Milton's poetry is one of the glories of the English language, and yet it owes everything to Milton's widespread knowledge of other languages: he knew ten, wrote in four, and translated from five. In Milton's Languages, John K. Hale first examines Milton's language-related arts in verse-composition, translations, annotations of Greek poets, Latin prose and political polemic, giving all relevant texts in the original and in translation. Hale then traces the impact of Milton's multilingualism on his major English poems. Many vexed questions of Milton studies are illuminated by this approach, including his sense of vocation, his attitude to print and publicity, the supposed blemish of Latinism in his poetry, and his response to his literary predecessors. Throughout this full-length study of Milton's use of languages, Hale argues convincingly that it is only by understanding Milton's choice among languages that we can grasp where Milton's own unique English originated.

A lively account by four leading scholars of the research project which settles what has currently been the big question in Milton studies - the authorship of De Doctrina Christiana, the 17th-century treatise rediscovered in 1823 - and goes on to say much more about a key text in the Milton oeuvre.

Here it is! Every professor's nightmare! Every student's dream come true! John Milton's overwhelming masterpiece, Paradise Lost - all 10,565 brain-busting lines of it, transformed into simple, everyday language! - the kind you and I speak and understand. Milton's poem is on each left hand page, and the Plain English version is across from it on the right. Corresponding numbered lines make for easy comparison. . . Milton made easy! A study aid like no other!

Volume II in Oxford's Complete Works of John Milton provides newly-collated and carefully edited old-spelling texts of two of Milton major poems: Paradise Regain'd and Samson Agonistes. A detailed introduction and notes examine the political, religious, print, and publishing context in which the poems appeared.