Description

John Milton's Latin Defences are landmark texts in the history of English Civil War and Interregnum polemics. Part of Oxford University Press's authoritative Complete Works of John Milton, this is the first edition of the Latin Defences to be edited to modern standards of scholarship, together with new translations into English which feature in easy to read facing pages. It offers a rich exploration of the publishing history of these works and contextualises them in the political exchanges and republican thought of the mid-seventeenth century. Departing from previous editors, Joad Raymond Wren bases his edition of the first and most significant Defence, Pro populo Anglicano defensio, on its earliest publication, capturing anew its revolutionary freshness and enthusiasm. The annotations are especially alert to Milton's controversial engagement with the writings of his adversaries and to his careful alignment of his tracts with the diplomatic objectives of the republican governments of the 1650s.