Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God by Robert K. Weninger (review)

Abstract

sociated with the Son’s mildness, graciousness, and mercy. The intriguing final chapter of National Reckonings reads Satan’s return to hell from Eden as a perverse “Second Coming,” and his dismissive mockery of the curse upon the Serpent “taps into the national memory of Charles’s trial,” of the king who denied the High Court’s authority (140-43). Conversely, the Son models embracing reckoning, and faithful humans and angels like Eve and Abdiel intuit and follow this model. Pointing toward joyful expectation of judgment due to its association with deliverance and reward, Hackenbracht’s readings favor human agency and potential over dependence on divine grace (143; cf. 14, 28, 49). While this works well for his investigation of Hobbes, I think in Milton especially the two must be said to work hand in hand. In sum, this book is helpful in its main argument: early modern English and Welsh writers’ views of national identity were profoundly influenced by eschatology, and the expectation of an imminent divine reckoning provided a rhetorical tool to advance communal reform. There is much to consider in this short book. With its range of primary texts investigated, its blend of historical narrative and provocative textual analysis, its novel combination of the concerns of nationhood and eschatology, and its implicit claim that the lessons learned in Milton’s England are especially relevant today, this book is bound to be of interest to many a scholar of early modern England.