“A Warr So Desperate”: John Milton and Some Contemporaries on the Irish Rebellion
Author: Jim Daems
Date Of Publication: Feb 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3510-7
Isbn: 1-4438-3510-2
“A Warr So Desperate”: John Milton and Some Contemporaries on the Irish Rebellion examines the political and colonial contexts of Milton’s Observations Upon the Articles of Peace, as well as the relatively brief, but significant comments on the Irish Rebellion that occur elsewhere in his work. Commissioned by the Council of State in March, 1649, Milton’s Observations puts forward the Commonwealth’s justifications for the reconquest of Ireland which would soon follow with Oliver Cromwell’s campaign. In doing so, Milton covers some familiar ground – for example, the trial and execution of Charles I, and the intolerance and political hypocrisy of the Presbyterians. However, the Irish Rebellion leads Milton to engage with these in a way which does not fit particularly well with how his views of personal, political, and religious liberties are generally perceived. Beginning with Milton’s pragmatic reading of the documents he cogently critiques in the tract, this book then situates Observations within the polemical contexts of the 1640s and early 1650s, particularly the frequent representation of Irish atrocities (reliant on both anti-Catholic and ethnic prejudices) and Eikon Basilike’s justification of Charles I’s handling of the rebellion, arguing both Milton’s agreement with and complicity in the reconquest.

Jim Daems teaches in the English Department at the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of Seventeenth-Century Literature and Culture (Continuum) and co-editor of Eikon Basilike (Broadview Press). He has also published articles on Milton, Spenser, Rochester, Bradford, and Winthrop.

“No Miltonist has written so expansively and incisively on Milton and the Irish Rebellion as does Jim Daems in ‘A Warr So Desperate’, which compels its readers to revisit the issue of Milton’s complicity in the military schemes of Cromwell. Daems grippingly disrupts any naïvely conceived vision of Milton as a blameless voice crying out for liberty and tolerance during the civil wars and early years of the Commonwealth by foregrounding the link between the rhetorical force of Milton’s political pamphlets and the brutality of English military forces in Ireland in the 1640s. In so doing, he insightfully delves into Milton’s role as Cromwell’s spinmaster during periods of state-sanctioned violence. For anyone interested in the rich complexity of Milton’s political vision, his rhetorical constitution of a warring and fragile nation, and the ongoing debate on his collusion with ‘terrorists’ or support of ‘terrorism,’ this book is essential reading.”

– Holly Faith Nelson, PhD, Professor of English, Trinity Western University

“Milton’s view of Ireland, fascinating in itself, played a major part in the development of his political thought and in shaping the complexity of his epic poetry. In this, the first book-length study of Milton and Ireland, Jim Daems, in a series of elegant and assured readings, illustrates the subtle and vexed ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and religion are interwoven in the polemical Irish writings of England’s greatest poet.”

– Willy Maley, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of Glasgow

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