The ten essays in this volume are among the most insightful studies of Milton's writings, both poetry and prose. Two essays engage the topic of silence, first in Comus, then in Paradise Regained, thereby interrelating two works often perceived as diverse.Silence gives way to the sounds of music in another essay, which examines the cultural contexts of seventeenth-century England, is a frame of reference for understanding Milton's attack on polyphony in Paradise Lost. Other essays on Milton's epic study the theological and liturgical implications of transubstantiation: Christianity's Jewish legacy, with particular reference to theodicy; and Carlotta Petrina's illustrations of Eve's so-called "metaphysical tears", that dramatize the impact of guilt, grief, and expiation on human nature.
