Persona and decorum in Milton's prose

by Reuben Sanchez

In this study, Reuben Sanchez, Jr. examines the kinds of persona and decorum strategies Milton uses in his prose. Preliminary discussion includes the background of the prophetic Milton in both the poetry and the prose, the significance of "history" and "biography" to a study of the prose, and the description of the protean nature of the terms persona and decorum during the Renaissance. Although recent schools of literary criticism have tended to remove the author from the text, thereby calling into question the value of persona criticism, Sanchez points out that Milton himself argues against the separation of author from persona and against the subordination of author to persona. As literary critic and dramatist in the preface to Samson Agonistes, as bard in Paradise Lost, as orator in Areopagitica, as autobiographer in the prologue to Book II of The Reason of Church Government, as "Author" of Lycidas distinguishing himself in the coda from "th' uncouth swain" - the author inside each