| Rome has long been known as a physical locus, an imperial power, and a myth, but to the English in the 16th and 17 th century, Rome was also a very present threat. Rome was a larger-than-life, multivalent signifier. It offered, for example, a positive historical precedent for aesthetic achievement as well as a model for how to inherit successfully and integrate a prestigious past. As a model for nationhood, Rome signified ingenuity and advancement and supreme power. But present Rome was also a barbarian, an oppressor and modern-day Antichrist. In the abstract, however, Rome was first and foremost an idea. The title of this dissertation, Eternal Palimpsest: Milton's Rome, alludes to the mutable quality of John Milton's own treatment of the 'Eternal City' in his works. For Milton, Rome is a palimpsest---something upon which he continually inscribes changing ideas about personal legacy, politics, and religion. |
