To Ruin the Repairs: Milton, Allegory, Transitional Justice. (October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Warren, Christopher
• Is Part Of: Law, culture and the humanities. Volume 15:Number 3(2019:Oct.)
• Page Start: 785
• Page End: 805
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Subjects: transitional justice -- John Milton -- reparations -- allegory -- English Restoration -- genealogy -- print culture -- Paradise Lost -- royalism -- republicanism; Culture and law -- Periodicals; Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; Law and the social sciences -- Periodicals; 340.11505
• DOI: 10.1177/1743872116665341
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1743-8721

Abstract

International legal theorists posit historical moments when conceptions of justice are "constituted by, and constitutive of, the transition" (Teitel). This article uses the framework of transitional justice to understand the cultural work of political allegory in the spring of 1660 on the eve of the English Restoration. Insights from transitional justice (1.) help explain how Anglican royalists convinced wary Presbyterians to assent to a restoration of the monarchy; (2.) permit a new reading of Milton's allegory of Sin and Death in Paradise Lost ; and (3.) facilitate a more critical history of the framework of transitional justice itself.