Milton and the Spiritual Reader considers how John Milton's later works demonstrate the intensive struggle of spiritual reading. Milton presents his own rigorous process of reading in order to instruct his readers how to advance their spiritual knowledge. Recent studies of Milton's readers neglect this spiritual dimension and focus on politics. Since Milton considers the individual soul at least as important as the body politic, Ainsworth focuses on uncovering the spiritual characteristics of the reader Milton tries to shape through his texts. He also examines Milton's reading practices without postulating the existence of some ideal or universal reader, and without assuming a gullible or easily manipulated reader. Milton does not simply hope for a fit audience, but writes to nurture fit readers. His works offer models of strenuous and suspicious close reading, subjecting all authors except God to the utmost of scrutiny. Milton presents Biblical interpretation as an interior struggle, a contention not between reader and text, but within that reader's individual understanding of scripture. Ainsworth's study rethinks the basic relationship between reading and religion in seventeenth-century England, and concludes that for Milton and his contemporaries, distinguishing divine truths in worldly texts required a spiritually guided form of close reading.

Milton, Music and Literary Interpretation: Reading through the Spirit constructs a musical methodology for interpreting literary text drawn out of John Milton's poetry and prose. Analyzing the linkage between music and the Holy Spirit in Milton's work, it focuses on harmony and its relationship to Milton's theology and interpretative practices. Linking both the Spirit and poetic music to Milton's understanding of teleology, it argues that Milton uses musical metaphor to capture the inexpressible characteristics of the divine. The book then applies these musical tools of reading to examine the non-trinitarian union between Father, Son, and Spirit in Paradise Lost, argues that Adam and Eve's argument does not break their concord, and puts forward a reading of Samson Agonistes based upon pity and grace.

Milton and the Spiritual Reader considers how John Milton's later works demonstrate the intensive struggle of spiritual reading. Milton presents his own rigorous process of reading in order to instruct his readers how to advance their spiritual knowledge. Recent studies of Milton's readers neglect this spiritual dimension and focus on politics. Since Milton considers the individual soul at least as important as the body politic, Ainsworth focuses on uncovering the spiritual characteristics of the reader Milton tries to shape through his texts. He also examines Milton's reading practices without postulating the existence of some ideal or universal reader, and without assuming a gullible or easily manipulated reader. Milton does not simply hope for a fit audience, but writes to nurture fit readers. His works offer models of strenuous and suspicious close reading, subjecting all authors except God to the utmost of scrutiny. Milton presents Biblical interpretation as an interior struggle, a contention not between reader and text, but within that reader's individual understanding of scripture. Ainsworth's study rethinks the basic relationship between reading and religion in seventeenth-century England, and concludes that for Milton and his contemporaries, distinguishing divine truths in worldly texts required a spiritually guided form of close reading.

Milton, Music and Literary Interpretation: Reading through the Spirit constructs a musical methodology for interpreting literary text drawn out of John Milton's poetry and prose. Analyzing the linkage between music and the Holy Spirit in Milton's work, it focuses on harmony and its relationship to Milton's theology and interpretative practices. Linking both the Spirit and poetic music to Milton's understanding of teleology, it argues that Milton uses musical metaphor to capture the inexpressible characteristics of the divine. The book then applies these musical tools of reading to examine the non-trinitarian union between Father, Son, and Spirit in Paradise Lost, argues that Adam and Eve's argument does not break their concord, and puts forward a reading of Samson Agonistes based upon pity and grace.

An American globalization story If you like The West Wing, you will love this book. It is the only novel that dissects the growing impact of the global economy on Americans. America is a sitting duck, and the American Dream is the first casualty of the trade war that has already begun. Warren Buffett, aka the "Sage of Omaha," warns that the U.S. trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal deficit or consumer debt and that it could lead to political turmoil. (AP report on a Buffet speech in Reno, NV January 17, 2006) An Iranian-American woman, her lobbyist lover, a Japanese reformer, a yakusa chieftain, a Congresswoman from Ohio, an African-American war vet, and a Silicone Valley poster boy lead a rich cast in a ballet that describes the political and economic threads tying down the American Gulliver.

An American globalization story If you like The West Wing, you will love this book. It is the only novel that dissects the growing impact of the global economy on Americans. America is a sitting duck, and the American Dream is the first casualty of the trade war that has already begun. Warren Buffett, aka the "Sage of Omaha," warns that the U.S. trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal deficit or consumer debt and that it could lead to political turmoil. (AP report on a Buffet speech in Reno, NV January 17, 2006) An Iranian-American woman, her lobbyist lover, a Japanese reformer, a yakusa chieftain, a Congresswoman from Ohio, an African-American war vet, and a Silicone Valley poster boy lead a rich cast in a ballet that describes the political and economic threads tying down the American Gulliver.