Four hundred years after his birth, John Milton remains one of the greatest and most controversial figures in English literature. The Handbook of Milton is a comprehensive guide to the state of Milton studies in the early twenty-first century, bringing together an international team of thirty-five leading scholars in one volume. The rise of critical interest in Milton's political and religious ideas is the most striking aspect of Milton studies in recent times, a consequence in great part of the increasingly fluid relations between literary and historical study.
Literature and Religion in Mid-Victorian England - From Dickens to Eliot
This book places Dickens and Wilkie Collins against such important figures as John Henry Newman and George Eliot inseeking to recover their response to the religious controversies of mid-nineteenth century England. While much recent criticism has tended to overlook or dismiss their religious pronouncements, this book foregrounds the religious aspect of their writing and relocates their most important work in the context of contemporary debate. The response of both writers is seen to be complex and fraught with tension.
This is a fascinating study of religious culture in England from 1050 to 1250. Drawing on the wealth of material about religious belief and practice that survives in the chronicles, Carl Watkins explores accounts of signs, prophecies, astrology, magic, beliefs about death and the miraculous and demonic. He challenges some of the prevailing assumptions about religious belief, questioning in particular the attachment of many historians to terms such as 'clerical' and 'lay', 'popular' and 'elite', 'Christian' and 'pagan' as explanatory categories.
Four new titles in the series of comprehensive critical overviews of major literary movements in Western literary history The art of drama developed in the ancient Greek city-state of Athens from the late sixth century B.C. From religious chants honouring the gods and Greece's mythical past grew an entirely new art form.
This historical novel relates the stirring adventures, conspiracies, and feasts prev-alent during the last years of Charles IX's reign in the latter part of the 16th century. The marriage of Marguerite de Valois, sister of King Charles IX, to Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre, triggers the mostly riotous events of this story. She was Catholic, he was Protestant, and their weddeing took place during the religious wars in France between the Catholics and the Huguenots.
