Cover; Contents; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Preface; Introduction; 1 Milton and the Idea of Public Speech; 2 'Two Twins Cleaving Together': Rhetoric and 'Knowing Good by Evil'; 3 'Enchanting Tongues Persuasive': Rhetoric and Gender; 4 Samson the Orator and the Redemption of Public Speech; 5 Samson Agonistes and the Temptations of Romance; Select Bibliography; Index
Using Hannah Arendt's account of the Greek polis to explain Milton's fascination with the idea of public speech, this book reveals what is distinctive about his conception of a godly, republican oratory and poetics. Setting Milton's poetry and prose in the context of Civil War polemic; classical political theory and its early modern reinterpretations; and Renaissance writing on rhetoric and poetic language, the volume culminates in an Arendtian reading of his 'Greek' drama Samson Agonistes
