Journal article
"EXACTEST PROPORTION": THE ICONOCLASTIC AND CONSTITUTIVE POWERS OF METAPHOR IN MILTON'S PROSE TRACTS
ELH, Vol.76(2), pp.399-417
07/01/2009
DOI: 10.1353/elh.0.0045
Abstract
3 I. THE PROBLEM WITH RECONFIGURING THE STATE IN PLAIN ENGLISH The Tenure (1649) was one of tens of thousands of political pamphlets and books that poured from the presses after censorship was lifted in 1640-1641 and that continued to flood the country through the years of the revolution and the execution of Charles Stuart.4 From at least the moment that the Parliamentary forces took the field to fight against the king in the name of King and Parliament it was clear that this tremendous struggle to control the political discourse would leave neither the state's power structure, nor the language used to describe it, unchanged.5 By 1652, Sir Robert Filmer could complain with complete validity, in his critique of Milton's regicide tracts, that the most basic terminology of the state was now very much up in the air: Because while Milton undoubtedly argues for the transparency of metaphor in The Tenure, he is also engaged here and elsewhere in the sometimes-paradoxical case against interpretative inconstancy.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- "EXACTEST PROPORTION": THE ICONOCLASTIC AND CONSTITUTIVE POWERS OF METAPHOR IN MILTON'S PROSE TRACTS
- Creators
- Blaine Greteman
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- ELH, Vol.76(2), pp.399-417
- Publisher
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- DOI
- 10.1353/elh.0.0045
- ISSN
- 0013-8304
- eISSN
- 1080-6547
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/01/2009
- Academic Unit
- English; University College Courses
- Record Identifier
- 9984398051902771
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