Milton and the Spiritual Reader Reading and Religion in Seventeenth Century England 1st Edition by David Ainsworth 0415883903 9780415883900

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ISBN 10: 0415883903

ISBN 13: 9780415883900

Author: David Ainsworth

Milton and the Spiritual Reader considers how John Milton’s later works demonstrate the intensive struggle of spiritual reading. Milton presents his own rigorous process of reading in order to instruct his readers how to advance their spiritual knowledge. Recent studies of Milton’s readers neglect this spiritual dimension and focus on politics. Since Milton considers the individual soul at least as important as the body politic, Ainsworth focuses on uncovering the spiritual characteristics of the reader Milton tries to shape through his texts. He also examines Milton’s reading practices without postulating the existence of some ideal or universal reader, and without assuming a gullible or easily manipulated reader. Milton does not simply hope for a fit audience, but writes to nurture fit readers. His works offer models of strenuous and suspicious close reading, subjecting all authors except God to the utmost of scrutiny. Milton presents Biblical interpretation as an interior struggle, a contention not between reader and text, but within that reader’s individual understanding of scripture. Ainsworth’s study rethinks the basic relationship between reading and religion in seventeenth-century England, and concludes that for Milton and his contemporaries, distinguishing divine truths in worldly texts required a spiritually guided form of close reading.

Milton and the Spiritual Reader Reading and Religion in Seventeenth Century England 1st Table of contents:

Chapter One “Thou art sufficient to judge aright”
“GRACEFULL SYMMETRY:” CHARACTERIZING THE TRUTH
“THEY WILL NOT PARDON HIM THEIR DASH:” WRITING AS METAPHOR

Chapter Two Spiritual Reading in Milton’s Eikonoklastes
THE SACRED AND MILTON’S POLEMICAL PURPOSES
READING CHARLES AND READING KINGSHIP
EIKON BASILIKE AS DIVINE INSTRUMENT
BREAKING THE TEXT AND SPIRITUAL READING

Chapter Three Godly Reading in Milton’s
THE TROUBLE WITH DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA
AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE
THROUGH INDIVIDUAL FAITH
“FOLLOWING THE SAME TRACK:” FINDING TRUTH
ASSEMBLING THE WORD: MILTON’S METHOD OF READING SCRIPTURE
READING DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA: A MODEL
COLLECTIVE EFFORTS: THE COMMUNITY OF READERS IN DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA

Chapter Four “There plant eyes”
PRELAPSARIAN INTERPRETATION
CLARITY OF VISION: FINDING GOD’S TRACES THROUGH INTERPRETATION
TRAGIC HISTORY AND FAITHFUL READING
“NOT BUT BY THE SPIRIT UNDERSTOOD”

Chapter Five The Reader Within
PARADISE REGAINED AND THE BURDEN OF PROOF
“FIRST LAY DOWN THE RUDIMENTS:” INTERPRETATION AS FOUNDATION
“AGAINST EXAMPLE GOOD:” WORLDLY MISREADINGS

Chapter Six Baxter, Fox, Winstanley and Miltonic Spiritual Reading
“VERBA REBUS APTARE:” RICHARD BAXTER AND THE CLARITY OF THE WORD
GEORGE FOX AND THE SIMPLE SPIRIT
CONCLUDING HARMONY: GERRARD WINSTANLEY’S ORGANIC FAITH

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Tags: David Ainsworth, Milton, Spiritual, Religion