Stephen M. Fallon
John J Cavanaugh Professor in the Humanities
Professor, Department of English
Specialty: Seventeenth-century literature, Milton, literature and the history of philosophy
Degrees: A.B., Princeton University; M.A., McGill University; Ph.D., University of Virginia
A scholar of Milton and early modern literature and intellectual history, Stephen Fallon has written two books on Milton, one examining his materialism in light of seventeenth-century philosophical debates and the other exploring his anomalous self-representations against the background of conventional Puritan autobiography. He has also co-edited Milton’s complete poetry and selected prose for Modern Library. He is currently writing essays on Milton's regicide prose and on Milton and early modern virtue theory. While continuing to study the philosophical and theological contexts of seventeenth-century literature, he is also interested in the literary analysis of early modern philosophical texts. A new book project explores areas of convergence between Milton and Isaac Newton. Fallon is on the Editorial Board of the Yale Milton Encyclopedia and of Milton Studies. He has twice been an NEH Fellow as well as a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. With Clark Power, he co-founded and continues to teach a course on literary and philosophical classics at the South Bend Center for the Homeless.
Selected Publications
- Milton, John.Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. Edited by Stephen Fallon, William Kerrigan, John Rumrich. New York: Random House, forthcoming 2007.
- Milton’s Peculiar Grace: Self-representation and Authority. Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. (paperback edition, Cornell UP, 2008).
- Milton among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-Century England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991 (paperback edition, Cornell UP, 2006). Winner of Milton Society of America's Hanford Book Award.
- "Milton on Himself." In Milton in Context. Ed. Stephen Dobranski. Pp. 46-57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
- "'The strangest piece of reason': Milton's Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." In The Oxford Handbook to Milton. Ed. Nicholas McDowell and Nigel Smith. Pp. 241-51. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- “Paradise Lost in Intellectual History." In A Companion to Milton. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. Pp. 329-47. Oxford, Blackwell, 2001.
- “Hunting the Fox: Equivocation and Authorial Duplicity in The Prince.” PMLA 107 (1992): 1181-95.
Recent Awards and Honors
- "Honored Scholar", Milton Society of America, 2010. [This is the group's life achievement award]
- Elected Member, Northeast Milton Seminar, 2009.
- S.W. Brooks Visiting Professor, University of Queensland, Australia, August 2008.
- Plenary speaker, International Milton Symposium, Grenoble, France, June 2006.
- Charles Sheedy Award for Teaching, College of Arts and Letters, 2001.
Contact Information
200 Decio Faculty Hall
(574) 631-6598
fallon.1@nd.edu
Postal address
Department of English
356 O’Shaughnessy
Notre Dame, IN 46556
