Speech Acts in Blakes Milton

Using a framework based on J. L. Austins understanding of performative speech and Angela Esterhammers work on how things are done with words in Miltons and Blakes poetry, this study provides an extended close reading of the speech acts of characters in Blakes epic poem Milton. With the exception of what we learn about in the part of the poem known as the Bards Song, Blakes Milton is dedicated to providing an incredibly detailed account of the numerous facets of the instant of time immediately prior to apocalypse, an instant in which Milton is the protagonist, and Blake himself a participant. This study explores how in the poem sacred history proceeds towards and through the instant by means of the speech act. This extended commentary is intended for not just Blake scholars but also the common reader who wishes to approach Blakes brief epic for the first time. For scholars, this monograph offers a full account of a crucial but previously unexplored theme in the scholarship about Milton. For the common reader, it offers a comprehensive introduction to what Northrop Frye called one of the most gigantic imaginative achievements in English poetry.