MACMILLAN Queer Milton (Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700)

Queer Milton is the first book-length study dedicated to anti-heteronormative approaches to the poetry and prose of John Milton. Organized into sections on “Eroticism and Form” and “Temporality and Affect,” essays in this volume read Milton’s works through radical queer interpretive frameworks that have elsewhere animated and enriched Renaissance Studies. Leveraging insights from recent queer work and related fields, contributions demonstrate diverse possible futures for Queer Milton Studies. At the same time, Queer Milton bears witness to the capacity for queer to arbitrate debates that have shaped, and indeed continue to shape, developments in the field of Milton Studies. Review “Stockton assures that the collection’s intention is not to portray Milton as the unitary master of his own meaning. … With respect to this goal, I say with conviction: mission accomplished. I am better off for having met all these queer Miltons, and I commend them to your acquaintance.” (Kent R. Lehnhof, Milton Quarterly, Vol. 53 (4), 2019) Review “This collection offers a welcome set of queer interventions in Milton studies. As its contributors depart from varying coordinates within queer theory to bring the field’s concerns with sex, language, time, affect, the environment, and beyond into conversation with Milton’s works, the volume generates not one but many queer and queered Miltons. In addition to exemplifying how Milton repays queer reading, the essays gathered here show how Milton can open up new and exciting pathways in early modern queer studies.” (James M. Bromley, Associate Professor of English, Miami University, USA) “Orvis has done a remarkable job gathering contributors and putting together what will surely be an influential volume. Queer Milton offers an original, smart, and very timely contribution to Milton studies, utilizing the kind of broad, deep, and sophisticated exploration of queer methodologies in relation to Milton’s works that is very much needed.” (Catharine Gray, Associate Professor of English, University of Illinois, USA) “This is a volume both long overdue and ahead of its time. Noting the relative absence of Milton scholarship informed by queer studies, the authors bring the field up to speed. But also, and more importantly, they engage in fresh, lively criticism informed by, and informing, categories currently at play in queer theory: affect, the body and intimacy, alterity and ipseity. Covering works early and late, in verse and in prose, this collection offers us several queer Miltons―and beckons for more to be uncovered.” (Feisal G. Mohamed, CUNY Graduate Center, USA) From the Back Cover Queer Milton is the first book-length study dedicated to anti-heteronormative approaches to the poetry and prose of John Milton. Organized into sections on “Eroticism and Form” and “Temporality and Affect,” essays in this volume read Milton’s works through radical queer interpretive frameworks that have elsewhere animated and enriched Renaissance Studies. Leveraging insights from recent queer work and related fields, contributions demonstrate diverse possible futures for Queer Milton Studies. At the same time, Queer Milton bears witness to the capacity for queer to arbitrate debates that have shaped, and indeed continue to shape, developments in the field of Milton Studies.  About the Author David L. Orvis is Professor of English at Appalachian State University, USA. He is co-editor of Psalms in the Early Modern World (2011) and The Noble Flame of Katherine Philips: A Poetics of Culture, Politics, and Friendship (2015).