This full and definitive treatment of the whole body of Milton's poetry, written by one of the country's most eminent Milton scholars, was originally published under the title Poet of Exile: A Study of Milton's Poetry. With a new title and an introduction developing the theme of exile, it is now issued in paperback for the first time.“The most important single study of Milton that has appeared in years…. For a long time to come, it will be the book from which Milton’s oeuvre is reviewed and from which Milton criticism seeks renewal.” –Joseph Wittreich, Modern Language Quarterly“Martz’s pleasure in reading Milton is evident and he conveys that pleasure in his pages…. All of us will want to ponder and can expect to profit from a commentary on the text carried on with the educated understanding, tact, skill, and perceptiveness that are everywhere present in this book.” –B. Rajan, Modern Philology “A work that is both rich and rewarding…. The background that Martz brings to his subject illuminates Milton’s poetry in fresh and exciting ways.” –Michael Lieb, Cithara“The strength of Martz’s criticism arises from his style as well as his learning and good sense.  Observations are made in a manner which both clears the mind and arouses the imagination.  Commonplace facts, acknowledged but ignored, suddenly take on fresh significance, while the results of scholarly research are introduced with easy grace and relevance.  No one writing of Milton today has a sharper eye for the illuminating detail.” –Hugh Maccallum, University of Toronto Quarterly“Martz’s sensitive, percipient comments on the interplay of styles in Milton’s poems provide some overarching unity to these diverse essays.” –Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, Journal of English and Germanic Philology“The best major study of Milton’s whole poetic career in almost half a century.” –Arnold Stein

Milton: Poet of Exile, Second Edition

Literature & Fiction

Martz, Louis L.

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

This book analyzes and studies More's writings as well as Holbein's portraits of More and his family. Louis Martz argues that there is no foundation for reviving the ancient charge that More was a bloody persecutor of heretics, and he questions the view put forth that More suffered from an "inner fury" resulting from sexual repression and a frustrated desire to be a monk. According to Mastz, More's furious attacks against heresy in his polemical writings do not reveal his deep inner self, but are treatises done in the common style of controversy in an era of savage religious disagreements. More's polemics are uncommon only in their wit and sardonic cleverness, says Martz, and they are matched by those of Martin Luther, his only peer in this kind of vitriolic attack. Martz makes his case primarily through exploration of More's mode of writing: the Augustinian "order of the heart" displayed in some of his major works - the "Confutation of Tyndale's Answer", and "Apology", the English treatise on the Passion, the "Dialogue of Comfort", and his last work, the "De Tristitia", his meditation on the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man

Biographies & Memoirs

Recent writings about Thomas More have questioned his integrity and motivation and have challenged the long-held view of him as a humane, wise, and heroic "man for all seasons." This new book responds to these revisionist studies by closely and persuasively analyzing More's writings as well as Holbein's portraits of More and his family.
"Martz cuts down the revived charge of More as a bloodthirsty hunter of heretics, a furious, sexually repressed, and frustrated man. . . . This penetrating rebuttal of the revisionists deserves high commendation."―Choice
"Martz draws a compelling picture of More's attempts during his lonely imprisonment to adjust to his human fear of death and to see his own plight in the perspective of the universal human condition. In these essays More's voice and personality speak to us from his own literate and humorous prose."―M. Edmund Hussey, Antioch Review
"In his gracefully written Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man, Louis L. Martz provides a sharply different account of the 'dark side' of More. . . . [He] lays out the case for a more complex, ironic construction of More's texts."―Stanley Stewart, Studies in English Literature
"This . . . book is a gemstone."―Terence R. Murphy, History: Reviews of New Books
"Correcting the view of Thomas More as a cold-blooded prosecutor of heresy, Martz here considers the gentle, affectionate, yet upright man pictured in Holbein's family portraits and implicit in More's prose."―Judith Fair, Theological Studies

Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man (Revised)

Religion & Spirituality

Now available for the first time as a paperbook, Quetzalcoatl is D.H. Lawrence's last "unpublished manuscript" and the early version of his great Mexican novel, The Plumed Serpent. Kate Burns is the widow of a failed Irish patriot, strong-minded and independent, who unlike the heroine of The Plumed Serpent, refuses to simply join the Mexican revolutionary movement based on a revival of the Aztec gods. Quetzalcoatl is arguably one of Lawrence's most feminist works: the rise of a revolution filtered through the consciousness of a woman of tremendous individuality. Quetzalcoatl, a more cohesive novel than The Plumed Serpent, is classic D. H. Lawrence-- for its vivid evocation of the Mexican culture and mythology, and its intensity of feeling and psychological insight. This edition includes an illuminating introduction and textual commentary by Sterling Professor of English at Yale, Louis Martz. "The Plumed Serpent," Martz says, "may be judged a success within its own mode of existence. For a different sort of novel, we may turn now to Quetzalcoatl."

Quetzalcoatl: Novel (New Directions Paperbook)

Martz, Louis Lohr

LAWRENCE, D.H.

United States

New Directions

In Many Gods and Many Voices distinguished scholar Louis L. Martz addresses works by Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, H. D., and D. H. Lawrence, with brief treatment of the relation of Pound's Cantos to Joyce's Ulysses. In a graceful, lucid style, Martz argues that a prophetic tradition is represented in the Cantos, The Waste Land, Paterson, and H. D.'s Trilogy and Helen in Egypt, along with Lawrence's Plumed Serpent and the second version of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Pound's often- cited view that an epic is a poem that "includes history" does not define epic alone, for the books of biblical prophecy also contain history: the history of Israel's misdeeds and continuous redemption.On the other hand, Martz suggests that the term prophecy should not be limited to works that foretell the future, arguing that the biblical prophet is concerned primarily with the present. The prophet is a reformer, a denouncer of evil, as well as a seer of possible redemption. He hears "voices" and transmits the message of those voices to his people, in the hope of moving them away from wickedness and toward the ways of truth. According to Martz, such was the mission that inspired Walt Whitman and that Whitman passed on to Pound, Eliot, Williams, and Lawrence. (H. D. found her own sources of inspiration in Greek and Egyptian lore.)Martz's premise is that biblical prophecy, with its mingling of poetry and prose, its abrupt shifts from violent denunciation to exalted poetry, provides a precedent for the texture of these modernist works that will help readers to appreciate the mingling of "voices" and the complex mixture of elements. Examining their interrelationships and their common themes, Many Gods and Many Voices offers fresh insights into these modern writers.

Many Gods and Many Voices: The Role of the Prophet in English and American Modernism (Volume 1)

University of Missouri