Single imperfection

"This book takes a fresh look at John Milton's major poems - Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes and Paradise Regained - and a few of the minor ones in light of a new analysis of Milton's famous tracts on divorce. Luxon contends that Milton's work is best understood as part of a major cultural project in which Milton assumed a leading role - the redefinition of Protestant marriage as a heteroerotic version of classical friendship, originally a homoerotic cultural practice." "Single Imperfection traces the path of friendship theory through Milton's epistolary friendship with Charles Diodati, his elegies, his divorce pamphlets, and his major poems. The book will prompt even more reinterpretations of Milton's poetry in an age that is anxiously redefining marriage once again."--Jacket.