Milton
Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot
By Anna Beer
Bloomsbury, 439 pages, $38.50
John Milton, arguably second only to William Shakespeare in the pantheon of English authors, knew how to pace a poem.
Yet, halfway through his epic Paradise Lost, Milton paused and put the story of Adam and Eve temporarily on hold.
Explaining that he composes "in darkness, and with dangers compassed round," he asks readers to stop and think about the poet behind the poem: a blind man whose life, in the wake of the restoration of the British monarchy, is imperilled by his anti-royalist past.
When Milton shared with readers the challenges he faced, both physically and politically, he marked the way for his most recent biographer, British academic Anna Beer who, on the 400th anniversary of Milton's birth, discusses Milton's far from trouble-free life.
Beer specializes in Renaissance literature. Her first foray into biography, a study of Bess Raleigh, Sir Walter's wife, appeared in 2003. Her biography of Milton, which is aimed at both a general and an academic audience, is the latest in a long line of books about the great 17th-century poet.
Milton, who witnessed civil war, plague, and the nearly complete destruction of the city of London in the Great Fire of 1666, has understandably attracted many scholars to his story.
His biographers have, however, reached very different conclusions about Milton's public and private lives. Saintly seer or savvy propagandist, a loving father or an abusive tyrant, a proto-feminist or a misogynist: portraits of Milton vary widely, often revealing more about the biographers and their values than they do about Milton and his era.
Unlike many of her predecessors, Beer works hard to avoid creating yet another Milton myth. She discusses Milton's political and literary life in great detail but, when it comes to Milton's domestic life, she is far more cautious.
She puts the often limited and sometimes contradictory evidence that's available before her readers, but she rarely draws conclusions about it.
Beer's book consequently raises more questions than it answers, a fact that might disappoint some readers but will be viewed by others as the necessary result of her commitment to the creation of an accurate, if only partial, portrait of her subject.
Carefully avoiding the pitfalls of speculation, Beer seeks solid ground in historical fact. For instance, faced with contradictory evidence about Milton's treatment of his daughters, Beer offers readers a mini-biography of Bathsua Makin, a 17th-century campaigner for women's education who lived too late to have had a direct impact on the Milton family but whose views are offered by Beer as evidence of the existence of proto-feminist thought.
Similarly unwilling to jump to conclusions about why Milton's first wife returned to her family only weeks after her wedding, Beer provides readers with an overview of contemporary marriage practices and the kinds of pressures that are likely to have been at play in marriages at this time.
Beer also quotes extensively from Milton's published writing. She pairs these quotations with detailed analysis, citing literary critics as frequently as she does previous biographers.
Her discussion of Milton's writing is comprehensive. She discusses Milton's prose as well as his poetry, his Latin as well as his English works.
Some readers may find the balance between biography and literary criticism off-putting. Beer's attention to Milton's writing is, however, the great strength of her book.
Vanessa Warne teaches English at the University of Manitoba.
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