John Milton - The History of Britain

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A reader of this history, encountering the frequent references to “my author,” meaning the current source, will be reminded of DON QUIXOTE and of THE MORTE D'ARTHUR, for Milton employs a style that might be called dissertational rather than novelistic; he carefully identifies his sources and often quotes from them. However, much of the scholarly documentation has been omitted from the reading—all except footnotes indicating the years—to avoid cumbersome interruptions. What will be obvious to a listener, though, is that Milton uses earlier chronicles with discretion. He doubts the very existence of Arthur and proposes an ingenious explanation of the origin of his supposed father's name, Uther. When obliged to cite George Buchanan, the world-renowned neo-Latin author and tutor (later detractor) of Mary Queen of Scots, he regularly uses more than a grain of salt, in view of that scholar’s Scottish bias. And as he carefully weighs the reliability of his sources, so he