's Milton and
the Ineffable (2009)there is simply too much scholarship for the editor of this variorum commentary to have left out.
We must consider, as well, that settling on a 1970 cutoff date necessarily precludes from consideration the recent "Why
Milton Matters" debate (in conference and in print) between Stanley Fish, Lewalski, and Wittreichincluding
Wittreich's 2006 book of the same title. While that debate had more to do with what it means to be a humanist these
days, some of the issues these scholars debated would be germane to a commentary on SA. Finally, we must also
consider that in the post1970 period Milton Quarterly and Milton Studies became central to the development of the
business of studying Milton in general and, for our purposes, SA in particular.
Those who do feel that the cutoff date adopted by the editors of the Milton Variorum is appropriate, might nonetheless
acknowledge the drawback of not considering post1970 scholarship in a book published in 2009. A variorum
commentary should be useful to the contemporary reader. The primary target audience for this variorum would be
scholars who have a personal and professional interest in SA, undergraduate and graduate students doing work on the
poem, and Ph.D. candidates working on dissertations: An audience that wants to know about commentary reaching
back hundreds of years, but also wants to know about recent commentary, for such material becomes part of the
developing tradition, and therefore part of the Milton dialogue. Locating one's own contribution in the vast body of
work on SA becomes problematic if the variorum is not up to date. How can one use a variorum as a way by which to
engage tradition if that variorum intentionally stops compiling information four decades before the date of publication?
Lost in all this are Dobranski's annotations. He expertly presents a good selection of SA commentary, and while he also
includes a "Works Cited" section, this variorum would have benefitted from the inclusion of a substantial index, or
better yet, substantial indices. An excellent model to have followed in this regard would have been the Donne
Variorum. Most scholars and students use a variorum as they would an encyclopedia or a dictionary: Consulting it for
information from time to time as a research tool. Indices would make those efforts a bit more manageable. As we know,
the editor of a variorum must make choices about what to include or exclude as regards annotations. Dobranski's
choices are fair and relevant, the manner in which he presents his annotations clear and effective. But in his essay,
"Interpreting the Variorum," Fish argued years ago that it isn't what the editor presents, necessarily, but rather that the
editor presents a fair selection of different interpretations. Fish cautioned us to keep in mind that the interpretive
disagreements are "problems that apparently cannot be solved, at least not by the methods traditionally brought to bear
on them. What I would like to argue is that they are not meant to be solved, but to be experienced (they signify), and
that consequently any procedure that attempts to determine which of a number of readings is correct will necessarily
fail" ("Interpreting," 465). By those standards, Dobranski succeeds in the manner in which he presents his annotations.
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But by those same standards, Archie Burnett fails in the manner in which he presents his introduction to this variorum:
He attempts to present his own correct readings, while designating other readings with which he disagrees as incorrect.
In doing so, he doesn't prepare the reader for the annotations; furthermore, he raises issues related to the problem of the
1970 cutoff date. Hence, I should like to take a closer look at Burnett's "Introduction" (146), which is neither objective
nor neutral, as he readily admits in what seems a disclaimer: "This introduction aims to give an outline of the principal
critical debates, and, rather than merely summarize the contents of everything published on the poem up to this
volume's cutoff date of 1970, to do so selectively and critically, highlighting key developments, weighing up evidence,
and forming judgments" (1). But since this is a variorum, and since there are judgments to be made, they should be
made by the reader; in other words, the annotations should speak for themselves.
In the section "Characters" (1432), Burnett not only disagrees with but also dismisses the regeneration line of
argument (2830). But because the antiregeneration line of argument is more characteristic of post1970 scholarship,
one must question the decision to raise this point of contention in the first place (since it cannot be addressed in the
annotations). He then defends Dr. Johnson, who was rightly confronted by twentiethcentury scholars for declaring that
SA "must be allowed to want a Middle, since nothing passes between the first Act and the last that either hastens or
delays the Death of Samson" (quoted in Burnett's introduction, 31). Burnett criticizes those who disagree with Johnson,
and cites those who defend him, among them Christopher Ricks (from a work published in 1970). But the quote from
Ricks that Burnett presents is far too long and left to stand on its ownintentionally so, as he declares, parenthetically,
that Ricks "has not been answered" (32). Wouldn't that be a conclusion, one must ask, that the reader of this variorum
should make after consideration of the relevant (post1970) commentary? I believe Ricks, Johnson, and, by extension,
Burnett have been answeredif not directly by name, then indirectly by issuein post1970 scholarship.
