Samson’s Cords: Imposing Oaths in Milton, Marvell, and Butler

"Samson’s Cords is a sophisticated, learned, and thoughtful book based on wide reading and deep thinking."

Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex, Modern Philology

"Garganigo’s work certainly increases our understanding of the literature of Milton, Marvell, and Butler, and for those who specialize in their study, Samson’s Cords is well worth a read."

Jonathan Michael Gray, Renaissance Quarterly

"The dialogic nature of Samson’s Cords will make it the go-to book for people interested in any and all issues surrounding the oath: perjury, censorship, cursing, equivocation, casuistry, office, loyalty, promise, and ethics. There is much here as well for early modernists working on Butler, Marvell, and Milton, as Garganigo provides new, innovative, and restorative readings of all three, reminding readers how important literary poetics continues to be within the ethically focused historical scholarship of the last several years."

Megan Matchinske, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018

"Samson’s Cords mines a rich vein of critical discourse on seventeenth-century texts, and offers many new insights into the politics of oath-making and oath-breaking. The book represents a considerable achievement in its approach to bringing canonical literary works into dialogue with more ephemeral writings of the period."

Alvin Snider, Department of English, University of Iowa

"Samson’s Cords contributes to the scholarly understanding of two major writers of the seventeenth century, Milton and Marvell, to the wider appreciation of British seventeenth-century history and culture, including the writings of Samuel Butler, and to the way we understand oaths and swearing from a theoretical perspective."

Yr Athro John Spurr, Department of History, University of Swansea