Stephen B. Dobranski

"The past is a foreign country," according to novelist L.P. Hartley: "They do things differently there." What has gone before may be untouchable, whether on the grand scale of history or the finer focus of our personal lives, but that never saves the past from endless analysis, critique and re-definition. This is doubly true when it comes to the famous figures of our cultural ancestry, and it can be surprising or even shocking when someone presents a different view on a historical figure, especially an author. In the case of the poet Milton, we are often faced with the image of the solitary writer, toiling away in his home, forsaking all to his higher purpose. Yet it is Stephen B. Dobranski's assertion, in "Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade," that while we have gained this impression by focusing on the content of Milton's poetry, new and contrary revelations are to be found in the study of his work's physical preparation and publication.

Dobranski believes that "scholars have, for the most part, ignored the material circumstances of Milton's writing and publishing." He seeks to redress the balance by examining several prominent Miltonian works and posing three questions: firstly, what role, if any, did Milton play in publication of his works? Second, what can be learned by examining Milton's practices in writing and publication? And last, how is the meaning of Milton's works affected by their physical creation? Dobranski rejects the model of Milton as the isolated artist, and he attempts to prove sufficient evidence for a social, engaged individual.

Dobranski's book is an engaging and immensely readable volume. He arranges his subjects of examination clearly within separate chapters, and uses a conversational tone throughout most of the narrative, which is helpful when faced with the variety of citations and excerpts, often pure minutiae, that he has scattered within the text. He also does a fine job of answering at least two of his questions: by examining Milton's writing and publishing practices, we can find an increased appreciation of the author not just as an artist, but as a businessman capable of advertising himself to his public. Milton would not have presented himself as an isolated, individualistic artist if it did not benefit his image. However, it is also useful to see how the collaborative nature of publishing and printing in the seventeenth century would have forced Milton to be at least a somewhat more social animal. Dobranski presents both of these ideas clearly and offers an impressively large amount of support for his arguments. However, his first question cannot be answered: we do not know what role Milton played in the production of his texts. Like Dobranski, we can merely speculate; in doing so, at least, we can see a version of the author at odds with is stereotypical image, and work to rectify the two hypothetical versions of Milton into a more satisfying whole. Dobranski's own speculations are no more damaging than those depicting the isolated, individualist Milton, and go some way further to depicting the poet as a living, breathing person: someone who lived, with an ego, ideals, and many contradictions, as opposed to a mere icon in an ivory tower.… (mehr)