Suffering in Paradise: The Bubonic Plague in English Literary Studies from More to Milton

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In Suffering in Paradise, Totaro provides a unique and timely discussion of the bubonic plague as it shaped Literary Studies in England from 1500 through the first half of the eighteenth century. Within the experience and accounts of bubonic plague, men and women found their own understanding of the body, of the human relationship with nature, and of the degree to which they had faith in their nation and their God. An early modern writer’s reading of the plague shows us in detail what he or she believes to be the parameters within which life is lived. Focusing on the broadest of these parameters, Totaro examines hope and despair as displayed within a range of imaginary realms designed to include and control the bubonic plague. Each of the works in this study–Thomas More’s Utopia, William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis, Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost–provides literary and English answers that cohere in stunning form and resonate today.