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Poetry to save the nation: politics in the poems of John Milton
(2011) Kıraçlı, Ezgi
This thesis focuses on selected passages of John Milton's political poetry, and puts them in the context of his changing political views. The author traces the development of Milton?s ideas from the early work Lycidas, through poems like the Sonnet When the Assault was Intended to the City (No. VIII), which was written during the Civil War, and the Sonnet To the Lord General Cromwell (No. XVI), to his final works, like Samson Agonistes. In marking the development of political ideas in the poems, reference will also be made to prose works, like The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and the Defensio Secunda, which are the sources of our detailed knowledge of Milton?s politics. In many ways, what we find recorded in the poems is a series of disappointments: with Parliament, Cromwell, and the nation. The Introduction and Conclusion sections of the thesis ask the question of why Milton brought politics into his poetry so frequently. The thesis suggests that this was part of Milton's Puritan emphasis on working out his calling in his daily life and concerns.