On the issue of whether Milton is Samson, Burnett summarizes both sides in "Interpretation" (3945): Yes, Milton and
Samson are alike; no, they are not alike because SA is a work of art. Burnett clearly prefers the latter, but such a stand
does not seem necessary to a variorum introductionparticularly if that variorum does not consider the time period in
which scholars have most forcefully addressed issues Burnett raises. In this same section, further, Burnett attacks
twentiethcentury critics who argue that the poem can be read as political allegory (4142). Of course, this might be
directed at critics working in the early to midtwentiethcentury, critics who are too dependant on a psychological
interpretation to explain "events in the poem" (42). But if Burnett also infers critics working in the last thirty years of
the twentiethcentury, one can thus offer William Kerrigan's The Sacred Complex (perhaps the only booklength study
of Milton, and of Paradise Lost in particular, that strongly relies on the psychoanalytic approach) as a counter to
Burnett's dismissal of the psychological interpretation. As with Wittreich, it doesn't matter if one agrees with Kerrigan:
Rather, his provocative arguments should be taken seriously and confronted. Of the psychological approach, Burnett
concludes: "Prevaricating, vacillating, and disclaiming feature tellingly in the conjectural interpretations.... And yet
such interpretations, so hedged or not, emerge as overdefined and overconfidently asserted" (43). Surely, such labored
assaults in an introduction to a variorum commentary are indecorous.
As he winds down "Interpretation," Burnett declares: "[T]he range of partialities, inconclusiveness, and kaleidoscopic
transmutations of the autobiographical, allegorical, and political, and the psychological interpretations may be seen as
indicating that Milton's own experience is not so much reflected in SA as refracted through it; that the poet's life,
circumstances, and outlook can yield no more than flitting adumbrations of the poem" (43). Burnett's relegation of the
interpretations with which he disagrees to, among other things, "flitting adumbrations" is unreasonable and inaccurate,
for such interpretations actually comprise substantial theories and methodologies that have helped invigorate Milton
studies over the last forty yearsperhaps even rescued Milton studies from the type of scholarship that characterized
early to mid twentiethcentury approaches to Milton. The new criticism and the history of ideas, after all, resulted in
such texts as Hughes' The Complete Poetry and Major Prose of John Milton, a text that at one time may have seemed
an example of cuttingedge commentary, but now may serve more as a way by which to gauge how much literary
theory and literary analysis have changed, a text that nonetheless has somehow remained in print, though it is difficult
to believe any Miltonist still actually uses a classroom text originally published in 1957, then revised and reissued in
1962. How far Milton studies has come since 1962 is perhaps one of the foremost reasons the 1970 cutoff date is so
troublesome.
Burnett's introduction calls attention to itself for the wrong reasons, and it thereby detracts from Dobranski's fine
annotations: Despite Burnett's disclaimer, his introduction does not prepare the reader for what a variorum commentary
aims to accomplish, and it raises issues significantly addressed after the cutoff date. But even if one feels that the writer
of an introduction to a variorum commentary can and should argue, can and should take sides, can and should call those
with whom he disagrees prevaricators, vacillators, and disclaimers, one might nonetheless concede that Burnett does
not give those whom he derides their due, because by the very nature of his introduction (broken down into several
short sections) he does not have the time nor the space to be equitable to those with whom he disagrees.
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Since this review has primarily concerned itself with that which is extratextual to Dobranski's annotations, it might be
apropos to conclude with yet another reference to a variorum review. In a Review Essay on the Donne Variorum, W
Speed Hill suggests that the goal of a variorum should be "accuracy, completeness, and consistency" (HLQ, 62.3 & 4,
450). He suggests, further, that the work in a variorum should not have to be done again (451). And like Fish, Hill
believes that the uncritical character of a variorum results in uncertainty because different readings are presented.
However, Hill seems to infer that, because of the uncertainty, the more uptodate the variorum, the more confusing for
the reader: "But chronology, the default principle of its [a variorum commentary's] ordering, confounds intellectual
coherence: the closer we come to the present, the further away from 'truth' we seem to be, and to extrapolate where the
future might lie ... from a plot of the current date points is a chimera" (45354). I suspect that Hill, and Fish, would
rather be further from the truth than closer. This is why, in a variorum commentary, we should try to get as close to the
"present" as possible.
Sanchez, Reuben
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sanchez, Reuben. "Stephen B. Dobranski. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson
Agonistes." SeventeenthCentury News, vol. 68, no. 34, 2010, p. 149+. Book Review Index Plus,
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Milton in context
B.E. Brandt
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
48.1 (Sept. 2010): p89.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Brandt, B.E. "Milton in context." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Sept. 2010, p. 89. Book Review
Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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A Variorum Commetary on the Poems of John
Milton, vol. 3: Samson Agonistes
David B. Urban
The Review of English Studies.
