TY - BOOK AU - Shoulson,Jeffrey TI - Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, and Christianity SN - 9780231123297 AV - PR3592.R4 S45 U1 - 821.4821/.4 PY - 2001///] CY - New York, NY : PB - Columbia University Press, KW - Christianity and other religions KW - Judaism KW - History KW - 17th century KW - Hebrew literature KW - Appreciation KW - England KW - Hellenism KW - Jewish learning and scholarship KW - Judaism in literature KW - Relations KW - Christianity KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; A Note on the Texts --; Introduction: Hebraism and Literary History --; 1. Diaspora and Restoration --; 2. "Taking Sanctuary Among the Jews": Milton and the Form of Jewish Precedent --; 3. The Poetics of Accommodation: Theodicy and the Language of Kingship --; 4. Imagining Desire: Divine and Human Creativity --; 5. "So Shall the World Go On": Martyrdom, Interpretation, and History --; Epilogue: Toward Interpreting the Hebraism of Samson Agonistes --; Notes --; Selected Bibliography --; Index; restricted access; Issued also in print N2 - Taking as its starting point the long-standing characterization of Milton as a "Hebraic" writer, Milton and the Rabbis probes the limits of the relationship between the seventeenth-century English poet and polemicist and his Jewish antecedents. Shoulson's analysis moves back and forth between Milton's writings and Jewish writings of the first five centuries of the Common Era, collectively known as midrash. In exploring the historical and literary implications of these connections, Shoulson shows how Milton's text can inform a more nuanced reading of midrash just as midrash can offer new insights into Paradise Lost.Shoulson is unconvinced of a direct link between a specific collection of rabbinic writings and Milton's works. He argues that many of Milton's poetic ideas that parallel midrash are likely to have entered Christian discourse not only through early modern Christian Hebraicists but also through Protestant writers and preachers without special knowledge of Hebrew. At the heart of Shoulson's inquiry lies a fundamental question: When is an idea, a theme, or an emphasis distinctively Judaic or Hebraic and when is it Christian? The difficulty in answering such questions reveals and highlights the fluid interaction between ostensibly Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian modes of thought not only during the early modern period but also early in time when rabbinic Judaism and Christianity began UR - https://doi.org/10.7312/shou12328 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780231506397 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780231506397/original ER -