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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book owes many debts. I can acknowledge here only those I can remember; I know there are others I have forgotten or of which I have yet to become aware. Barbara K. Lewalski introduced me to Milton studies quite a long time ago, and since then I have wanted to write a book on Milton. I am certain that she will not endorse everything I say in this book, but I am just as certain that if I had never been her student this book would not exist. She remains a model for me of a teacher and a scholar. With deep gratitude for her inspiration and example, I dedicate this book to her. Bits and pieces of this book have been presented in papers before Milton societies, both American and international, at the annual Modern Language Association conventions in Chicago (1995) and Philadelphia (2004) and at the International Symposiums held in Bangor, Wales (1995); York, England (1999); Beaufort, South Carolina (2002) and Grenoble, France (2005). At those events I particularly recall getting helpful advice from Stephen Fallon, Sharon Achinstein, Shari Zimmerman, Nigel Smith and Barbara Lewalski. The British Milton Seminar, hosted in Birmingham by Tom Corns, heard and commented upon an early version of chapter 3 in 1998, as did a group at Liverpool John Moore University that included Tamsin Spargo and Matthew Jordan. My early ideas about Milton and Plato’s Symposium were helped along by the comments of scholars from the University of Strathclyde in 1998 and Dundee in 2000. I also xv xvi Acknowledgments benefited from reactions and suggestions from members of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in 2001. Chapter 4 first appeared in Milton Studies 40 (2001), after benefiting from suggestions made by William Hunter. Jeffrey Shoulson, Len Tennenhouse, Linda Gregerson, Vera Camden, Peter Saccio, Elizabeth Sauer, Ivy Schweitzer and Jonathan Crewe have read large chunks of this book in early drafts and have contributed both ideas and notes of caution. Rachel Trubowitz read the whole book, parts of it more than once, and made many important suggestions, all of which I have adopted. An anonymous reader for the press saved me from an embarrassing error in prelapsarian chronology. For all of these and for the constructive ways Miltonists in general mix friendship and scholarship, I am deeply grateful. The errors that remain signify either my inattention or stubbornness. I am grateful to the staff at the Baker/Berry Library and the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, and for those at the library of the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge. The stunning collection of early Milton editions at Dartmouth prompted me to prepare the online edition of Milton’s poetry that appears in The Milton Reading Room. Kathy Meyer did a fine job of editing. Finally, I owe thanks to my family — Isaac Luxon, Bekah Schweitzer and, most of all, Ivy Schweitzer, my spouse and friend and colleague. They have tolerated this grouchy scholar and they have offered unrelenting support each and every day. ...

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