John Milton: An Annotated Bibliography, 1989–1999

Criticism: Prose Works

347 CRITICISM: PROSE WORKS in his own trap: God has become the authorizing principle for conscience’s role in human affairs, but just as for the king in Eikon Basilike, there is no way of knowing God’s true meanings” (158). In the end, Milton is ambivalent about conscience; he is “in a line with Thomas Hobbes, and finally, John Locke, who came to reject conscience from the realm of politics completely” (159). Alblas, Jacques B. H. 1808. “Milton’s The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: The Unknown Dutch Translation (1655) Discovered .” MiltonQ 28 (1994): 35–39. Relates his discovery of two copies of the Dutch translation, one in Amsterdam and one at the Koninklÿke Biblioteek. Concludes that the discovery has generated two insoluble problems: the reason why the title page was altered beyond recognition and the question why the translation was put on the market by an obscure publisher. Believes that the discovery proves the correctness of Paul R. Sellin’s hypothesis (Huckabay and Klemp, no. 4173) that the tract mentioned in the correspondence between Milton and Lieuwe Von Aitzema is the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Altschull, J. Herbert. 1809. “John Milton and the Self-Righting Principle.” From Milton to McLuhan: The Ideas Behind American Journalism. New York: Longman , 1990, pp. 36–42. On Areopagitica and its influence on American journalism. Notes that a widely read new edition was published in 1728 amid debate about censorship in the American colonies. “Of course, Milton was being wildly utopian, and perhaps he knew so himself but, swept away by the surge of republicanism in the air in Puritan Achinstein, Sharon. 1806. “Milton and King Charles.” In The Royal Image: Representations of Charles I. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999, pp. 141–61. Discusses Milton’s many charges against King Charles and contends that the regicide pamphlets were intended to destroy the monarchy in England. Interprets them in light of the popish plot and Charles’s noninvolvement in the Thirty Years’ War, which Milton regarded as the king’s rejection of the Protestant cause. Regards Eikonklastes as an all-out assault on Charles, as well as his queen, Henrietta Maria. Insists that the work “ought...to be considered in light of a history of representations of Charles, built up over the years of his Personal Rule, and responding directly to Charles’s policies both political and cultural” and concludes that the “particular forms” Milton used “in his challenge to the king’s representation were those bequeathed to him by England ’s fund of national memory” (157). Reviews (of book): Pauline Croft, EHR 115 (2000): 971–72; Derek Hirst, MP 99 (2001): 112–15; W. B. Patterson, RenQ 54 (2001): 643–46; Christopher Orchard, JEGP 101 (2002): 138–40; Nicholas Von Maltzahn, RES 53 (2002): 439–42. Achinstein, Sharon. 1807. “Milton Catches the Conscience of the King: Eikonoklastes and the Engagement Controversy .” MiltonS 29 (1992): 143–63. Argues that in Eikonklastes Milton faces a dilemma in answering King Charles I’s appeal to conscience in Eikon Basilike. He resorts to terms used in the engagement controversy in order “to exclude the king’s conscience from the political arena” (145) and attacks Charles’s claim from several angles. “Milton is caught 348 JOHN MILTON: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, 1989–1999 England, and perhaps by the electricity in his own prose, Milton provided for American journalists a kind of codex that stands above all other ingredients in the philosophy of journalists: the unflinching search for the truth in the cause of all that is virtuous” (40). Barker, Francis. 1810. “In the Wars of Truth: Violence, True Knowledge and Power in Milton and Hobbes.” In Literature and the English Civil War. Ed. Thomas Healy and Jonathan Sawday. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991, pp. 91–109. A revision of Huckabay and Klemp, no. 3778. Seeks “to combine some description , in Milton and Hobbes, of the tropes of true discourse or Truth and the warlike violence with which they are associated, with some reflection on the theory of discourse today” (92). Discusses Areopagitica and Hobbes’s Leviathan within the context of the civil war. Considers with some suspicion the ramifications of new historicism and deconstruction upon his subject matter. Observes “the powerfully warlike character of discourse” within Areopagitica (95). Concludes by emphasizing “the ‘real-world’ character of the understanding of discourse” (108). Reviews (of book): Michael G. Brennan, N&Q 38 (1991): 540–41; John Morrill, HT 41 (1991): 58; Keith W. F...