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Milton & the Rabbis – Hebraism, Hellenism, & Christianity
Author(s): Jeffrey S Shoulson (Author)
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication Date: 10 Dec. 2001
- Language: English
- Print length: 356 pages
- ISBN-10: 0231123280
- ISBN-13: 9780231123280
Book Description
Taking as its starting point the long-standing characterization of Milton as a “Hebraic” writer, Milton and the Rabbis probes the limits of the relationship between the seventeenth-century English poet and polemicist and his Jewish antecedents. Shoulson’s analysis moves back and forth between Milton’s writings and Jewish writings of the first five centuries of the Common Era, collectively known as midrash. In exploring the historical and literary implications of these connections, Shoulson shows how Milton’s text can inform a more nuanced reading of midrash just as midrash can offer new insights into Paradise Lost.Shoulson is unconvinced of a direct link between a specific collection of rabbinic writings and Milton’s works. He argues that many of Milton’s poetic ideas that parallel midrash are likely to have entered Christian discourse not only through early modern Christian Hebraicists but also through Protestant writers and preachers without special knowledge of Hebrew. At the heart of Shoulson’s inquiry lies a fundamental question: When is an idea, a theme, or an emphasis distinctively Judaic or Hebraic and when is it Christian? The difficulty in answering such questions reveals and highlights the fluid interaction between ostensibly Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian modes of thought not only during the early modern period but also early in time when rabbinic Judaism and Christianity began.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“[Shoulson]… is as sophisticated a reader of Milton’s works as he is of the rabbinical writings that shaped the milieu in which Milton and his contemporaries worked out their relationship to Christiantiy and to the ancient and contemporary Hebraic traditions. The results are enlightening and truly rewarding.” — Seventeenth-Century News “A rich canvas… Shoulson brings to his task great erudition, scholarly comprehensiveness, and critical acumen.” — Manfried Weidhorn, Sixteenth Century Journal “Insightful and inventive… Rather than trying to claim a specific source for Milton’s “Hebraic” tendencies, Shoulson asserts that rabbinic literature might have reached [Milton] through a variety of means, direct and indirect.” — Heather Shillinglaw, Indiana University, Religious Studies Review
About the Author
Jeffrey Shoulson is assistant professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Miami.
