A Calvin College professor is part of a book on John Milton that has been honored by the Milton Society of America (which has been around almost 60 years and includes almost 600 members).

David Urban, a professor of English, contributed a chapter to "Milton's Legacy," a book that recently won the Irene Samuel award for the most distinguished multiauthor collection of essays in 2005. The award will be presented by the Milton Society of America at the annual dinner held on December 28 at the Modern Language Association meeting in Philadelphia.

Urban continuted an essay titled "'Out of His Treasurie Things New and Old': Milton's Parabolic Householder in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce and De Doctrina Christiana."

Urban teaches Milton at Calvin (the college will again offer English 347, a course on Milton, this spring) and he says he believes the British author, who was born almost 400 years ago, still has much to offer today's generation of college students.

"Milton wrestles with timeless theological questions concerning the fall and redemption of humanity," he says, "and he continually struggles with the matter of presenting himself rightly before God."

Milton's most famous works are Paradise Lost (which he wrote when he was blind and impoverished) followed by Paradise Regained, together with Samson Agonistes, a drama on the Greek model, in 1671.