Poetics of lament: John Milton and the influence of Euripides (Greece)

Beginning with his purchase of the Geneva Euripides in 1634, John Milton's exhaustive study and deployment of the Greek poet reveals the progressive development of his intellectual and imaginative life from the early lyric phase through the polemical prose of the revolutionary years. This engagement culminates in his tragedy Samson Agonistes, in which the concentration of Euripidean influence is finally to be measured. Too often exempted from considerations of influence, Euripides was, in extraordinarily subtle yet powerful ways, a very great and radical influence on John Milton. This dissertation argues that the critically underexamined Euripidean context allows us to observe from a new perspective an increasingly radical Milton who, rather than promulgating codified traditions and belief systems, consistently challenges and refines them.