Milton's Strenuous Liberty

Tobias Gregory (Catholic University of America, Washington DC)

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English

Cambridge University Press
06 November 2025

Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800; Literary studies: poetry & poets; Religion & politics; Christian Churches & denominations; Human rights

What motivated John Milton? Amidst his shifting concerns, which ones moved him most deeply? These are the animating questions of Milton's Strenuous Liberty. Tobias Gregory advances a new paradigm for Milton's priorities as a heterodox, godly, lay intellectual, arguing that, at the heart of Milton's public agenda from the early 1640s to the end of his life, there lay a concern to maximize liberty of conscience. In contrast to the republican Milton prevalent in recent scholarship, Gregory presents an anticlerical Milton whose real radicalism lay in his individualistic view of the church. Milton emerges in this study as an eloquent spokesman for unpopular positions, and as a poet who, in his late masterpieces, arrived at a broader perspective on the Puritan revolution, though without ever disavowing it as a dearly-held cause.

By: Tobias Gregory (Catholic University of America Washington DC)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 501g
ISBN: 9781009561105
ISBN 10: 1009561103
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 06 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction; 1. Milton's anticlericalism, part 1; 2. Milton's anticlericalism, part 2; 3. How Milton defined heresy and why; 4. Milton and the protectorate: another look at the evidence; 5. How the trouble starts in paradise lost; 6. Paradise regained and the rejection of the world; 7. The political messages of Samson Agonistes; Bibliography; Index.

Tobias Gregory is Associate Professor of English at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He is the author of From Many Gods to One: Divine Action in Renaissance Epic (2006), and a contributor to the London Review of Books.

Reviews for Milton's Strenuous Liberty

'An illuminating new take on “liberty of conscience” that focuses on duties and moral rights of non-clerical Christians. Analyzing local rhetorical and historical circumstances rather than seeking systematic coherence, Gregory provides new readings of Milton's poetry and prose and offers new understandings of heresy and liberty in his thought.' Lauren Shohet, Professor of English, Villanova University 'Milton's Strenuous Liberty lays out the continuities binding Milton's prose tracts to his mature poetry, yet without either inflating Milton's tactical polemics into republican theorizing or reducing to topical sniping the poems' vision of the abiding principles for which the ""war-faring Christian"" fights. This is a brilliant, nuanced study. It is also extraordinarily well-written.' Debora Shuger, Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA