This study on John Milton's scholarship aims to demonstrate the extent to which Milton's wrok reflects the dominant discourse of his age, preaching. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the pulpit consistently commanded greater audiences than did the stage and many of the era's great poets were also preachers. Milton himself argued that poetry can serve "beside the office of a pulpit" and prepared his life's work at the greatest English centre for formal homilectics of its time, Christ's College, Cambridge; yet this connection has been virtually ignored by scholars and critics in examining Milton's poetry and prose. The author challenges the longstanding assumption that Milton the poet paid no attention to the ministerial training of his past, and she demonstrates how he appropriated many structures from English preaching in his own work. Of the five sermon types first described by Hyperius, Milton favoured the unusual combination of correction and consolation favoured by his first Cambridge tutor. Milton's use of homiletics, as explained by the authro, may help to resolve many critical issues related to his owrk, in particular the last two books of "Paradise Lost", the whole of "Paradise Regained", and his prose commentaries. This text should be of interest to both literary scholars and scholars of church history and homiletics, "Milton and the Preaching Arts" also surveys sermons and sermon manuals, Bible commentaries and works of religious controversy on the issues of English church government and scriptual style.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Milton and "the Sacred Office of Speaking" Milton and the Ministry: The Textual, Biographical and Autobiographical Evidence Milton and the Ministry: The Contemporary Context Milton's Poetic Program and the Pulpit 2. Milton in the Context of Reformation Artes Praedicandi Faith and Practice: The Reformation Dichotomy Hyperius and Protestant Sermon Manuals Milton, Chappell, and the "Christ's College School" 3. The Poet as Polemicist Controversy and the Sermon Manuals Milton and Joseph Hall 4. Paradise Lost and the Sermon Types Correction and Consolation in Paradise Lost Angels as Preachers: Raphael Angels as Preachers: Michael 5. Using the Word and Defending the Word in Paradise Regained The Athens Temptation Contemporary Defenses of Scriptural Style Scriptural Defenses and Ministerial Heroes Notes Bibliography Index