61.248 (Feb. 2010): p145147.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Urban, David B. "A Variorum Commetary on the Poems of John Milton, vol. 3: Samson Agonistes." The Review of
English Studies, vol. 61, no. 248, 2010, pp. 145147. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA224836789&it=r&asid=329f5cc5e7e58994f460a13c015a5f30.
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A variorum commentary on the poems of John
Milton; v.3: Samson Agonistes
Reference & Research Book News.
24.2 (May 2009):
COPYRIGHT 2009 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780820704159
A variorum commentary on the poems of John Milton; v.3: Samson Agonistes.
Dobranski, Stephen B. Ed. by P. J. Klemp.
Duquesne University Press
2009
501 pages
$82.00
Hardcover
Series: title
PR3588
Dobranski (Renaissance literature and textual studies, Georgia State U.) has compiled this volume of the series, begun
in 1949, that is the first in two centuries to present commentary and criticism of British poet Milton's (160874) work.
Archie Burnett (English, Boston U.) contributes an introduction to what he suspects is Milton's most controversial
poem in terms of its composition date, how to regard the principle characters, whether Samson undergoes regeneration,
and whether the work is to be read politically or typologically. Excerpts from criticism are presented chronologically on
the title and on specific passages in the preface, the argument, and the poem itself. The volume is not indexed.
([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"A variorum commentary on the poems of John Milton; v.3: Samson Agonistes." Reference & Research Book News,
May 2009. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA199021332&it=r&asid=a2cad544a26bcbd7189f1936251e4e13.
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Review of Printing and Parenting in Early
Modern England
Early Modern Literary Studies.
12.2 (Sept. 2006):
COPYRIGHT 2006 Matthew Steggle
https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls
Full Text:
Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. xiv+226
pp.. ISBN 0 521 84296 4.
Katrin Ettenhuber
Christ's College, Cambridge
kce20@cam.ac.uk
Ettenhuber, Katrin. "Review of Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England" Early
Modern Literary Studies 12.2 (September, 2006) 10.15.
At the heart of Stephen Dobranski's book lie two interrelated questions: "'How much authority did authors have during
the Renaissance?' and 'How much interpretive activity were readers willing or expected to undertake?'"(6) To answer
these questions, Dobranski examines one particular segment of the literary marketplace: "Renaissance omissions",
printed texts that look incomplete but in fact contain deliberate gaps which aim to solicit an interpretive intervention on
the part of the reader. The case studies are taken from the works of Sidney, Jonson, Donne, Herrick and Milton, and in
each of the five main chapters Dobranski seeks to demonstrate the interdependence of authorial and readerly forms of
empowerment. Filling in a text's omissions obviously foregrounds the reader's authority, but it also enhances the
author's own status in less overt ways: by "focusing readers' attention on what writers left unsaid", Dobranski argues,
"these unfinished works paradoxically helped to make writers more visible"; in encountering an incomplete text,
"readers seemed to witness firsthand an author's poetic development."(8)
Dobranski's theory of Renaissance omissions presupposes a high level of readerly commitment: without the audience's
participation, the incomplete text seems merely accidentalthe result of a printer's oversight, perhaps, or the victim of
natural disaster (the fire in Ben Jonson's library springs to mind). Accordingly, the opening section of the book
examines how the notion of "active reading" was developed across a wide range of classical, medieval and Renaissance
sources. "Briefly tracing the reader's evolution from antiquity to the early modern period" is a laudable endeavour, but
in practice it causes a number of methodological problems that the subsequent chapters of the study never quite manage
to resolve. Dobranski's reader is a strikingly ahistorical and monolithic entity, who remains essentially unaffected by
political and sociocultural change. One result of this assumption is that the nature and scope of "active" reading can
seem rather vague and at times misleading: readers who had grown up in an atmosphere of doctrinal and exegetical
controversy, for instance, would surely have struggled with the notion that correcting typographical errors and being
"responsible for determining what Scripture meant"(30) occupy places on the same hermeneutic spectrum. (To take one
obvious example, it is difficult to see how a Laudian sympathiser in the 1630s might be persuaded that with "the spread
of the Reformation to England, the sacred text's authority was now vested in all authors and readers who accepted
divine guidance."(31)) Another problem is that the two key terms of Dobranski's account, "active" and "collaborative"
reading (17), contain the seeds of interpretive conflict as much as happy cooperation: a reader who feels entitled to sit
in judgement over God's word, for instance, might be reluctant to put himself at the service of a secular poet, and be
content merely to "think" and "infer . what an author withheld."(54).
