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In The Reason of Church Government, a thirty-three-year-old John Milton writes of his hope "that by labour and intent study...joyn'd with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die." Even the young Milton, committed as he was to achieving a place in the annals of poetic history, might have been surprised by the strenuous efforts in "aftertimes" to keep his legacy alive. The fifteen essays that comprise this collection focus, from varied perspectives, on Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and A Mask, poems that have attracted sustained critical attention. Several consider shorter poems, such as the Nativity Ode, "The Passion," "Upon the Circumcision," and "Sonnet 14." Some pursue issues of sources, authorship, and audience, while still others probe extant biographical records or reflect on the author as biographical subject. Diverse though they are in subject matter, approaches, and emphases, all demonstrate how Milton scholarship in the twenty-first century continues to be committed to "not willingly let[ting]" Milton's literary legacy "die." Kristin A.Pruitt is Professor of English and dean of the School of Arts at Christian Brothers University. Charles W. Durham is professor emeritus of English at Middle Tennessee State University, and is president of the Milton Society of America.
