Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, & Christianity.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-APR-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Modern Humanities Research Association

Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, & Christianity. By JEFFREY S. SHOULSON. New York: Columbia University Press. 2001. xii+340 pp. $52.50; 35.50 [pounds sterling] (pbk $19.50; 13.50 [pounds sterling]). ISBN 0-231-12328-0 (pbk 0-231-12329-9).

Jeffrey S. Shoulson's Milton and the Rabbis is a book of the first importance, with reserves of learning deep in the separate fields of seventeenth-century English literature and rabbinic hermeneutics. Drawing analogies between the rabbis' radical revision of Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple and Milton's post-Restoration refashioning of religion and nation, Shoulson skilfully interweaves mutually enriching Miltonic and midrashic texts, enabling each of them to reveal sometimes profound internal divisions. At the same time, he allows the reader of Milton to imagine ways of bridging the gap between Judaism...

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