Milton and the Natural World

Milton and the Natural World overturns prevailing critical assumptions by offering a fresh view of Paradise Lost, in which the representation of Eden's plants and animals is shown to be fully cognizant of the century's new, scientific natural history. The fabulous lore of the old science is wittily debunked, and the poem embraces new imaginative and symbolic possibilities for depicting the natural world, suggested by the speculations of Milton's scientific contemporaries including Robert Boyle, Thomas Browne and John Evelyn. Karen Edwards argues that Milton has represented the natural world in Paradise Lost, with its flowers and trees, insects and beasts, as a text alive with meaning and worthy of close reading.

• Brings together poetic reading and the history of science, illuminating Milton's writing with an understanding of the contemporary scientific context, with an original emphasis on natural history
• Considers poetic representation of the natural world in relation to visual depictions in the natural histories of the time, with 18 illustrations from 17th-century texts
• Aligns the methods of 17th-century science - a new way of knowing the world - with those of reading; Milton's Eden, like the poem itself, becomes a text full of meaning, worthy of close reading