Milton, Materialism, and Embodiment : One First Matter All

Bringing together eight original essays from leading and emerging Miltonists, this volume explores a second wave of critical thought about Miltons monist materialism, the view that all existence arises from a single substance or reality.

These essays consider the consequences of materialism and embodiment for political, phenomenological, religious, and gender-oriented approaches to Miltons writings, intersecting with major current debates in early modern studies.

The discovery of Miltons previously lost De Doctrina Christiana in 1823 cemented the case for Miltons systematic monist materialism in his account of Creation, but even before that, influential critics and commentators such as Thomas Newton and Samuel Johnson had remarked upon the startling and heterodox union of physics and metaphysics in Paradise Lost.

What these eighteenth century critics perceived as a flaw in Miltons design has, in recent decades, become the source of a reevaluation of the originality and coherence of Miltons thought.

Donovan and Festa bring together a group of scholars here who explore sensory matters of fragrance and sound, the literary politics of walking and of sexual reproduction, the ontology of embodiment as human beings and angels, and the appropriation of Miltons materialism by both early Mormons in the nineteenth century and fringe figures such as gun enthusiasts in the twentieth.

In so doing, they demonstrate the ongoing relevance of Miltons writings in the history of views of embodiment and materialist thought.

This volume will be a resource for future inquiry into vitalist materialism, modern and early modern alike.