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Milton's "Covering Cherub": The Influence Of Stanley Fish's Surprised By Sin On Twentieth-Century Milton Criticism, Thomas Thoits
Milton's "Covering Cherub": The Influence Of Stanley Fish's Surprised By Sin On Twentieth-Century Milton Criticism, Thomas Thoits
LSU Master's Theses
During a time when ideological debates between Milton critics remained largely unresolved, Stanley Fish reconciled both sides of the “Milton Controversy” with Surprised by Sin, positing a theoretically sophisticated method that centers the poem’s meaning in the reader’s experience. Christian and non-Christian critics became enfranchised in critical debate since their reactions, according to Fish, were valid and intended by Milton. Borrowing his intentionalist approach from A.J.A. Waldock, Fish asserts his version of both author and text while implicitly employing a radically subjective hermeneutics. Fish focuses on the multiple and contradictory linguistic meanings within Paradise Lost, locating the source of these …