ABSTRACT
The works of John Milton have not gone unnoticed in the Middle East. Louis Awad (1915-1990), one of the region’s most celebrated literary critics, wrote:
When we read Paradise Lost , we feel that Milton is a devout Muslim. This is refl ected in his rejection of Prelates and their mediation between God and His creatures. You also fi nd Milton as a lover of life on earth. He interprets the Bible in practical and personal ways. He advocates divorce and considers man superior to woman. He also hates the rituals of the church and the icons. He draws on the Old Testament, not the New Testament. For these reasons, I have already said that Milton was not a Christian, but rather a pious Muslim. 1
On the other hand, renowned columnist Raja Al-Naqqash (1934-2009), described Milton in a very different way:
There is another type of Western literature which supports the Jews; in fact, it supports Zionism and the establishment of Israel. This contradicts completely what we know about the views of Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and other great writers who triggered a strong attack on the dark, aggressive aspects of the Jewish character. There are other famous Western writers who had a different stance, and in their literature, supported the Zionist dream of establishing Israel on the Palestinian land. . . . These writers who support Zionism are, despite this, among the greatest Western authors and poets, and as a result, they wound the heart with their positive views of Zionism, and their inhumane support for its aggressive goals. . . . The English poet John Milton (1608-1674) says in his famous poem, Paradise Lost , that Israel will return. 2
The extravagant and divergent views of these two highly educated, respected, and award-winning members of Egyptian intellectual society indicate how contentious Milton’s works are in the Arab world. 3 Despite the intended
irony of the Coptic Awad’s claim that Milton is ‘a pious Muslim’, such a facetious analysis still refl ects that Milton potentially shares some common ground with several Islamic positions – though Awad’s view of what denotes pious Islam is not necessarily representative. Al-Naqqash’s argument, almost as far-fetched as Awad’s, though more serious and political, refl ects the prejudices and misconceptions which exist in this region about Milton and other writers. For instance, Dickens changed his anti-Semitic views later in his life, excising references to ‘the Jew’ in Oliver Twist some twenty years after its original publication (1838), and creating the likeable Jewish character of Mr Riah – whose name means ‘friend’ in Hebrew – in Our Mutual Friend (1865). And it has recently become clear that Oliver Cromwell, whom Milton supported politically, did not actively facilitate the return of the Jews into England in 1656 after their expulsion in 1290. 4 Al-Naqqash’s statement appears to be a constricted reading of the angel Michael’s phrase ‘Till Israel overcome’ ( PL 12.267). While this phrase does refer to ‘the children of Israel’ (Joshua 10.12), it does not represent Milton’s ideological position or denote Zionism as it may be understood today. It is part of Michael’s foretelling of the biblical account in which the nation of Israel defeats the Amorites. Moreover, in this line of Paradise Lost , the name ‘Israel’ refers specifi cally to the biblical fi gure of Jacob. 5
The divergent views of Awad and Al-Naqqash give an indication that the ambivalent reception of Milton is not exclusive to the Anglophone world. Also, despite the differences between the two critical perspectives, these opinions highlight the perhaps surprisingly prominent position held by Milton in the contemporary intellectual life of the Middle East. Arabs and Muslims are not alone, of course, in attempting to claim Milton as their own. Nineteenthcentury critic, R. W. Griswold, is one of numerous U.S. scholars who claim the poet for their country, stating that ‘Milton is more emphatically American than any author who has lived in the United States’. 6 And contrary to Al-Naqqash’s picture of the ‘Zionist Milton’, a recent study identified Milton as a key player in the history of anti-Semitism, claiming that Milton’s works condemned the doctrines, practices, and values of Judaism, unlike those of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, which critiqued individual Jewish characters as part of the prevailing ‘cultural myth’ of their contemporary society. 7 Clearly, readers and critics of Milton are hardly impartial or unpartisan in their discussion of his life and work. In recognition of such tendencies, reception studies like this attempt to identify, map, and explain the ways in which each generation of readers or interpreters, to a greater or lesser degree, constructs a portrait of the author in its own way.
