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Author Chapman, Alison A., author

Title Courts, jurisdictions, and law in John Milton and his contemporaries / Alison A. Chapman
Published Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2020
©2020

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Description 1 online resource (231 pages)
Contents Introduction -- Defending one's good name : free speech in the early prose -- Monstrous books : Areopagitica and the problem of libel -- Civil law and equity in the divorce tracts -- Defending Pro se defensio -- The tithes of war : paying God back in Paradise lost -- "Justice in thir own hands" : local courts in the Late Prose -- Afterword : Justice in the Columbia Manuscript
Summary "John Milton is well known as the poet of liberty and freedom. But his commitment to justice, which runs throughout his prose works, great and small, is often opaque to us when glimpsed at distance in the twenty-first century. Alison A. Chapman aims to provide literary scholars with a working knowledge of the multiple, jostling, real-world legal systems in conflict in seventeenth-century England, and to help us distinguish among Milton's use of the various legal systems and vocabularies of the time--natural versus positive law, for example, and the differences among canon, civil, and common jurisprudence, whichever system best suited Milton's purpose. Surveying the early and divorce tracts, late political tracts, and major prose works in comparison with the writings and cases of some of Milton's contemporaries (including George Herbert, John March, Ben Jonson, and John Bunyan), Chapman alerts us to the variety and nuance in Milton's juridical tool-kit and his subtle use of competing legal traditions in pursuit of justice"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on September 29, 2020)
Subject Milton, John, 1608-1674 -- Knowledge -- Law
SUBJECT Milton, John, 1608-1674 fast
Subject English literature -- 17th century -- History and criticism
Law in literature.
Law and literature -- England
English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
English literature
Law
Law and literature
Law in literature
England
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 022672932X
9780226729329