Early Modern Nationalism and Milton's England

David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens, eds, Early Modern Nationalism and Milton's England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). xii+470pp. ISBN 978 0 8020 8935 9.As suggested by its title, this collection of fourteen essays offers a rich historical and theoretical exploration of nationalism during the lengthy, revolutionary period in which Milton wrote and published his poetry and prose. Milton wrote at a time when, to cite Benedict Anderson, 'the automatic legitimacy of sacral monarchy began its slow decline in Western Europe'.1 'In 1649', Anderson adds, 'Charles Stuart was beheaded in the first of the modern world's revolutions, and during the 1650s one of the most important European states was ruled by a plebeian Protector rather than a king'.2 The now-familiar narrative, perhaps most eloquently expressed by Richard Helgerson (to whom this volume is dedicated), is that in the wake of monarchy's decline national communities came to be imagined otherwise: as 'boundary-oriented and horizontal' rather than 'centripetal and hierarchical'.3 Anderson, however, locates the rise of nationalism not in the seventeenth century but the eighteenth, when religious modes of thought began to wane. This volume, heavily indebted to Anderson, but also to Helgerson's groundbreaking work on the Elizabethan writing of England, firmly situates the rise of nationalism in an earlier period; moreover, it places 'John Milton, Englishman' at the centre of seventeenth-century articulations of the nation. Loewenstein's essay, for example, challenges Anderson's belief that nationalism necessarily surfaces as religious modes of thought decline. For Loewenstein, 'a newly emergent Protestant nationalism', not to mention 'proto-republican nationalism' (p. 30), provides the context for 'the ways in which Milton attempted to imagine, forge, and reconstruct the godly nation' (pp. 26, 27). Andrew Escobedo, too, takes aim at Anderson's separation of nationalism and religious modes of thought, arguing that 'Milton defines the nation as an intimate, spiritual community in opposition to the coercive visibility of the state' (p. 192). Again and again, these essays reveal just how integral religious discourse is to early modern nationalism. Together, these essays offer new and fresh perspectives on not just Milton and his cultural moment but also nationalism and national identity.Whilst Milton is the centrepiece, there is ample space in 'Milton's England' for other contemporary voices as well as later seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century writers, and this inclusion of other writers gives the volume an impressive and productive range. Warren Cherniak's essay, for example, examines Milton's writing on Cromwell alongside Marvell's and Waller's, and it also cites fellow republicans, including Nedham, Harrington and Sexby. John Kerrigan's essay situates the writings of both Milton and Marvell within a wide political framework that includes Scotland and Ireland as well as the Netherlands; Achsah Guibbory's attention to fast sermons explores the ways in which early modern conceptions of the English nation drew upon the Old Testament; Victoria Kahn's examination of Milton's 'disappointed nationalism' incorporates Filmer and Grotius; Mary Nyquist divides her essay between Milton and Locke; and Nicholas von Maltzahn's consideration of the national reception of Milton takes the reader beyond the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth. One of this volume's many strengths, therefore, is its placement of Milton amongst other contemporary writers and other key discourses - civic, ethnic, literary, political, religious - in the period. The result is a volume that situates the rise of early modern nationalism in an emergent, energetic and contested public sphere.Another of this volume's strengths is its refusal to pigeonhole Milton's nationalism. As stated, many of the contributors are informed by Anderson's reflections on nationalism. Some, however, take issue with the notion that the seventeenth century gave rise to nationalism as we understand that term. …

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