The central issue at stake in Dobranski's model, then, appears to be one of readerly conditioning: the audience must
first be made to recognise an omission as significant and then be encouraged to respond in ways that are at once benign
and contextually appropriate. In the first of the book's case studies, a feigned omission from Sidney's Arcadia (the
anonymous poem "A Remedie for Love", which was first printed at the end of the Arcadia 's tenth edition in 1655), the
first of these conditions is easily fulfilled. Seventeenthcentury readers were aware not only of the existence of an
original text and its incomplete revision, but of a whole series of works that claimed descent from Sidney's authority. In
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light of these circumstances, it is plausible to assume that a new document would have fuelled readers' curiosity and
provoked fruitful interpretive engagement. In some of the other chapters, however, the heuristic status of the omissions
in question seems rather less certain. Dobranski's discussion of Herrick's Hesperides, for instance, is full of interesting
and rewarding readings, but the bibliographical analysis does not fully succeed in establishing the text's incompletions
as a deliberate authorial strategy. More importantly, perhaps, it is far from clear how the audience would have been
expected to appreciate the significance of these omissions; as Dobranski himself concedes, "we cannot know how many
seventeenthcentury readers would have overlooked or found distinctive two fragments among the volume's more than
1,000 poems."(172) There is, in fact, no material evidence supplied of readers' responses to any of the fragments that
Dobranski locates in Jonson's, Donne's, Herrick's and Milton's work.
These problems of agency and intent emerge even more sharply in the chapter on Donne's 1633 Poems. In the absence
of a presiding authorial figure (Donne died in 1631), it is the publishers who take on the task of soliciting the reader's
collaboration. Discussing the censored passages in Satires II and IIII, Dobranski argues that "the book's creators assist
readers in repairing Donne's satires": instead of removing all the poems' objectionable passages, the stationers have left
behind a series of horizontal dashes "almost as a sign of respect, a textual I.O.U."(144) True understanders of Donne's
work, Dobranski suggests, might have been inspired by this to search for the missing lines in one of the many
manuscript copies then in circulation, thereby further augmenting the poet's presence in the volume. This section is
engaging and suggestivenot least in the salutary reminder that authors, books and readers were created in the printing
house as much as in studies and librariesbut like some other parts of the book it struggles under the burden of proof.
Did Marriot and Fletcher adopt this kind of interventionist policy with other authors? Did they habitually draw readers'
attention to textual gaps? Is there any evidence that these readers felt obliged to react to such editorial promptings?
Given the absence of a holograph copy, do all manuscript versions alike bolster the writer's authority? And even if it
were possible to find the manuscript reading that Donne intended, how does this hyperintentional approach impact on
the notion of an "active" reader?
Dobranski's study is original in conception and ambitious in scope: it brings together textual studies, book history and
literary criticism, covers five of the biggest names in the early modern literary canon, and intervenes in a number of
current scholarly debatesmost notably, the history of authorship and reading. There are moments when the book
becomes a victim of its own ambitions, mainly because it does not devote enough attention to the local contexts and
circumstances of the interpretive transactions it represents. This is not to suggest that a study of early modern reading
must remain incomplete unless it engages with the material traces of interpretive engagement, but to demand a more
detailed attention to the historical specificities of readerly conditioning than Dobranski's panoramic perspective at times
permits. Responses to this piece intended for the Readers' Forum may be sent to the Editor at M.Steggle@shu.ac.uk.
[c] 2006, Matthew Steggle (Editor, EMLS).
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Review of Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England." Early Modern Literary Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2006.
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Readers and Authorship in Early Modern
England
Marcy L. North
Modern Philology.
104.1 (Aug. 2006): p129.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
North, Marcy L. "Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Modern Philology, vol. 104, no. 1, 2006, p.
129+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in
Early Modern England
Kevin Sharpe
Journal of British Studies.
45.3 (July 2006): p651.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sharpe, Kevin. "Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Journal of British Studies,
vol. 45, no. 3, 2006, p. 651+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA150864956&it=r&asid=583b388a0ea19f4cec17b89de3905bd9.
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Readers and Authorship in Early Modern
England
William H. Sherman
Renaissance Quarterly.
59.2 (Summer 2006): p628.
COPYRIGHT 2006 The Renaissance Society of America
http://www.rsa.org/RQ.HTM
Full Text:
Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xiv + 226 pp. index. illus. $75. ISBN: 0521842964.
With Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England Stephen B. Dobranski consolidates the reputation he began to
build with his 1999 monograph Milton, Authorship and the Book Trade. In both books he moves with ease and
sophistication between literary criticism and book history, uncovering their mutual constructions of meaning and never
letting one serve as mere background to the other. But this new book has less in common with its predecessor than
meets the eye and, indeed, less in common with the subject suggested by its title: it is not so much a book about
"Readers and Authorship" (once it has moved beyond the opening chapter's survey of theories and practices of reading
and writing) as a study of their interaction in the production and reception of unfinished works during the seventeenth
century.
