<i>Milton’s Modernities: Poetry, Philosophy, and History from the Seventeenth Century to the Present</i>. Edited by Feisal G. Mohamed and Patrick Fadely. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2017. Pp. ix+364.

The most impressive essays in Milton’s Modernities are those that discuss Milton in relation to philosophy. The philosophical thrust of the volume enables Sharon Achinstein in her afterword to laud it for “enabling a philosophical turn in Milton studies” (151). That is an overstatement. Milton studies took “a philosophical turn” three decades ago with Stephen Fallon’s Milton among the Philosophers (1991). Budick’s essay on Milton and Kant in the present volume builds on his 2010 book on the same subject, so the six philosophical essays hardly signal a new direction in Milton criticism, but all make valuable contributions to a well-established subfield. Three stand out: Jessie Hock on Lucretian moral philosophy in Paradise Lost, Christopher Kendrick on Spinoza’s monism, and Sanford Budick on Kant’s repeated use of a dozen lines from Paradise Lost. Since space is limited, I shall concentrate on the essays by Hock and Budick. As Hock notes, Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011) has popularized the idea that De rerum natura was “a veritable toolbox of modernity: its atoms the seeds of modernity’s scientific practice, its clinamen (the atom’s swerve) modernity’s turn away from religion” (67). Hock does not refute Greenblatt’s thesis, but she moves beyond it by attending to “a neglected Lucretian site in Paradise Lost”: Epicurean moral philosophy. Previous commentators have focused on the Lucretius’s spacey atomist materialism. Hock turns instead to “Epicurean ataraxia, in which happiness is achieved through a complete independence of divine control” (68). She argues that Satan’s boast that the mind is its own place throws “into relief the Christian ethics of a ‘paradise within’” (67). Where Adam’s inner calm comes from making peace with God, Satan’s ataraxia is an attempt to find peace apart from God. The attempt is doomed, but it is modern in spirit and this helps to explain Satan’s appeal to modern readers. Hock is evasive on the important question of whether Satan “misunderstands, or fails at, ataraxia” (75). It matters which it is. If Satan “misunderstands” Epicurus, then Milton might respect the philosophy he misunderstands, but if ataraxia itself “fails,” it is presumably because Milton sees it is vain wisdom and false philosophy. Hock may also have attached the right philosophy to the wrong devil. Satan is arguably more Stoic than Epicurean. True, his question “Lives there who loves his pain?” (4.888) is Epicurean, but Satan when he utters these words is lying to Gabriel about his motive for fleeing hell. A better candidate for Epicurean philosophy in Paradise Lost is Belial, who sincerely wishes to be “void of pain” (2.219). Belial’s famous lines about his “thoughts that wander through Eternity” (2.148) are a direct translation of Lucretius’s tribute to Epicurus (De rerum natura 1.72–76). It is likely that Milton put Lucretius’s words in Belial’s mouth in order to discredit both Belial and Epicureanism, but the words retain their dignity and have won more than one critic to speak out in Belial’s defence. Hock writes magnificently about Epicurus, Lucretius, and ataraxia, but I should like to know how Belial fits into her argument. The essay is part of a forthcoming book, so perhaps we shall learn in due course.

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