Word: miltonized
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...seminal PBS series Free to Choose, which aired in 1980 and may have helped set the mood for Reagan's victory, economist Milton Friedman argued that economic freedom was just as important as all those freedoms written into the Bill of Rights. This went on to become perhaps the most consistent theme of the Reagan economic era: giving Americans the freedom to succeed or fail on their own economically was a good thing. And it is probably a good thing. But not an unmitigated good. Economic security matters to Americans too. And finding ways to offer more...
...John Milton turns 400 this year, but of course the birthday doesn't matter unless Milton does. Three new scholarly biographies and an exhibit at the New York Public Library may comfort the faithful, but they won't convert anyone who hasn't already caught the Milton bug. Nigel Smith wants to engender a fandemic. In a new book, Is Milton Better Than Shakespeare?, he sets out to convince "as general a public as possible" that Milton is the "more salient and important" of these literary giants...
...more closely resembles the World Wrestling Federation on a bad day. Shakespeare, the reigning champion, the headline attraction designed to draw in the punters, shows up for the photographers but never enters the ring. After the title and the first page, he almost entirely disappears, leaving us alone with Milton and his publicist Smith...
...Milton is the better poet, Smith contends, because he "places liberty at the center of his vision" (applause from the right), and because he "is explicitly dedicated to positive transformation in all spheres of human activity" (applause from the left). And, for good measure, he is "an indubitably ecological poet" - though this is the only sentence Smith devotes to that subject...
...Smith wisely lets Milton take the stand in his own defense. Ninety-nine extended quotations of Milton's poetry and prose account for 30% of the main body of the book. Many shorter passages are incorporated into paragraphs of Smith's own prose, so (if we don't count the index, bibliography and other scholarly packaging) maybe 40% of the words here are Milton's. Perusing these passages, it's easy to see why most of America's Founding Fathers "read Milton and revered him" - and even easier to understand why, for at least two centuries, Paradise Lost was widely...