Dobranski argues that Renaissance authors generated literary effects and enhanced their authority not only through
ambitious gestures, explicit instructions, and exhaustive treatments but also by drawing on the politics and poetics of
omission. He sets out, then, to listen to the moments of "audible silence" (2) in the publications of Sidney, Jonson,
Donne, Herrick, and Milton. This makes his approach sound more theoretical than it is. The great theorists of "absent
presence," Derrida and Lacan, are quoted in the closing pages, but, as with Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish (the great
theorists of readers' responses to textual gaps), their ideas are acknowledged rather than used. Dobranski's methods are
resolutely historical, homing in on specific instances of literary omissionunfinished poems in Jonson's 1616 Workes,
the 1633 Poems, by J[ohn] D[onne], and Herrick's Hesperides; the poem "A Remedie for Love" that was "restored" to
editions of Sidney's Arcadia during the Civil War; and the short addendum, labeled Omissa, that Milton added to
Samson Agonistesand painstakingly recovering the biographical, rhetorical, and political contexts that make them
speak volumes.
Dobranski joins other recent scholars in challenging the concluding sentence of Roland Barthes's famous essay "The
Death of the Author": "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author." These case studies provide
further proof that active reading did not prevent or delay the emergence of authoritative authors but played an important
part in the process: "missing pieces" or "blank spaces" provoked the participation of readers as they acknowledged
authorial anxieties and established authorial control. By the end of the century a writer like Swift can deploy a phrase
such as "Hiatus in MS" to comic effect, but in the work of his forebears such maneuvers tended to be serious business.
A book about Renaissance omissions inevitably prompts its reviewers to identify important texts or issues that it leaves
out. The growing importance of ruins and archaeological fragments in Renaissance antiquarian discourse is
conspicuous by its absence, as is the parody of pedantic conventions that Swift, Pope, and Sterne would take to new
levels. Dobranski himself acknowledges what is perhaps the most consequential omission: "More should be said ...
about the responses of individual readers during the Renaissance." (217). Indeed it should: without them we can only
glimpse readers' reactions through the presumed effects of authors' manipulations, a position that leaves us closer to the
groundbreaking studies of Iser and (especially) Fish than Dobranski acknowledges, and calls for a more explicit and
sustained account of the lessons he has assimilated from them.
But such omissions no doubt helped Dobranski to give his book its admirable focus andwhat is even more admirable
to finish it. Given Dobranski's attraction to unfinished writings and his penchant for epigraphs from writers in praise of
the unfinished, this could all too easily have become another nevertobefinished opus: to put "God keep me from ever
completing anything" (from Melville's MobyDick) at the head of a chapter called "Jonson's Labors Lost" is simply
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asking for trouble. The fact that Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England did not become another selfconsuming
artifact of early modern scholarship is a tribute to Dobranski's scholarly skill and discipline.
WILLIAM H. SHERMAN
University of York
Sherman, William H.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sherman, William H. "Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 2, 2006,
p. 628+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Between the lines
Harold Love
TLS. Times Literary Supplement.
.5337 (July 15, 2005): p24.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Love, Harold. "Between the lines." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5337, 2005, p. 24. Book Review Index Plus,
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Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade
Richard Harp
The Sixteenth Century Journal.
32.3 (Fall 2001): p811.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Harp, Richard. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, 2001, p. 811+.
Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Milton and Heresey
Early Modern Literary Studies.
7.1 (May 2001): pONL.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Milton and Heresey." Early Modern Literary Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2001, p. ONL. Book Review Index Plus,
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Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade
Margaret Kean
Notes and Queries.
48.1 (Mar. 2001): p65.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Kean, Margaret. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." Notes and Queries, vol. 48, no. 1, 2001, p. 65+. Book
Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade
Joad Raymond
The Review of English Studies.
52.205 (Feb. 2001): p114.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Raymond, Joad. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." The Review of English Studies, vol. 52, no. 205, 2001, p.
114+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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The Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in
Marlowe, Milton, and Blake
MARY A. PAPAZIAN
Renaissance Quarterly.
53.2 (Summer 2000): p611.
COPYRIGHT 2000 The Renaissance Society of America
http://www.rsa.org/RQ.HTM
Full Text:
A.D. Nuttall. The Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in Marlowe, Milton, and Blake.
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1998. 272 Pp. $69. ISBN: 019818462X.
Stephen B. Dobranski and John P. Rumrich, eds. Milton and Heresy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 266 PP. $59.95. ISBN: 0521630657.
