Joe Moshenska Interviewed by Alison Gomm

English lecturer Professor Joe Moshenska talks about his biography of John Milton, which throws new light on the life of the poet and looks at why we read him.

Moshenska says an extraordinary human being lies behind the traditional image of the grim puritan detached from the real world and sightlessly dictating his work. He was a revolutionary and apologist, a writer of propaganda for Cromwell, a defender of the English people, a passionate European and scholar, and a lover of music and the arts. Moshenska explores the contradictions and complexities in Milton’s life and examines his own relationship with the poet and what it means to read and write about someone you like and dislike in equal measure.

Moshenska is professor of English at the University of Oxford. He is author of three books, including A Stain in the Blood, and presented In Search of Milton’s Paradise Lost for BBC Radio 4. Here he talks to Alison Gomm, a regular interviewer at literary festivals who loves nothing more than encouraging writers to talk about themselves.