This reading of Milton's irony has the great virtue of not explaining "what Milton meant," which is a silly thing for a book of literary criticism to do anyway. Instead, Silver makes an argument about Milton's subtlety that is, itself, enacting its own ironies and complexities. Sets the standard for Miltonists.

My first thought upon discovering this book was, 'Where is Kaplan in the pantheon of great contemporary poets?' For in this little-known work lies a powerful and substantive evocation. Though he compiled these poems in 1973, this former Columbia University professor speaks to subjects which still haunt mankind today, including the many unresolved aspects of our nuclear age. In addition, his descriptions of human pain and need are eloquent, reminding us that such things are a force older than language itself. Closing the aesthetic distance between the writer and the reader, Kaplan speaks to those secret things we all experience in our shared human inheritance yet rarely speak about, except to the closest of friends: waking in the middle of the night with the an unusually intense feeling of the absence of a loved one, or the joys of watching our children in their innocent slumber. Let the 'New York School' of poets and their facile blubbering disappear...we need more poets of substance like Kaplan. As Wallace Stevens' one wrote, poetry is both a cure and a redemption. I thank this obscure English professor for offering us both!

This book is an excellent book for school age children AND for adults. I am a 30 year old woman that sat down and read the whole book in about 3 hours. I could not put it down. I was very anxious to see what "mischief" Milton would get into next. It is an excellent book that teaches lessons. Milton's antics are hilarious with a lesson learned after each adventure. This book is an excellent FAMILY book.

This is a must read for professors of optics, and all students interested in the science of optometry. The diagrams are extremely helpful, as is the comprehensive glossary at the end of the text. It is a valuable book, for beginners and optics professionals alike.

I stumbled across this book while researching the Makah Whaling controversy. It has one page on the Makah and whaling, offering comparative perspectives on a story set further north. While the Makah are trying to revive a tradition of whaling that ceased more than sixty years ago, Inuit peoples across the Arctic are struggling to maintain their way of life. The hurdles they must overcome to continue on their way include a declining resource base that results from an extraction-based economy, and the environmentalist opponents of these extractive industries who want to "save the whales". This book is the story of the Inuit and whaling told in their words. The authors include an international interdisciplinary team brought together by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

This book is ground-breaking ethnography that is put together by the people it is about. It is presented for the purpose of opening dialogue with those in far away places whose political priorities have consequences for Inuit peoples. It is a story of a region that spans three continents, and which is of growing importance to those of us who live in the south. No one interested in economic development of natural resources, whatever the point of view, can afford to ignore this book.

I continue to be fascinated by this modest-looking book, perhaps because it is where I discovered Milton Hindus. Half the essays concern Irving Babbitt, the literary critic and founder of American Humanism, while the other half address issues that preoccupied Babbitt, namely the condition of American democracy and literature's role in it.

Hindus gives some biographical info about Babbitt in "Masters of Modern French Criticism," also the title of Babbitt's critique of nineteenth-century French literary critics. Although Babbitt wrote this book in 1912, his method is just as applicable today, as Hindus points out, because of its attempt to restore the word "criticism" to its original meaning of judging literary works.

A scholar of the Sanskrit language, Babbitt had a lifelong interest in Buddhism. His translation of Buddha's Dhammapada was published posthumously. In Buddhism one can see principles Babbitt cherished: the inner check, the need for self-restraint and self conquest, the tending of one's own garden, the limiting of politics to its proper sphere, and the high value placed on modesty and humility.

Hindus, too, repeatedly demonstrates fine judgment that is grounded in humility. His recognition that Babbitt has a feeling for the "main tendency" of his time is a way of giving the critic the benefit of the doubt. That is, although one might put Babbitt and Rousseau on opposite sides of the bookshelf, each gets his due for providing what each thought his age demanded. Why choose between them when each had something to offer? As Hindus puts it, we Americans are a "both-and" culture rather than "either or."

In addition to being a charitable literary critic, and an acute reader of Babbitt, Hindus is a keen observer of democracy who reads the Federalist Papers every year. The inner check praised by Babbitt has its analogue in the American institutions analyzed in the Federalist Papers, such as the separation of powers among the three branches of government.

I found new respect for President Bush after reading the essay "Autobiographies of Van Buren, Reagan, and Bush" and still find it after repeated readings. Rivals depicted Bush as a preppie weakling, summing up their disgust by the childish repetition of his name, George Herbert Walker Bush. For his part, Hindus finds it rather charming to have had a president named after the seventeenth-century poet, George Herbert, himself one of history's most decent men. Hindus calls Bush an ordinary man of extraordinary sensitivities; Reagan he considers equally decent and every bit as clever as his detractors, though less intellectually pretentious. Both knew not to take themselves too seriously. Equally remarkable is the thread that Hindus traces from of an episode in Van Buren's autobiography, through Ezra Pound's depiction of it in the Cantos, to its modern analogue in the Bush autobiography. All three presidents -- Van Buren, Bush, Reagan -- are praised for the virtues of humility and restraint.

Surely this is criticism of the highest order: readable, generous, and measured, of the sort I would like to accomplish myself someday. I will miss the contributions of Milton Hindus, who died a few years ago without fanfare. I hope that others will discover his work.

God will speak to you through your own life as you read this book from the beginning to the end. If you skip around you might not hear Him clearly, which may cause you to miss His full message to you. This book will push you into reliving your own personal search for the truth about God. If you're still shaky about what you believe about God, this book will help you settle your issues/doubts about His existence. However, get ready to relive certain pieces of your life, good or bad. Don't worry if old wounds are opened because the book provides a remedy that'll help them to close and heal. Go ahead, give it a try. You have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose by reading this book.

If you're not sure that "polygamophile" is a word, don't worry - neither am I. Miller seems to invent this word to describe John Milton, and puts his favourable views on polygamy and divorce down to unhappy experiences of marriage. Milton, of course, would probably put them down to an unbiased search for truth. Miller does an excellent job of tracking down Milton's views on polygamy in his mainstream work. This takes some doing, as they were not generally known about until his treatise on Christian Doctrine was unearthed 150 years after his death, but about half this book is made up of endnotes - it does not lack evidence for its comments. Milton is not the only person seen to have an interested in polygamy, but you'll have to search out a copy of the book to find the rest. Even for the material on Milton alone, it will be worth it.

Any Milton fan will greatly appreciate phillip's in depth and detailed analysis of Milton's work. This book could not have been written more solid, or have explored Milton more precisely!

Not slick and trendy, but a good, solid introduction, as long as you don't need the latest Milton scholarship.
Nicolson helped me get clear on what Milton might have meant in each major scene, book by book.