Making Darkness Light: A Life of John Milton - Hardcover

by Joe Moshenska (Author)

An innovative and elegant new biography of John Milton from an acclaimed Oxford professor

John Milton was once essential reading for visionaries and revolutionaries, from William Blake to Ben Franklin. Now, however, he has become a literary institution--intimidating rather than inspiring.

In Making Darkness Light, Oxford professor Joe Moshenska rediscovers a poet whose rich contradictions confound his monumental image. Immersing ourselves in the rhythms and textures of Milton's world, we move from the music of his childhood home to his encounter with Galileo in Florence into his idiosyncratic belief system and his strange, electrifying imagination.

Making Darkness Light  will change the way we think about Milton, the place of his writings in his life, and his life in history. It is also a book about Milton's place in our times: about our relationship with the Western canon, about why and how we read, and about what happens when we let someone else's ideas inflect our own.

Author Biography

Joe Moshenska is professor of English at Oxford, where he teaches early modern literature. He is a BBC New Generation Thinker and his essays and reviews have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the White Review, the Financial Times, and the Observer. He received his PhD from Princeton and lives in Oxford, UK.