"With the waning of interest in literature, is Shakespeare the only poet the public can still appreciate? John Milton, as this book makes clear, speaks more powerfully to the eternal questions and to the important concerns of our time. The Milton of this volume is an author for all Americans - conservative, liberal, radical - not only because he was a favorite of the founding fathers, his voice echoing through their texts and our very foundation, but also because his visionary writing embodies the aspirations that have guided Americans seeking ideals of ethical and spiritual perfection." "Nigel Smith makes a compelling case for Milton's relevance to our present situation. He shows how the seventeenth-century poet, while working to write the greatest heroic poem in the English language, also managed to theorize about religious, political, and civil liberty in ways that matters as much today as they did in puritan times."--BOOK JACKET.