| Milton and the Revolutionary Reader Subjects: Milton John 1608–1674 -- Political and social views; Great Britain -- History -- Puritan Revolution 1642–1660 -- Literature and the revolution; Great Britain -- History -- Puritan Revolution 1642–1660 -- Pamphlets; Politics and literature -- Great Bri; The English Revolution was a revolution in reading, with over 22,000 pamphlets exploding from the presses between 1640 and 1661. What this phenomenon meant to the political life of the nation is the subject of Sharon Achinsteins book. Considering a wide range of writers, from John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Lilburne, John Cleveland, and William Prynne to a host of anonymous scribblers of every political stripe, Achinstein shows how the unprecedented outpouring of opinion in mid-seventeenth-century England created a new class of activist readers and thus helped to bring about a revolution in the form and content of political debate. By giving particular attention to Miltons participation in this burst of publishing, she challenges critics to look at his literary practices as constitutive of the political culture of his age. |