In both of these wellwritten and learned studies, the authors present a heterodox Milton characterized by contradiction
who "rejects the Trinity, denies creation ex nihilo, and insists on the common materiality and mortality of body and
soul" (Dobranski and Rumrich, 1). For the most part, these writers care much about defining Milton as heterodox,
seeing in such a definition a validation of recent Milton scholarship. In most cases whether in Nuttall's analysis of the
gnostic heresy in Milton, or the analyses presented by the twelve wellregarded contributors to the Dobranski and
Rumrich collection the presentation of a heterodox Milton depends on consideration not merely of his powerful
poetry; particularly Paradise Lost, but also, and perhaps more importantly, on consideration of the prose tract, De
Doctrina Christiana, which was attributed to Milton by Maurice Kelley, to whom the Dobranski and Rumrich collection
is dedicated. Recently, William Hunter, among others, has raised doubts regarding the au thenticity of Milton's
authorship of the De Doctrina that, if true, weaken the central theses of Nuttall's book and of many of the essays in the
Dobranski and Rumrich collection. It is not my intention to debate the authenticity of the De Doctrina here. As should
come as no surprise by their subject matter, both books express doubt over Hunter's argument. The issue, however, is
far from settled.
Nuttall's rich study reveals a fine close reader who is wellversed in the theological traditions about which he is writing.
Against the backdrop of gnosticism, which he defines as the "exhaltation of Christ, the divine man, over the Father"
(221), Nuttall considers three major British writers, Christopher Marlowe, John Milton, and William Blake, in terms of
their denial of orthodox Christianity and their embrace of the gnostic heresy. 'While the title might be obscure and offputting
to students or general readers, Nuttall nevertheless effectively moves from his definitions of gnosticism to
nuanced literary analysis. I particularly enjoyed his reading of the Calvinist dimensions of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus.
Nuttall's analysis of Milton and Paradise Lost is also nuanced, although, as I indicated above, it relies much on a
Miltonic theology defined by the De Doctrina. Indeed, nearly all the quotations from Milton that Nuttall employs
suggesting a nonorthodox theology derive from the De Doctrina and generally ar e at odds with passages in Paradise
Lost. Nuttall's placing of William Blake in the heretical tradition of gnosticism is least surprising of all, as Blake has
long been considered outside the traditions of orthodox Christianity. By the time of Blake and the Romantics, Nuttall
argues, gnosticism means not simply knowledge, but knowledge leading to pleasure, thereby creating a direct line from
Milton to the Romantics generally, and Blake specifically.
Overall, Nuttall's argument is compelling and his specific readings of literary passages skillful and enlightening.
Nevertheless, Nuttall often digresses from his central thesis e.g., the long discussion of gardens in Paradise Lost, or
his linking of Milton to the Romantics by claiming that in Paradise Lost, Milton invents the category of the sublime
(177). While these digressions are interesting in their own right, they do at times obscure the book's central thesis.
Nuttall concludes by identifying Milton as the dominant spreader of gnosticism in England, even before Blake. While
the argument that Marlowe, Milton, and Blake all endorse the alternative Trinity of gnosticism is compelling, I am not
altogether sure that Milton, at least, would want us to read him this way.
Despite my misgivings regarding Nuttall's central thesis linking Milton to gnosticism or the alternative trinity, the
contributors to the Dobranski and Rumrich collection, Milton and Heresy, would certainly see Nuttall's argument as in
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harmony with their own. This welledited collection presents essays by twelve Milton scholars who focus exclusively
on Milton and the concept of heresy. Rather than focusing on specific heresies, however, these essays for the most part
address the general question of a heterodox Milton and express pleasure in seeing Milton as one who expresses
changing individual views that may not in fact be consistent within his own lifetime. Perhaps even more so than
Nuttall's book, this collection, too, is much aware of current challenges to Milton's authorship of the De Doctrina, a
problem to which the editors are particularly sensitive. These authors accept the authenticity of Milton's authorship of
the De Doctrina, frequently making reference to the prose tract in their essays. The open ing page of the editors'
introduction implies that the reburters of the authenticity of the De Doctrina are motivated by a desire to eradicate
Milton's heresies in the name of orthodoxy, rather than for the sake of good scholarship (1), a view that understates
their scholarly motivations. However, despite this modern controversy, there is much good here, and the collection
makes an important contribution to Milton scholarship.
The editors have divided the collection into four major sections. The first section, "Heretical Theology," which includes
essays by Janel Mueller, Thomas Corns, and Barbara Lewalski, looks specifically at Milton's historical place in the
religious controversies of the seventeenth century and locates Milton's sympathies with heresy early in his career.
Mueller's essay, which reviews Milton's use of the word heresy and its derivatives throughout his writings, argues that
Milton maintained a positive view of heresy throughout his life, although toward the end he reluctantly accepts "the
apostle Paul's specifically Christian claim that a universal church and heresy are mutually exclusive" (36). Corns's
essay focuses on Milton's antiprelatical tracts and claims that Milton's sympathies with "views deemed heretical by the
middle ground of Puritan opinion" (39) surfaced as early as 1641 and informed much of his behavior from that time
forward. Lewalski, in her essay on heresy and the young Milton, would agree.
