Milton and the Climate of Reading: Essays by Balachandra Rajan

Johnathan H. Pope is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at
McMaster University.

Milton and the Climates of Reading is a multi-layered text that, at its
core, engages in a project that transcends simply illustrating one
critic’s perspective on a given writer. Edited and arranged by
Elizabeth Sauer, the book contains excerpts from Rajan’s work on
Milton over the past 30 years, drawing from both published and
unpublished texts to form nine short chapters.

Sauer’s introduction and Joseph A. Wittreich’s afterword also seek
to parallel Rajan and Milton in order to demonstrate the mutability of
the author. Rajan’s work refuses to simplify Milton by forcing him
into a particular category or by attempting to force his entire body of
work to conform to a single, unified set of opinions. “Even the
supreme poet may be in dialogue with his oeuvre,” Rajan writes.
Contradictions are allowed to breathe and the possibilities of
Milton’s work are opened up as a result.

In much the same way, Milton and the Climates of Reading demonstrates
Rajan’s dialogue with his own work. As a Milton scholar for 60 years,
Rajan has witnessed many fluctuations in the field of literary studies,
and the essays collected here reflect this perspective, moving from
traditional, contextual readings to poststructural and postcolonial
methodologies. Through this process, Sauer and Rajan illuminate a
dialectic of reading—the necessary interaction between author, text,
and reader, as well as intersecting historical and cultural
contexts—that allows for a seemingly infinite number of responses.

Rajan’s desire to emphasize Milton’s contemporary relevance is
evident throughout and is assisted by the fact that these essays often
move beyond Milton himself to offer insightful comments about literature
and reading in general. In doing so, they guarantee this lucid and
thought-provoking collection a place beyond the specialist’s
bookshelf.