Four hundred years after his birth, John Milton remains one of the greatest and most controversial figures in English literature. The Oxford Handbook of Milton is a comprehensive guide to the state of Milton studies in the early twenty-first century, bringing together an international team of thirty-five leading scholars in one volume. The rise of critical interest in Milton's political and religious ideas is the most striking aspect of Milton studies in recent times, a consequence in great part of the increasingly fluid relations between literary and historical study. The Oxford Handbook both embodies the interest in Milton's political and religious contexts in the last generation and seeks to inaugurate a new phase in Milton studies through closer integration of the poetry and prose. There are eight essays on various aspects of Paradise Lost, ranging from its classical background and poetic form to its heretical theology and representation of God. There are sections devoted both to the shorter poems, including 'Lycidas' and Comus, and the final poems, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. There are also three sections on Milton's prose: the early controversial works on church government, divorce, and toleration, including Areopagitica; the regicide and republican prose of 1649-1660, the period during which he served as the chief propagandist for the English Commonwealth and Cromwell's Protectorate, and the various writings on education, history, and theology. The opening essays explore what we know about Milton's biography and what it might tell us; the final essays offer interpretations of aspects of Milton's massive influence on later writers, including the Romantic poets.

The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry offers an authorative collection of original essays and is an essential resource for those interested in Victorian poetry and poetics.

In recent decades, reception history has become an increasingly important and controversial topic of discussion in biblical studies. Rather than attempting to recover the original meaning of biblical texts, reception history focuses on exploring the history of interpretation. In doing so it locates the dominant historical-critical scholarly paradigm within the history of interpretation, rather than over and above it. At the same time, the breadth of material and hermeneutical issues that reception history engages with questions any narrow understanding of the history of the Bible and its effects on faith communities. The challenge that reception history faces is to explore tradition without either reducing its meaning to what faith communities think is important, or merely offering anthologies of interesting historical interpretations. This major new handbook addresses these matters by presenting reception history as an enterprise (not a method) that questions and understands tradition afresh. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible consciously allows for the interplay of the traditional and the new through a two-part structure. Part I comprises a set of essays surveying the outline, form, and content of twelve key biblical books that have been influential in the history of interpretation. Part II offers a series of in-depth case studies of the interpretation of particular key biblical passages or books with due regard for the specificity of their social, cultural or aesthetic context. These case studies span two millennia of interpretation by readers with widely differing perspectives. Some are at the level of a group response (from Gnostic readings of Genesis, to Post-Holocaust Jewish interpretations of Job); others examine individual approaches to texts (such as Augustine and Pelagius on Romans, or Gandhi on the Sermon on the Mount). Several chapters examine historical moments, such as the 1860 debate over Genesis and evolution, while others look to wider themes such as non-violence or millenarianism. Further chapters study in detail the works of popular figures who have used the Bible to provide inspiration for their creativity, from Dante and Handel, to Bob Dylan and Dan Brown.

Premodern critical race studies, long intertwined with Shakespeare studies, has broadened our understanding of the definitions and discourse of race and racism to include not only phenotype, but also religious and political identity, regional, national, and linguistic difference, and systems of differentiation based upon culture and custom. Replete with fresh readings of the plays and poems, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race brings together some of the most important scholars thinking about the subject today. The volume offers a thorough overview of the most significant theoretical and methodological paradigms such as critical race theory, feminist, and postcolonial studies; a dynamic look at intersections of race with queer, trans, disability, and indigenous studies; and a vibrant array of new approaches from ecocriticism, to animality, and human rights, from book history, to scholarly editing, and repertory studies; and an exploration of Shakespeare and race in our contemporary moment through discussions of political activism, pedagogy, visual arts, film, and theatre. Woven through the collection are the voices of practicing theatre professionals who have grappled with the challenges of race and racism both in performance and in the profession itself.

The animal kingdom has been celebrated in literature with an enthusiasm equalled only by our insatiable curiosity about the creatures with whom we share this planet. From Emily Dickinson's ode to the spider to Ogden Nash's musings on the lowly caterpillar, from Darwin's observations to Beatrix Potter's much-loved tales, we are enchanted by naturalists, explorers, philosophers, poets, and writers of all stripes. The Oxford Book of Creatures brings together all of these observers to include the work of writers ranging from Aristotle to Orwell, Montaigne to Johnson, May Sarton to Theodore Roethke, Primo Levi to J. R. R. Tolkien, all rejoicing in the life that surrounds us. Here are works from across cultures and time periods, musings on animals both real and imagined. Arranged thematically, The Oxford Book of Creatures embraces the function and beauty of the design and movement of creatures, their various habitats, mating and rearing of young, work (both for their own communities and when harnessed to human purposes), and their roles as predator and prey; extinct species are included, as are fabulous or invented ones. About 250 creatures, from the least significant to the most majestic, can be found, fish, birds, mammals, insects: fleas and centipedes, pigs and cows, horses and elephants, unicorns and salamanders, kraken and leviathans crowd these pages. We react to animals with a variety of emotions: love, fear, disgust, and amazement. We domesticate them, befriend them, hunt them, and eat them, and above all, as this absorbing anthology shows, observe them with fascination and respect.

Collects descriptions of dreams as recorded by numerous different authors.