In "Heresy and Consequences," the collection's second section, John Rumrich's essay on Milton's Arianism, Stephen
Fallon's on Milton and election, and William Kerrigan's on Milton and kisses explore the implications of recognizing
Milton's heresies for reading his work. While each of these articles addresses an area of controversy in Milton
scholarship, Fallon's on Milton and election is perhaps the most controversial, for it depends greatly on the authenticity
of Milton's authorship of the De Doctrina, a question that, despite Fallon's certainty, other scholars find less sure. The
collection's third section, entitled "Heresy and Community,". includes essays by Stephen Dobranski, John Hale, David
Loewenstein, and Elizabeth Sauer. These essays explore the relationship between Milton's personal view of heresy and
its impact on his public life, particularly his role as licenser (Dobranski), his views of the culture of insults (Hale), the
meaning of blasphemy (Loewenstein), and the implications of Samson Agonist es as closet drama (Sauer). Finally, the
collection ends with a section, Readers of Heresy, in which Joan Bennet and Joseph Wittreich address the relationship
between Milton's sympathies to heresy and our own time.
While these writers view Milton and heresy from a multitude of perspectives, they are all linked by the common belief
that Milton not only rejected set beliefs, but that he also regarded uncertainty as fundamental to human existence. They
cannot begin to imagine a Milton, whether as poet or public servant, who supports an orthodox and in their minds,
static position. Thomas Corns sums it up best when he writes: "Milton needs a society thus tolerant of heterodoxy
and heresy in part because his own theology of salvation probably is, in Calvinist terms, a heresy, and he needs an
intellectual environment permissive of innovation and deviancy as the prerequisite for the free operation of a mind and
sensibility which are already pushing against the limitations imposed by those new forcers of conscience currently
coming into their own" (48). Or, in light of the recent controversy regarding the De Doctrina, perhaps we are the ones
who need such a Milton.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
PAPAZIAN, MARY A. "The Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in Marlowe, Milton, and Blake." Renaissance
Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 2000, p. 611. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA65286014&it=r&asid=066bab90388e3f0248b7b2d7f27b99df.
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Milton and Heresy
Church History.
69 (June 2000): p440.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Milton and Heresy." Church History, vol. 69, 2000, p. 440. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA35010743&it=r&asid=372e39bc8001b5ca94cb9ff9ba3ab8f7.
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Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade
J.H. Sims
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
37.8 (Apr. 2000): p1465.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sims, J.H. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2000,
p. 1465. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA61817738&it=r&asid=87992c18d8f3d3bc5b7cf3ce7438f6ff.
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Milton and Heresy
English Historical Review.
115 (Apr. 2000): p465.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Milton and Heresy." English Historical Review, vol. 115, 2000, p. 465. Book Review Index Plus,
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Milton and Heresy
AUSTIN WOOLRYCH
The English Historical Review.
115.461 (Apr. 2000): p465.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Oxford University Press
http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/
Full Text:
The twelve essays which Stephen B. Dobranski and John P. Rumrich have edited in Milton and Heresy (Cambridge:
U.P., 1998; pp. x+272. 35 [pounds sterling]) vary in their interest for historians and indeed in their relevance to heresy,
but cumulatively they deepen significantly our understanding of Milton's beliefs and objectives. The question of what
he did believe has been in some turmoil since 1991, when William B. Hunter questioned whether the massive treatise
de doctrina Cristiana was really Milton's work, and sought to bring Paradise Lost back into the central tradition of
orthodox Christianity (if it ever belonged there). The editors of this volume, however, argue persuasively `that by
ordinary standards of attribution ... Milton's authorship of the treatise is practically indisputable', and their fellowcontributors
emphasize his distance from the religious and political establishment, both before and after his years of
service to the Commonwealth. Even in those years his conformity was qualified. Space forbids consideration of every
chapter, but Janet Mueller leads off usefully by charting the changes over the years in what Milton himself understood
by `heresy', and Thomas N. Corns, focusing on the antiprelatical tracts of 16412, concludes that although they were
less concerned with doctrine than with practice Milton was probably trying already `to win some space for heterodoxy'.
