John Milton: an annotated bibliography, 1968-1988

Abstract

Huckabay, Calvin and David V. Urban, comps, John Milton: An Annotated Bibliography, 1989-1999, ed. by David V. Urban and Paul J. Klemp (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2011). xv+488pp. ISBN 978 0 8207 0443 2.Compilers of annotated bibliographies can try to be comprehensive, or they can explain their boundaries of inquiry. They can attempt objectivity or announce their biases. But whatever the approach, their final product will fall short of full comprehensiveness, and will be colored, however faintly, by their perspectives and decisions. The wide variety of approaches to bibliography writing is evident in the very existence of bibliographies of bibliographies, an example of which we may find in a section of Calvin Huckabay, David Urban, and Paul Klemp's recent contribution to Milton studies. Within this treasure-house one may also find almost 500 hundred pages of meticulously compiled annotations of Milton scholarship covering the span of eleven years - an excellent example of the value of chasing the horizon of scholarly perfection.Roughly the size of its predecessor (John Milton: An Annotated Bibliography, 1968-1988, also published by Duquesne UP) and yet covering half the length of time, this bibliography represents not so much a growth spurt in Milton studies as it does an improvement in the quality and documentation of it. The volume enjoys the benefits of the experience of Huckabay, Klemp, and Duquesne University Press in similar projects, yet it is especially a labor of love from David Urban, who not only accepted the task of continuing the project at the passing of Huckabay in 2001, but also rechecked, revised, and lengthened those annotations Huckabay had begun. The result is a reference work that is similar to Huckabay's other Milton bibliographies in its attempted comprehensiveness and in avoiding passing judgment on the value of the works it annotates, and superior in its measure of success in achieving its goals through wealth of detail, uniformity among entries, and inclusion of useful quotations.David Urban tells his story in his 'Confessions of a Milton Bibliographer', reviewing the isolating and increasingly endangered task of writing a bibliography designed for print. He offers positive recommendations for the future of bibliography in Milton studies, suggesting collaboration, a greater online presence, and more frequent updating. He is aware that his project may be the last of dying breed: the first of his reflections is 'I am a dinosaur'. The pains once required to assemble a Milton concordance have been rendered obsolete with a good searchable online text; now more scholars have come to rely heavily on internet databases such as the MLA Bibliography to conduct research, even when the information provided in these databases can be relatively limited. Finding a clothbound annotated bibliography, after all, might require an inconvenient trip across the quad to a brick-and-mortar library. Why then is this a volume worth having on the shelf?First of all, it's designed to be useful. Impressive in its treatment of the mere eleven years of Milton studies it surveys, this hefty and sober book - and I've affectionately dubbed my copy 'Il Penseroso' - simplifies and expedites research for the Milton scholar. The organization of this volume is clear, sensible, and continuous with Huckabay's previous bibliographies. The annotations are divided into nine different categories: Bibliography; Biography; Editions; Translations; General Criticism and Miscellany; Criticism of Individual Works; Style and Versification; Criticism of Editions, Translations, and Illustrations; and lastly, Fame and Influence. By far the largest section is on criticism of individual works, and this section is divided into five subsections: Shorter Poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Prose Works. There are 2,411 entries, but some of these are duplicates under separate categories. An index nominum makes it simple not just to track down the work of particular scholars from the last decade of the twentieth century, but also to discover which historical figures were studied in light of Milton, from Addison to Zwingli. …