In a penetrating survey of all his writings down to 1645, Barbara Lewalski asks `How radical was the young Milton?',
and confutes recent readings of his early work as akin to Caroline court culture and of his Poems of 1645 as a cosying
up to cavalier contemporaries in a bid for respectability. Not all contributors match Lewalski's historical knowledge;
several seem too little aware of the major changes in the constitution, policy and personnel of government during
Milton's secretaryship to take full stock of his stance at the time. Nor do they all write as gracefully, though only one
(writing on Samson Agonistes) falls so far into transatlantic lit. crit. jargon as to be almost impenetrable. In a really
illuminating essay David Loewenstein confronts the paradox that the Commonwealth chose as its public apologist and
licenser of the press a man whose own antitrinitarian beliefs would, if published and persisted in, have rendered him
liable to capital charges under the Blasphemy Ordinance passed less than a year earlier. Stephen M. Fallon probes the
inconsistency between de doctrina's uncompromising rejection of Calvinist predestination and the passage in Paradise
Lost (3.183201) that begins: `Some I have chosen of peculiar grace/Elect above the rest'. Milton, he argues, genuinely
believed that saving grace was denied to none, but was so sure that he had a personal calling as a prophetpoet that he
conceived a special class of superelect. Joan S. Bennett movingly compares Milton's strategies in upholding through
his epics a revolutionary cause in the dangerously hostile postRestoration world with those of presentday preachers of
liberation theology who, especially in Latin America, feel called to uphold human rights and Christian values under
oppressive regimes. That Milton is a poet for the present and future is also one message of Joseph Wittreich's fine and
thoughtful concluding essay, which compares the reception of Paradise Lost more than three centuries ago with the
main preoccupations of Miltonic studies on the eve of the millennium.
AUSTIN WOOLRYCH
University of Lancaster
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
WOOLRYCH, AUSTIN. "Milton and Heresy." The English Historical Review, vol. 115, no. 461, 2000, p. 465. Book
Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Milton and Heresy
Albion.
31 (Winter 1999): p653.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Milton and Heresy." Albion, vol. 31, 1999, p. 653. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Milton and Heresy
SeventeenthCentury News.
57 (Fall 1999): p200.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Milton and Heresy." SeventeenthCentury News, vol. 57, 1999, p. 200. Book Review Index Plus,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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SkerpanWheeler, Elizabeth. "Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in 'Paradise Lost'." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 4, 2016, pp. 16111613. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475285139&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Klimt, Roberta. "More material Milton." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5919, 2016, p. 27. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464952588&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Brandt, B.E. "Dobranski, Stephen B.: Milton's visual imagination: imagery in Paradise lost." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1165. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661524&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Sims, J.H. "Dobranski, Stephen B.: The Cambridge introduction to Milton." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Oct. 2012, p. 274. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA305453709&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Sanchez, Reuben. "Stephen B. Dobranski. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, Vol. 3: Samson Agonistes." SeventeenthCentury News, vol. 68, no. 34, 2010, p. 149+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA255241301&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Brandt, B.E. "Milton in context." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Sept. 2010, p. 89. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA249057456&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Urban, David B. "A Variorum Commetary on the Poems of John Milton, vol. 3: Samson Agonistes." The Review of English Studies, vol. 61, no. 248, 2010, pp. 145147. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA224836789&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "A variorum commentary on the poems of John Milton; v.3: Samson Agonistes." Reference & Research Book News, May 2009. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA199021332&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Review of Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England." Early Modern Literary Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2006. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA162104600&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. North, Marcy L. "Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Modern Philology, vol. 104, no. 1, 2006, p. 129+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA156036863&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Sharpe, Kevin. "Stephen B. Dobranski. Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Journal of British Studies, vol. 45, no. 3, 2006, p. 651+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA150864956&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Sherman, William H. "Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 2, 2006, p. 628+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA147914412&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Love, Harold. "Between the lines." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5337, 2005, p. 24. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA135750183&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Harp, Richard. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, 2001, p. 811+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA80409526&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Milton and Heresey." Early Modern Literary Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2001, p. ONL. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA35168245&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Kean, Margaret. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." Notes and Queries, vol. 48, no. 1, 2001, p. 65+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA84606309&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Raymond, Joad. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." The Review of English Studies, vol. 52, no. 205, 2001, p. 114+. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA73578258&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. PAPAZIAN, MARY A. "The Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in Marlowe, Milton, and Blake." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 2000, p. 611. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA65286014&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Milton and Heresy." Church History, vol. 69, 2000, p. 440. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA35010743&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Sims, J.H. "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2000, p. 1465. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA61817738&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Milton and Heresy." English Historical Review, vol. 115, 2000, p. 465. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA34992642&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. WOOLRYCH, AUSTIN. "Milton and Heresy." The English Historical Review, vol. 115, no. 461, 2000, p. 465. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA62257478&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Milton and Heresy." Albion, vol. 31, 1999, p. 653. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA34985259&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. "Milton and Heresy." SeventeenthCentury News, vol. 57, 1999, p. 200. Book Review Index Plus, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=BRIP&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA34947507&it=r. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.